Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[chuck5982]

Imagine how you'd have felt if everything else played out the way it did, except that, after you gave your "rumba" answer, Katie had buzzed in with the "salsa" answer they were looking for. When they reversed the neg on you just before FJ, she'd have kept the points she'd received for her correct answer and stayed ahead of you. All by the book, and fair play by all contestants -- but would you have walked away grumbling that Katie didn't "deserve" the win because she'd never have gotten the points if your answer had been ruled correct in the first place? Given your posting above, I don't imagine you would. Well, your case is even cleaner than that hypothetical. Tough break for Katie, but you still deserved the win.

I wondered that same thing last night. It took my mind back to the incident that got Arianna Kelly a second chance: she was wrongly negged on an $800 clue, the eventual winner rebounded, and Arianna ended up trailing the eventual winner by more than $1,600 but less than $2,400 entering FJ. I can imagine the producers saying at that point, "We could give her $1,600 back, but she'd still be in third place when we know she ought to be in second. Let's see how FJ turns out, and if she doesn't win and we think she would have from second place, we'll invite her back." Of course, that's entirely made up, but I can't imagine TPTB didn't realize their error before the game was over.

I'm also still wondering about Adam Bibler and the "Jeauniu" incident. If ruled correctly, Bibler would have won with $500.

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3525

[Vanya]

I suppose it COULD have happened that way. Either way it's completely legit and someone wins, someone loses, and it's all completely by the book. Still it's a darned shame when something comes up like this to muddy the waters and create a bunch of "what-ifs." I don't know how the writers and judges and AT could ever produce a game without the chance of an unfortunate situation like this coming up. There are so many times when unexpected, alternate answers turn out to be acceptable, and it must be extremely difficult to rule on them definitively on the fly.

True, Joon doesn't have to apologize for this win. Still I imagine we all hope for clean, unambiguous outcomes.

The writers could research alternative answers before the show. I mean in this case it's huge neg bait for rumba or samba anyway. Just sayin'.

[indianhoop]

Shouldn't "Harvard Stadium" have been the answer to where the Boston Patriots last played before moving to Foxboro....not "Fenway Park" which was accepted as the correct answer in Sports venues?

[Suze]

The clue was, "Prior to becoming the New England Patriots, the Boston Patriots played their home games at this ballpark." Nothing about the last place they played. And ballpark generally refers to a baseball park, not a football stadium.

'Shines' applies to rumba as well, so Joon definitely gave a valid answer. Rumba is often an element of salsa, so it was destined to be a clue with multiple possible answers. Not their best written clue.

[opusthepenguin]

What about Katie getting credit for Aleutians in Alaska $1600 when they were going for Aleuts? I think the show would have called something like that wrong, and have in the past.

I tend to doubt it. Dictionary.com's definition of "Aleut" begins "Also, Aleutian." And their second definition of "Aleutian" is "Aleut". Their footnotes say the definitions are based on the Random House Dictionary. Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed) gives a definition for "Aleutian" first as an adjective, then a noun. As a noun, they say it means, "A native or inhabitant of the Aleutian Islands, especially an Aleut". Collins English Dictionary defines the noun version of "Aleutian" simply as "another word for Aleut".

And in the OED, the first definition of "Aleut" is word for word the same as the second definition for "Aleutian": "A native of the Aleutian Islands." Given that, if I were a Jeopardy! judge, I'd have an extremely tough time making a persuasive case that "Aleut" is acceptable but a word that can be defined identically is not.

The matter would be entirely different, of course, if I were writing a style guide for the Bloom Picayune. In that case, I would instruct my journalists to use "Aleutian" as an adjective only, and to refer to the indigenous people of that region as "Aleuts". I would also instruct them to use "opossum" rather than "possum" (another example where Jeopardy! offers wider latitude) and to always capitalize "Penguin" (a controversial decision that Jeopardy! writers neatly skirt by using all caps).

Also, the first person to point out the split infinitive in the previous sentence would be fed to polar bears. Closely followed by the first person to point out that polar bears and penguins are about as far apart as two animal groups can reasonably get on this planet.

[butler77]

Thanks to Suze for clearing up the "shines" question.

[Spaceman Spiff]

The clue was, "Prior to becoming the New England Patriots, the Boston Patriots played their home games at this ballpark." Nothing about the last place they played. And ballpark generally refers to a baseball park, not a football stadium.

I actually said "Nickerson Field," which is where the old Boston Braves played as well. Turns out they played their early seasons there.

Edit: IIRC, the Boston Breakers of the USFL played their games there as well.

[OrangeSAM]

Just got to watch this game last night and was left with one question which I didn't find discussed in this thread:

Is a patronymic really a middle name?

[econgator]

Is a patronymic really a middle name?

It's generally the surname, but it simply means that it was based on a male ancestor's name. So, there's no reason it couldn't be a middle name.

[OrangeSAM]

Is a patronymic really a middle name?

It's generally the surname, but it simply means that it was based on a male ancestor's name. So, there's no reason it couldn't be a middle name.

I was referring to the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky clue where Ilyich was given as a middle name, not a surname.

Additional input from the Wikipedia article "Middle name":

There is no middle name in personal names in the cultures associated with the Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian languages. Such names consist of three parts: given name, patronymic, and last name. The most formal way to address a person is by first name and patronymic, not by surname. This system was also imposed on people of other descent, both in the Russian Empire (e.g., Adam Johann von Krusenstern is known in Russia as "Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern") and in the Soviet Union (with certain exceptions). The patronymic in such names is sometimes mistaken for a middle name, especially as it is often rendered with the middle initial (e.g. Vladimir V. Putin).

A second given name (what we call a middle name) is not used and is even supressed. This means I couldn't get away with "OrangeSAM" in Russia!