All due respect, Tom, but I think you're wrong here. I don't think "were they asking for the suite or the character" is up for interpretation. It's clearly the character, NOT the suite. All you need to do is look at the articles and pronouns. "THE first movement." "THE 1888 suite." "Named for HER." The fundamental rule for parsing FJ questions is "look for the pronoun" --> usually it's "this" or "that" but in this case, it's her. They're looking for the name of the character.TomKBaltimoreBoy wrote:All due respect, OSC, but the clue is "The first movement of the 1888 suite named for her". That's quite a difference in the parsing. The suite is the subject, not the person.OldSchoolChamp wrote:Backing into this discussion late, but I think Scott wuz robbed. TomKBaltimoreBoy to the contrary, it’s clear from all rules and precedents of Jeopardy! clue construction that a clue worded “the 1888 suite named for her” is asking for the character for whom the suite is named, not the title of the suite. There are many variant spellings of that character’s name, with varying numbers of syllables, and Scott’s spelling was certainly one of the acceptable ones. You’ll even see it spelled with two syllables, Sharzad or Shirzad. There is no doubt in my mind that Scott’s response should have been accepted. I think he has clear grounds to protest, and if I were in his position that’s just what I would do. This was a patently unfair ruling.
If they want to bring him back they certainly have the ability to do so. But this is a rather flimsy pretext for it. The person is in a phrase that is clearly modifying the suite, which is the subject, as the rest of the clue makes clear. Scott jumped on a hasty misreading of the clue, and that happens a lot in this game. It's one of the most common ways a very intelligent person can be wrong.
Now, there is an argument to be made that the name of the character should be the name of the character in that particular work, which maybe a 3-syllable answer is acceptable, maybe it isn't. (I don't know how many different was R-K's suite has been rendered.) If the clue were something like "Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon is narrated by this character," would "Morganna" or "Morgan la Fey" be acceptable? I think she's only referred to in the actual book as "Morgaine." If the standard is "how is the character name rendered in translations/translations of the particular work?" and R-K's suite is always rendered into English as "Scheherezade," it might be irrelevant that there are other sources that refer to the same character in different works as something else.
The reason my appeal was turned down (http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3284) wasn't that "beneath the sea" wasn't a valid translation, but rather because the category was "literary translations" and there are essentially zero English translations that use "beneath" instead of "under."
Though, the magical thinking part of me is certainly abuzz with trying to find ways to argue that if Scott comes back, I should too.