Invariably, Alex Trebek says something like this:
As of today, Ken’s winnings total two-million three-hundred-thirty-five-thousand and one dollar.
Note that dollar is not plural. It seems to me that $2,335,001 should be read as two-million three-hundred-thirty-five-thousand and one dollars, since 2,335,001 is more than 1.
My question is whether Trebek’s usage is typically Canadian.
I don’t believe so. However, Trebek is a native Francophone (French-Canadian mother, Ukranian-Canadian father). That could be why he says that.
I’m in Canada and typically I’ll hear something like $301 as “three hundred and one dollars” – plural.
Although I remember a huge debate in univeristy about whether “you drank a lot of beer last night” or “you drank a lot of beers last night.” The former means a large, relatively undefined quantity as in “the ocean has a lot of water” the latter refers to a large number of servings “you gulped back several mugs (of beer).”
But any case, I’m guessing Trebek was saying “… thirty-five thousand! And one dollar” more to point out the goofy little buck.
But the announcer says it that way too. Is Johnny Gilbert Canadian? (Hmmm, guess not. IMDb says he was born in Newport News, VA.)
Yes, I think it’s to point out the extra dollar as being trivial relative to the big numbers. I recall him doing this a while ago with a number like $2,100,001. It may have begun with number like “one million seven hundred thousand…and one dollar”. If it’s been a while since Ken won that dollar and has always won round numbers since, it’d be especially appropriate since all of his increasingly large total winnings would end with one dollar. Alex Trebek is from Sudbury, Ontario, where people tend to have fairly Canadian accents, but I don’t know of any strange usage of the singular with large numbers – the use of the singular to set off the trivial dollar seems to make more sense.
I’ll attest that I’ve never heard this usage for “three hundred and fifty-two dollar”. The usage of “beer” as in “There are two dozen beer in a two-four” definitely does occur, though.
I always cringe when people leave off the “s,” and I haven’t noticed that it’s a Canadian thing. The word “dollar” applies to the total amount, not just the “one” at the end.
It’s not like he won 2,335,000 apples, plus one dollar; he won 2,335,001 dollars.
Don’t people refer to having “a beer”? Based on that, I don’t see anything wrong with the latter expression. And of course the former is acceptable as well. Why can’t there be full acceptance of both?
Ah, “University Days” —
Why does everything have to be “either A or B”? A Western Civilization habit perhaps? I believe it was Eric Fromm who advanced that.
True Blue Jack
The only “reference” I have for Canadian English does not address the issue. Anecdotally, I haven’t noticed that particular affectation very often here. It might be, as others have suggested, that he’s putting the “one dollar” as a sort of parenthetical exclamation. YMMV.
That explanation would suffice, except that he does it for ordinary Jeopardy amounts, like twenty-eight thousand and one dollar. I also recall, now that Scarlett67 has mentioned it, that Johnny Gilbert says it that way too — which makes it all even stranger.
Hey, I was all for a full acceptance of both for exactly the reason you mention. It was my two roommates’ boyfriends who were debating to the point of almost getting into a fistfight. I was dumbstruck by the stupidity of their agrument.
Granted they were more stupid than usual. They’d had several beer(s)…