Are Jeopardy!‘s rulings on pronunciation getting too inconsistent? That’s what some followers had been pondering after a returning champ was immediately shut down over many perceived as a vocal slip-up on an in any other case appropriate response on a top-row clue.
On Wednesday, November 13’s episode, two-day champ Joey DeSena, a improvement engineer from Raleigh, North Carolina, confronted Lois Dioro, a realtor from West Haven, Connecticut, and Evan Dorey, a knowledge analytics director from Toronto, Ontario.
Within the Double Jeopardy! spherical, DeSena chosen the $200 clue within the “You’ll Study to Adapt” class. It learn, “From 2013 to 2017, Tom Mison stored his head throughout some tough conditions as this TV character in ‘Sleepy Hole.’” The right response was “Ichabod Crane.”
DeSena responded, “Who’s “Ichapod Crane?” in response to the J-Archive. Host Ken Jennings stepped in earlier than he obtained the chance to appropriate himself. “He was — no, we are able to’t take that,” Jennings stated. Fellow contestant Dorey obtained it appropriate afterward.
The ruling price DeSena a $400 swing, and he wound up in rivalry in Last Jeopardy by solely $100 since Dioro and Dorey had been tied at $14,600, and he had $7,400. Dorey received the sport with the only real Last Jeopardy get, with the judges permitting “Highland” as a substitute of “Highlands” making him the brand new champ (which was a separate can of worms and amplified the juxtaposition.)
Whereas the ruling didn’t affect the outcomes, many followers took to the Reddit thread for the episode saying the ruling was unnecessarily harsh and he ought to have gotten the leeway from the judges to appropriate himself.
“Joey’s voice catching on ‘Ichabod’ and never getting credit score for it’s loopy,” one person wrote.
“Completely an event for ‘Say it once more…?’ C’mon, ‘Ichapod’ isn’t even a reputation and switching B/P phonemes may be very a lot part of some accents,” wrote one other.
“The judging appears to be moderately arbitrary and capricious to me. Can’t settle for ‘ichapod,’ however can settle for ‘highland,’” wrote a 3rd referring to what later occur in Last Jeopardy.
“I’m undecided about Highland and the precedent there, however ‘Ichapod’ is a distinct pronunciation which they sometimes take a tough line in opposition to. Modifications the spelling,” defended a fifth.
“‘Ichapod’ would positively be unsuitable, however it appeared like Joey simply obtained tongue-tied and it got here out somewhat humorous (in order that it was someplace between a b and p sound), so I believe it could have been cheap for Ken to provide him one other crack at it (“Say it once more?”) simply to make certain,” agreed a sixth.
“Yeah I agree with that take,” wrote yet another. “The judges appear to be harsher about it as of current however possibly I simply didn’t discover prior to now. Tough to get actual knowledge on that.”
“I believe it turned too late to do that as a result of Ken had already began ruling on Joey’s response earlier than catching himself over the ‘pod’ snafu. So at that time he needed to let him have it or rule in opposition to him. The BMS/second probability choice was off the desk at that time,” wrote yet another.
This isn’t the primary time Jeopardy! has been hit with a mispronunciation controversy just lately, with followers questioning if the judges could possibly be extra constant. Final month, four-day champ Will Wallace was denied a slight variation on “weimaraner.” Earlier this season, the refusal of a participant’s tackle “anesthesiologist” prompted a stir. Final Could, all three contestants had been dominated incorrect for not announcing Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s title accurately.
Nevertheless, there have been some questionably lenient rulings in tow. Final season, a participant was dominated appropriate for a blatant mispronunciation of “larynx” (“lar-nyx?”). One other participant obtained three stabs to get to “The observatory of Greenwich,” first saying “Greenwich,” then “Greenwhich Observatory,” lastly getting there as Jennings quipped, “I didn’t need to go away you hanging.”
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