Jeopardy is in reruns.
Battle of the Decades.
1980s.
Yesterday.
“Of the element symbols that don’t match the element’s English name, this element’s symbol is alphabetically first.”
This earlier thread - my first RO thread. “This element’s symbol”.
PTSD.
Roughly half the posters in the thread felt the answer “Ag” (accepted by Jeopardy as correct) was indeed correct.
The other half, not being psychotic, felt (as did I) that “this element’s symbol” must be answered with the word “silver”.
Screaming.
Cursing.
Threats of silver bars being plopped on podiums.
PTSD
Curled up in a corner.
My, this thumb looks mighty tasty.
A hypothetical for those who feel that the name and the symbol are synonymous. Suppose the clue had been “This element’s symbol is Ag.” Would you accept “What is Ag?” as an acceptable response?
No, but that’s not even vaguely close to approaching being in the same ballpark as the clue as posed.
The only way to exclude either ‘Ag’ or ‘Silver’ is to include the exact letter string to be excluded, because otherwise they are 100% exact synonyms.
Ag means Silver, Silver means Ag, they both refer to a metallic element that is a sort of shiny grey colour and very valued for making jewellery and coinage. There is no different shading in their meanings, no ambiguity to what either means in the context of ‘this element’, nobody with any sort of science education would fail to recognize either - the only difference in the two is how long they take to write.
You’re basically arguing that in the category ‘Presidents’, ‘Washington’ and ‘George Washington’ are not equivalent answers, if the clue wasn’t ‘Washington was the last name of this president’. (Or some similar phrasing which specifically disallows a simple ‘last name’ answer.)
“What is silver” is the correct response, because the statement is “Of the element symbols that don’t match the element’s English name, this element’s symbol is alphabetically first.”
They’re not asking you what symbol is alphabetically first, but what element it represents.
Of course, I suppose the alternate (convoluted and roundabout, IMO) explanation for Ag is that elemental symbols are used as a common shorthand for element names, so Ag is acceptable.
Under the first parsing, it’s asking for the element. Under the second parsing, it’s asking for the element’s symbol. Either parsing is justifiable, so even if one does not take “silver” and “Ag” to be exactly synonymous, either answer can be correct.
The only thing I saw that was wrong was the winner writing AG instead of Ag. In other words, he should have used one upper case letter and one lower case letter. That’s how such chemical symbols are written. I was surprised the judges didn’t call him on it.
Otherwise, yeah, Ag and silver are 100% equivalent. By analogy, if the question had been about, say, a certain Midwestern state, they could have written either “Minnesota” or “MN” and been equally correct.
I know I commented on this the first time it came up. I can’t help but wonder if my attitude this time is consistent.
You’re all missing the point. The question asks for the element whose symbol has a certain property. The question isn’t asking for the symbol itself.
That said, Jeopardy responses don’t always have to be nitpickerly specific, as long as they uniquely identify the right answer. I think Ag is an acceptable (though borderline) response.
Depends on the category. If it were “From the Latin,” I suppose I’d write “Silver.” I would be thinking in a linguistic, rather than a chemistry or physics, mode.
‘Ag’ is the element, in exactly the same way ‘silver’ is. That is the point. If Ag is invalid, so is silver, or anything else that doesn’t involve pulling a chunk of elemental silver out of your pocket and showing it to the judges.
I suspect the second parsing seems wrong to most people because “element’s symbol” isn’t a freestanding compound noun (like, say, “carpenter’s level”).
I have not seen the Jeopardy episode in question, and I hate chemestry, and I saw Ag and thought it was the symbol for gold.
That being said…from an English-lover’s perspective, I agree that the answer should be “Silver”. Because by saying “this element’s symbol” is another way of saying “the symbol owned by this element” (since the 's is indicative of possession).
You have to separate the two based on the assumption of possession. To use another poster’ example it would be if the answer was “As read from its postal designation, this state is the only one in the nation where its state’s designation are two consecutive consonants” (which by the way I have NO idea if it’s true…but bear with me)
To me, only an answer of “Minnesota” would work because its saying “MN” IS the postal designation, not the postal designation of that state
YOU!
You were there last time. Don’t try to tell me you weren’t.
I’m not going to search through 200 posts to find it, but I don’t have to.
That phraseology is*** burned ***into my brain.
“Pull a chunk of elemental silver out of your pocket.”
“Pull a chunk of elemental silver out of your pocket.”
“Pull a chunk of elemental silver out of your pocket.”
“Pull a chunk of elemental silver out of your pocket.”
“Pull a chunk of elemental silver ***out of ***your pocket.”
“pocket”
Ha ha.
Ha ha ha.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha …
Why are we doing this again? The right answer (or answers) are determined by the judges off stage, and no amount of complaining months after the taping are going to change anything.
Having said that, there are important disanalogies. Answering “Ag” to your question doesn’t demonstrate that I have any idea what I’m talking about. Answering “Ag” to the Jeopardy question, on the other hand, does.
