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These types of rules have been in place for a long time on Jeopardy. Correct pronunciation and spelling have always been required. Just because a lot of people mispronounce a word does not make it an acceptable alternative.
Who gets to decide the 'correct' pronunciation? Every contestant that drops their R's is immediately disqualified? What about all the folks who don't differentiate between the pin and pen pronunciation?
Let's put in a panel of judges from Houston, Boston, and Minneapolis and watch them duke it out.
The clue was “The main difference between these two desserts that end in the same three letters is that one contains dairy and the other does not.”
The contestant's (Austin’s) response – spelled here phonetically - “What is sor-bay and shur-burt?” – was ruled as incorrect. The judges claimed that Austin neglected to observe the part of the clue that required the two responses to “end in the same three letters.” They felt that by Austin pronouncing an r in the second syllable of sherbet, that part of the clue was not met.
Everyone I know pronounces it shur-burt. Maybe in some parts of the country people prounounce it differently. It doesn't make it wrong. The way it's pronounced doesn't change the spelling. If I put it on my grocery list, I write "sherbet." The is no product at the grocery store spelled "sherbert" regardless of which way it's pronounced.
The contestant wasn't required to say "sor-BET" even though that's how it's spelled. I think of words like Wednesday, colonel, bologna, corps....spelled completely differently than how they sound.
I think the judges were off the mark on this. The word that I pronounce as "shur-burt" ends in b-e-t, and the word that I pronounce as "sor-bay" ends in b-e-t.
Not a major crisis, I know, but a fun little thing in the news this week. Anyone else think the judges should change their decision?
I pronounce it "sher-bet" but I agree that they were nitpicking here. Should have been ruled correct. And they should have been prepared for this as many people pronounce it that way.
[quote=BruSan;49741636]There's no second "I" in aluminum either but for some unknown reason the U.K. residents all seem to pronounce it 'a-loo-min-ee-um."
Do I get a prize?[/quote]
No - because you failed to observe that in the British spelling of aluminium there is indeed a second I.
Sir Humphrey Davy (British) finally named it aluminium in 1812. Though it does appear he had earlier thought about naming it aluminum, amongst other names.
It would be incorrect. Just because you are not the only one to mispronounce a word, doesn't make it the correct pronunciation. Correctly pronouncing and spelling words is part of the Jeopardy rules.
Like I said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by P47P47
I consider it part of regional dialect rather than an error, but I'm sure that "Jeopardy!" judges would rule it incorrect.
The clue was “The main difference between these two desserts that end in the same three letters is that one contains dairy and the other does not.”
The contestant's (Austin’s) response – spelled here phonetically - “What is sor-bay and shur-burt?” – was ruled as incorrect. The judges claimed that Austin neglected to observe the part of the clue that required the two responses to “end in the same three letters.” They felt that by Austin pronouncing an r in the second syllable of sherbet, that part of the clue was not met.
Everyone I know pronounces it shur-burt. Maybe in some parts of the country people prounounce it differently. It doesn't make it wrong. The way it's pronounced doesn't change the spelling. If I put it on my grocery list, I write "sherbet." The is no product at the grocery store spelled "sherbert" regardless of which way it's pronounced.
The contestant wasn't required to say "sor-BET" even though that's how it's spelled. I think of words like Wednesday, colonel, bologna, corps....spelled completely differently than how they sound.
I think the judges were off the mark on this. The word that I pronounce as "shur-burt" ends in b-e-t, and the word that I pronounce as "sor-bay" ends in b-e-t.
Not a major crisis, I know, but a fun little thing in the news this week. Anyone else think the judges should change their decision?
I think I saw that show and wondered why the two contestants said the same thing and one was not given the credit. It wasn't until later that I heard about the asinine decision that was made. Moral of the story is it is all right to belittle and find southerners wrong when they are more correct with a pronunciation. There are many words that we say more correctly than others that part of the country says the pronunciation is different. One that drives me up the wall is "Our." There is no A in our. Many people make it sound like the letter "R" only. There is an "OU" in front of that "R." It should be correctly pronounced like the word "hour" with the h silent. Surely that makes more sense than the way they say it.
If that is the one I saw, every letter in the puzzle had been revealed. The only thing left was to read what was there.
I pronounce it "sher-bet" but I agree that they were nitpicking here. Should have been ruled correct. And they should have been prepared for this as many people pronounce it that way.
It's not nitpicking, part of the clue given was that they both end with the same 3 letters. Saying sorbet and sherbert would be wrong because that extra "r" changes the ending so that they are not the same.
Moral of the story is it is all right to belittle and find southerners wrong when they are more correct with a pronunciation. There are many words that we say more correctly than others that part of the country says the pronunciation is different. One that drives me up the wall is "Our." There is no A in our. Many people make it sound like the letter "R" only. There is an "OU" in front of that "R." It should be correctly pronounced like the word "hour" with the h silent. Surely that makes more sense than the way they say it.
Correct pronunciation of "our" does have an a sound, which is the short o.
It's not nitpicking, part of the clue given was that they both end with the same 3 letters. Saying sorbet and sherbert would be wrong because that extra "r" changes the ending so that they are not the same.
It would be wrong if he thought they were spelled differently but he obviously know they were spelled the same.
If one contestant says car-a-mel and one says car-mel is that also incorrect? I think if they went back and reviewed past shows there would be many instances of 'incorrect' pronunciations that have passed without a challenge. Regional bias at play.
There's no second "I" in aluminum either but for some unknown reason the U.K. residents all seem to pronounce it 'a-loo-min-ee-um."
Do I get a prize?
No because in the UK, it IS spelled with a second "i" and so that's where it's pronounced "aluminium."
Sorry.
Oops, just realized I'm about the fifth person who's told you that.
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