This lady was in the lead going into final jeopardy, where the answer was the Falkland Islands. Everyone gets the question “right”, but she misspelled "Falkland as “Falklan”, so she was penalized for a wrong answer. Alex says something like, “we don’t normally penalized people for misspelling, but we have to in this case.” She ends up coming in third place because of this. What the hell was that about?
From what I remember in previous cases, if the spelling is close enough to be pronounced correctly, then it’s accepted as a correct answer. However, in her case, she left off the “d” and the end, which does change the pronunciation. Although how they account for regional dialects (and I can see some dropping a final “d” sounds) I don’t know.
sciguy is correct, and that seems like a very harsh interpretation of that rule - how many people actually pronounce the d in “Falkland Islands?”
I wondered if “Falklan” refers to something else, but a quick Google search shows that it does not. In fact it seems to be a common misspelling of “Falkland”. I’m surprised the answer was thrown out.
I googled it too, but I couldn’t find anything. That is a really fucked up way to interpret that rule. Esp. since it cost her a lot of money.
Most of the posters over at the Jeopardy forum seem to agree that is was a bad decision:
http://boards.sonypictures.com/boards/showthread.php?t=21673
I suppose if she wrote Faukland Island, it might have counted correct.
I didn’t see the episode, so I have no idea of the precise deatils of the show.
But in this case, was the missing “d” a simple oversight, or did the contestant wait too long and start writing too late to complete her response?
My guess is, if she’d spelled it “Fawklands,” they’d have accepted the badly spelled answer. But the missing “d” may have indicated she just ran out of time, and hadn’t entered enough of the answer to count it as correct.
I suspect it’s because she misspelled it in a way that could be interpreted as not managing to finish in the allotted time.
Heh, I’ve actually met Robert K S in person. Small world. :o
But wouldn’t she have just written “Falklan” instead of “Falklan Islands” were that the case?
Yeah, which is why it was probably a bad ruling. Alex doesn’t have much imagination.
Alex doesn’t make the rulings. There off-camera officials who make the calls.
I, and a lot of other people. “Falklan” and “Falkland” standing along might sound the same. But with “Islands” appended, they become pronounced “Falklan Nislands” vs. “Falklan Dislands”
I remember from an episode 6-8 years ago a Final Jeopardy where the correct question was ‘Who are Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?’ One contestant wrote ‘Who are Crosby, Still, Nash, & Young?’ and it was scored as incorrect since he left the ‘s’ off the end of ‘Stills.’
I say it “Falklanislands,” no “d.”
-FrL-
As with any other game (or quiz) show, they have the right to make whatever rules they want, so long as the contestants are aware of the rules ahead of time. Anyone who watches the show regularly knows that they don’t penalize for spelling, so long as you’ve got the correct pronunciation. All contestants, including this woman, know about this rule, and she should have known that the correct pronunciation does include the “d” sound. And the fact that she did write “Islands” means that she didn’t run out of time (which would not have changed anything anyway). And by the way, many of us do pronounce the “d.”
If you feel sorry for her, imaging being one of the other contestants (who supposedly spelled it correctly) if the judges had ruled in her favor.
I don’t feel nearly as sorry for her, as I do for that kid a few weeks ago, who lost because he didn’t wager enough.
I just don’t agree that the d has to be pronounced in order for it to be a correct pronunciation.
“Falklanislands” is, IMO, a correct pronunciation of “Falkland Islands.”
And though its not relevant, I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who claim they do pronounce the d in fact do not.
I had a friend once, by the way, who insisted that “truck” should be pronounced with a ‘t’ sound initially rather than a ‘ch’ sound. But every time she said “truck” she said it with the ‘ch’ sound. I’d tell her, “say ‘truck’” and she’d say “chruck,” then I’d say “see, you said it with a ‘ch’!” and she would insist she hadn’t done so.
-FrL-
Would it have counted had she spelled it “Las Islas Malvinas”?
One FJ sticks out in my mind…it was some obscure political question involving what two states did something or other, and the woman who got it right forgot to phrase it in the form of a question. She was the only one to get it right, and even Alex was starting to congratulate her, until he had to backpedal because the judges called her on it.
The look of horror on her face was heartbreaking.