Monday, November 30, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[groovitude]

Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Merry Wives of Windsor are the only two Shakespeare titles that indirectly reference multiple people, and "Valentine" is a traditionally a man's name.

There's also "Two Noble Kinsmen", which is generally attributed to Shakespeare & John Fletcher. But it wasn't in the First Folio and is pretty obscure.

But those are the only ones with the Word "Two" in the title. (Unless you count "Henry IV, Part II" or "Henry VI, Part II". Or "Richard II".)

Right you are! I'm always embarrassed to whiff on a Shakespeare factoid; it's such a core J! category, but I'm terrible with it.

Notwithstanding my having never come across anyone named Valentine, I thought the clue was only slightly undervalued.

Maybe not personally, but I'm sure you're familiar with St. Valentine.

LT: lifebuoy SOAP; National Geographic; "Blow Me One Last Kiss"; Rutherford discovered 'empty space' in the atom (and we discovered it between the contestants' ears!); The Two Towers in which Smeagol is tamed; Maid of Honor (J-Lo).

Lifebuoy was picked up on the rebound.

▪ I clammed the entire Kidnapping category. I guess the Lindbergh baby was too easy? I thought that was near-impossible, especially compared to, say, Photography, which I nearly ran while knowing next to nothing about photography.

The top row in that one was left covered, which could've very well have been Lindbergh. Him or Frank Sinatra Jr.
Edit: Neither of those were the J!6 spare clue so still a coin flip...

I keep track of my Coryats on an app and then write down the specifics separately. I just wrote "clammed the whole way" and missed $200 staying covered.

Embarrassing neg of the night....For physicist and instrument maker I said Stradivarius.

It was a Daily Double, so say something. Even though I knew the category was PHYSICISTS I also interpreted instruments as musical and guessed Adolphe Sax. At least I got relativity and Planck to score more than I expected in the category.

I whiffed with Pascal. I correctly assumed it was someone famous enough to have a unit of measure named for them, and incorrectly assumed air pressure was the tipoff.

[Volante]

Could one argue that 1801 and 1825 are technically acceptable?

I once wrote a pub quiz question asking for the three presidents elected in non-leap years, so this was small potatoes for me.

Yours took me a few seconds. Two of my entries on my current TD are also year-based inauguration trivia, which together constitute one of my favorite questions to ask about U.S. History.

Here's another: after March (36) and January (20), which month has seen the third-most presidential inaugurations, with 4? (And which presidents?)

My guess...

Spoiler

April: Tyler, Johnson, Truman and...Ford?

[TenPoundHammer]

Notwithstanding my having never come across anyone named Valentine, I thought the clue was only slightly undervalued.

Maybe not personally, but I'm sure you're familiar with St. Valentine.

Duh. I knew that like 10 seconds after I hit submit.

TPH...The museum was in Paris because it sounded French and was in the top row.

As I've said before, "sounds like" is IMO way too tenuous a connection for a top box. What sounds French to one person may not to another. And "Dannebrog" still doesn't sound remotely like "Denmark" to me.

[OSXpert]

As I've said before, "sounds like" is IMO way too tenuous a connection for a top box. What sounds French to one person may not to another. And "Dannebrog" still doesn't sound remotely like "Denmark" to me.

Chances are that anyone who has been to Paris knows the Musee D'Orsay is there. It's right across the river from the Louvre and very large. Had I never visited... It might been been a shot in the dark for me too.

[Vermonter]

My guess...

Spoiler

April: Tyler, Johnson, Truman and...Ford?

Spoiler

The first three are correct; Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974

[Volante]

My guess...

Spoiler

April: Tyler, Johnson, Truman and...Ford?

Spoiler

The first three are correct; Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974

Spoiler

It started with an A...ironically, I doubt I would've guessed the 4th. (I looked it up)

[Vermonter]

As I've said before, "sounds like" is IMO way too tenuous a connection for a top box. What sounds French to one person may not to another. And "Dannebrog" still doesn't sound remotely like "Denmark" to me.

Chances are that anyone who has been to Paris knows the Musee D'Orsay is there. It's right across the river from the Louvre and very large. Had I never visited... It might been been a shot in the dark for me too.

Some things you should know about the Musee d'Orsay: it is home mainly to impressionist art, and it was converted from a train station (called Gare d'Orsay) when the trains became too long to fit under its roof. If you've seen the movie Hugo, you've seen its gigantic clock.

You should also be familiar with the Pompidou Center, which houses modern art and was designed to look like it had been turned inside-out (the idea of starchitect Renzo Piano, who showed up as a $2000 clue earlier this year). It's named after a French president of the late 1960s/early 1970s.

[Vermonter]

My guess...

Spoiler

April: Tyler, Johnson, Truman and...Ford?

Spoiler

The first three are correct; Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974

Spoiler

It started with an A...ironically, I doubt I would've guessed the 4th. (I looked it up)

Spoiler

There was a reason I brought up that question

[aeq5006]

I wonder how much of the unused clues was due to Alex. After the triple neg on Etheridge, he spent a rather long time belaboring the fact that the contestants had been close.

Isn't "melk" the standard pronunciation?

I wonder how they handle people with foreign accents or speech impediments.

Doesn't the "should rhyme" category name imply that they don't? Both "solar/scholar" and the example he gave did rhyme.

And did Alex say "lifeboy" rather than "lifebuoy"?

[seaborgium]

I wonder how much of the unused clues was due to Alex. After the triple neg on Etheridge, he spent a rather long time belaboring the fact that the contestants had been close.

No one attempted a response on the Etheridge clue.

[dhkendall]

▪ I clammed the entire Kidnapping category. I guess the Lindbergh baby was too easy? I thought that was near-impossible, especially compared to, say, Photography, which I nearly ran while knowing next to nothing about photography.

Another photography run (this time, a total one) which surprised the non-photographer runner here as well. (I don't really care for photography at all, I have a few throwaway cameras which I've barely touched lately, and all my picture taking is on my iPhone. My last big trip (to Kansas City for my audition) I took maybe a dozen pictures (at least ones that I saved) and I was deathly afraid that with that many pictures people would find it boring. Whereas my sister and her husband recently came back from a trip to Germany, England, and Scotland and had well over a hundred pictures that she posted on Facebook, all impeccable, which had me spellbound. (She got all the photography acumen in our generation of the family.)

▪ Anyone else neg on Planck with Heisenberg?

Yo.

Now you know how I feel. I've been trying to get on Wheel since Thanksgiving 2009, and I get more than a little peeved when I see an especially derpy contestant or three onstage. Or one whom I know was at an audition that I attended. Or both.

Patience, young paduwan. (You too, young h-bomb paduwan). I am also in the pool and I have the exact same thoughts you guys have, but I also remind myself of some of the great players that auditioned again and again and again before they got their chance to go on (like one of my favourite players, Vijay Balse, which is apparently the archetypal example of this in talks by Maggie from what I hear). While I'd be ecstatic if I got the call this year, I don't get too bent out of shape about every day that passes that I don't get The Call, the Subarus and the buzzsaws got their moment too, and I know that one day it will be me there. I've been trying for Jeopardy! a little longer than you've been trying for Wheel, I can wait. They have my number.

[BJON]

Negging "foilage" was a BS call IMO. That's a dialectal pronunciation along the lines of "nucular", and I really doubt they've ever negged that.

No way Jose. "Nucular" is a special case that has developed a generally (begrudgingly) accepted alternate pronunciation. If you argue for that you're basically saying pronunciation doesn't matter. This ain't Jeoprady.

Argeed.
I didn't know people said 'melk' until maybe 15 years ago. I don't see the charm in people embracing obvious mispronunciations as some 'regional quirk.' If someone has a basic grasp of the language, they know that 'melk' has never been a word. But such perpetuation of the stereotype that 'everybody from x region who pronounces y word wrong on purpose is a rock-brained hayseed' is pervasive.
In short, you can't make a selk purse out of a sow's ear.

[This Is Kirk!]

I think the judges got this one exactly right.

Yep. Another example would be saying "prespire" rather than "perspire." I hear that one, too, but it's definitely not the correct pronunciation and shouldn't be accepted. And don't get me started on that Brett Favre guy...

[OrangeSAM]

...(I don't really care for photography at all, I have a few throwaway cameras which I've barely touched lately, and all my picture taking is on my iPhone. My last big trip (to Kansas City for my audition) I took maybe a dozen pictures (at least ones that I saved) and I was deathly afraid that with that many pictures people would find it boring.

So which pro did you hire to take your avatar pic?

[chmmr]

To all the melk haters, it's way easier to pronounce. Milk has a weird diphthong. Also, the "Got Milk?" guy has got my back.

I feel like if a ghost 4th contestant got money when someone missed, they would have had a runaway.

[BJON]

People who say 'melk' are mentally ell.

[BigDaddyMatty]

Coryat: $18,400
35 R/3 W
DD: 3/3
FJ:
LT: Shutterfly (DD), Fahrenheit (DD), The Two Towers, mirage & foliage (DD)

I really should have waited until tomorrow to play this game rather than do it at 3:00 in the morning after a 15-hour workday, but having missed Friday due to football-fueled preemption, I couldn't resist. I definitely would have had FJ! on a full brain. I knew it was Washington's first election, but I couldn't quite fish out the year in 30 seconds.

"Foilage" is just plain wrong. Not that it would have mattered given the outcome of FJ!

Not-so-fun fact: the $10,400 left on the board in this game is the highest aggregate value of unrevealed clues in an episode in all of 2015. February 23 ($10,200) and July 9 ($8,600) are the only other games to leave at least $8,000 on the board.

[bpmod]

And don't get me started on that Brett Favre guy...

But with proper names, it isn't a case of there being one and only one correct pronunciation. Or at least, one can call himself whatever he wants and spell it however he wants. If my name were Rzazewski and I pronounce it 'smith', that's my prerogative.

Which brings me, though, to another peeve. Jeopardy! insists on doing its part to perpetuate the myth that names were changed at Ellis Island. That is simply false, and the writers should do some research instead of blindly repeating a myth as truth.

Google "name change at ellis island" if you want to read any truth on the matter.

Brian

[Woppy T]

Negging "foilage" was a BS call IMO. That's a dialectal pronunciation along the lines of "nucular", and I really doubt they've ever negged that.

No way Jose. "Nucular" is a special case that has developed a generally (begrudgingly) accepted alternate pronunciation. If you argue for that you're basically saying pronunciation doesn't matter. This ain't Jeoprady.

Who are you, Marge Simpson? http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Burns,_Baby_Burns/Quotes

[CailinGaoilge]

Doesn't the "should rhyme" category name imply that they don't? Both "solar/scholar" and the example he gave did rhyme.

And did Alex say "lifeboy" rather than "lifebuoy"?

'Scholar' has a short o, 'solar' a long o. No rhyme.

As for buoy = boy, that's an accepted pronunciation, even in the US: see http://beta.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buoy, where both are given. The rest of the world pronounces buoy as boy; I never knew there was an alternative until a couple of years ago when I heard a character on a US TV series use that pronunciation in reference to the item.