Arnaud is foiled by the dictionary

Immediately after reading the task brief, Arnaud poses a hypothetical to Antoine: as long as the knife always remains in his hand, would that count as a single wield? Antoine defers the decision to the Taskmaster.

Arnaud quickly decides that his interpretation is valid, pointing out that in movies, when someone wields a sword, it’s over multiple blows and not just one – even illustrating his point by waving the knife in the air as though he were engaged in swordplay.

Secure in his logic, Arnaud starts slicing the pointy ends off of several lemons, eventually shaving off small bits from each piece to create more-or-less square lemons as building blocks to create his tower.

In the studio, there is dissent about whether or not Arnaud’s interpretation is valid. Antoine brings up the following dictionary definition for ‘maniement’ (which actually means ‘handle’ or ‘manipulate’, two of the interpretations of the verb used in the task): ‘To have in hand or between the hands, while moving or wiggling’.

Alex points out that Arnaud did not always move the knife while it was in his hand, so Louis asks Antoine to replay Arnaud’s attempt so they can check if the knife was always moving. It is ultimately determined that by the time Arnaud had put down the knife at the end of what he had considered to be his first wield, he had already used all five wields.

Instead of disqualifying Arnaud, Louis awards him joint fourth place, as he appreciated the thinking and the effort that went into creating the tower.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)