It turns out that my 15 year-old self is a terrible judge of just how militant I would grow up to be.
That is utterly ridiculous. Since when has Wheel of Fortune been pedantic about pronunciations?
To me it sounds like the host was telling her she was correct until the producer (or whoever) sounded the “wrong answer” klaxon. He started saying “Yeah, that’s it” as soon as she said what was clearly the correct answer, and then you could hear him hesitate and sound really puzzled as he realised he was supposed to reject it. I don’t think even the host knew why it was “wrong” until it was explained to him over his earpiece, hence explaining it at the end.
For 1993, the dude on the left looks likes he’s stuck in the 70’s.
So having looked at these other examples, it looks like this Wheel of Fortune is a different kind of show to the one I know from UK telly. On our one, you just have to know the word or phrase. On the US one you apparently have to know the phrase and pronounce it in some strange pre-approved manner? What a shitty game show.
This actually does seem pertinent, but in any case I like to tell the story.
Back in the 1980’s, I am pretty sure it was, the puzzle phrase “Fresh from your grocer’s shelf” was completely spelled out, and player A had only to read it. So he said “fresh from your grocer’s store–No, SHELF!” ("we’re sorry…). Contestant B then read “fresh off (italics mine) your grocer’s shelf”. Contestant C then read “fresh from your grosher’s shelf”, and we were left in suspense as they went to commercial as to whether Contestant A would receive the second chance of a lifetime, but when they came back they announced that “‘grosher’s’ is a regionalism, and we do accept regionalisms…”, so nope, no second chance.
I was actually taught this as a legitimate merger, you know, like the marry, Merry, Mary merger or the cot/caught merger. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was just something that happens.
If they’re going to be such pedants, they need to also know the language. This is such a common variation that dictionaries often don’t even bother to show it. It’s used in large swaths of the country. They even say they accept regionalisms, so they have no excuse other than not knowing that “swim-min’” is a correct pronunciation.