mbclev wrote:The trickery in that clue is that I reckon that none of the contestants that day had ever seen a $2 bill in their lives, and I think most of this country's population had never seen such a bill as well.
I've never seen the Mona Lisa, a copy of
Metamorphosis, a
Spider-Man comic, the movie
The Godfather, a marijuana joint, or an Urban Outfitters store in my life. And I could find dozens of people who haven't either. But "have never seen" and "are unaware of" are not the same thing; I am
aware of certain things that I have not personally seen (contrary to what some may believe
) and can at least recognize them as things.
There are several stories of people confusing cashiers by paying with $2 bills, so I would just as easily bet that the contestants who faced that clue
were at least aware that the $2 is still in circulation even if they personally have never seen one. Maybe they just forgot about its existence under the lights. Maybe they knew that the $2 was still in circulation, but forgot whether or not the person on it is a president. Maybe they weren't sure if it still existed and just took a wrong guess on it being defunct. Maybe, as I did, they just screwed up the math somehow. I could see someone just plain being unaware that the $2 exists and getting it wrong on those merits alone, but I think you're greatly overstating your case. The clue is slightly tricky in that regard, but even for someone who struggles with FJ! as frequently as I do, I see it as a clue that is still very gettable with just the right amount of brainpower.
You don't think that
using two obviously Italian surnames to pin you to a French island, using a reference to "The Hatfields & McCoys of this island" that literally no one else on this forum could decode, is worse?