Swerve

A swerve is related to a hose, in that the question punishes players who buzz in with knowledge of the answer. Unlike with hoses, the player is not the victim of blatantly wrong information (or information that "uniquely" identifies multiple answers); rather, the question "swerves" to a new direction by asking something tangentially related to the rest of the question.

Swerves and hoses are considered anathema to good quizbowl because they specifically inhibit players with knowledge from buzzing.

Types of Swerves

Left Turn

The left turn is the classic type of swerve, in which the question literally "turns" from one subject to another in the middle of the tossup. This is often caused by failure to correctly use pronouns. For example:

...He gained fame for starting the Kulturkampf as well as a war with France. (*) Otto van Bismarck lends his name to the capital of which U.S. state?
ANSWER: North Dakota

A player may buzz in at or before the (*) mark with "Bismarck", since the pronoun "he" seems to be talking about a man, and certainly not a state.

Unclear Answerline Swerve

This type of swerve makes it unclear to the player as the question is being read what exactly is going to be asked for. Given that the player cannot see the whole question, the player may attempt to buzz in earlier. For instance:

...Tobacco is obtained from the leaves of the tobacco plant, which may be affected by (*) the tobacco mosaic virus. From what plant is opium taken?

ANSWER: poppy

Irrelevant Information Swerve

Many bad quizbowl formats have questions that start out talking about one topic without identifying what the question is asking and then suddenly "swerve" to a new topic. For example:

...Looking both ways before you cross the street is a good idea. Looking both ways before you cross a railroad track is also a good way to exercise caution. Spell "caution."
ANSWER: C-A-U-T-I-O-N

The first few sentences are utterly irrelevant to the question that is actually going to be asked until at the last moment the question "swerves" to a spelling question (which is also usually not desired).