Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?
And at least one person had a Final Jeopardy response ruled incorrect because it was just the answer, and not in the form of a question. (In the original version, host Art Fleming would remind the players, “Be sure (your response) is in the form of a question.”)
I think at some point the producers started telling the contestants to write down “What (or Who, or Where) is/are” on their screens while writing down their bets, to make sure this would not happen again.
Having to ask “What is . . .” (or its equivalent) is not merely a gimmick. It’s placing a little obstacle there, something to always keep in mind, a distraction that constantly erodes the contestant’s concentration. In that sense, it’s a wonderful tool for making the game a lot harder than it would otherwise be.
I believe his point is that people would watch it on their lunch breaks, at work with their co-workers. So, as part of a large group in public, instead of at home alone, or with your spouse.
That was (part of) the original intent, but it’s not quite the strong challenge it used to be, since Jeopardy has gotten so big, the format has become sort of second nature (see the reference to Win Ben Stein’s Money above, where they’d have contestants respond in the form of a question, instinctively - which resulted in mockery).
When I was on 15 years ago we did this.
The best thing - no one tells you to jump up and down, clap your hands, and look like a dope.
The thing is, the examples given by Merv Griffen in zombywoof’s post actually do work as normal answers and questions. As in:
Q: How many feet (are) in a mile?
A: 5,280
Now they just take a question, rephrase it as a statement, and put “What is” in front of the answer. Which doesn’t really work the same way (as digs shows).
So did it start out as Merv Griffen described it, and just devolved into what it is now?
Yeah, these days the challenge is not to say “what is” outside Jeopardy. On the local high school quiz show “The Challenge”, you see the occasional kid lapsing into this reflex, and it is clear they are not just trying to be funny.
Yeah, when I did School Reach in high school (aka Reach For the Top - so there’s a Jeopardy! connection for me, if I ever go on the show - sadly, I’m too young to have even watched the show when Alex was hosting…), I found myself doing it occasionally…mostly during practices, not the actual games, but still…
The problem with that format, though, is that there are a plethora of correct “questions”. For instance, I could also say “What is 30 times 176?”. Sure, it’s not the intended question, but it is in fact a question that has “5,280” as its correct answer.
I actually had a question like this in practice material for a high school quiz show: The question asked for the area of a rectangle whose diagonal was 5 inches. The answer they were looking for was “12 square inches”, assuming that the sides and diagonal formed a 3-4-5 triangle, but really, any answer from 0 to 12.5 square inches would be possible. I’m just glad we never got any like that on the air.
Wait, Alex isn’t hosting any more? When did this happen?
I meant Reach For the Top, which Alex hosted before he was on Jeopardy! (Even if Alex had stopped hosting J!, I’m not nearly that young!)
I like the show, but this aspect of it has always grated on me. They often accept “questions” that don’t fit the “answer”.
Recently, for example, there was a category called Secretary of State (if I remember correctly). The idea was that you’d be given the name of a Secretary of State and have to identify the President who appointed him or her.
One of the answers was “Thomas Jefferson”. He was George Washington’s Secretary of State, so a contestant responded “Who was George Washington”. This was accepted as correct without any question or hesitation.
I’m sorry but “Thomas Jefferson” is not a valid answer to the question “Who was George Washington”. To my thinking the correct response should have been “Who was George Washington’s Secretary of State”.
True, but this doesn’t mean they never did it this way, it would just take a little luck and common sense to give the “correct” correct question. Although, it would explain why they stopped. It would at least make the “answers and question” set-up have some actual purpose in the game.
There was an episode of Cheers (reference by buddha_david) where Cliff is on Jeopardy, and this exact issue comes up. Did they ask questions like this at that time, or is it just something they made up for the show?
This would be the result of one gimmick (the answer-question format) running headlong into another gimmick (category with a special rule). Since the answer-question format is pretty much a formality at this point, it doesn’t trip my grammarian detector.
It’s not a matter of being a grammarian. The question and answer are grammatically correct. They’re just factually wrong. Thomas Jefferson was not George Washington. 
No big deal. It’s just a game show, so whatever.
Sounds like you shouldn’t watch the show.
I like it. Watch it every night. Or, I record it every night and eventually watch all the episodes. You often have to take the category’s name along with the clue to make up the answer. If you’re going to nit pick the show for that, then it’s clearly just not your cup of tea. Because, given the rules and the set-up of the game, “Who is George Washington” is the right question and fits the answer perfectly.
Has there ever been a smartass who pronounced it as a question, with their voice rising at the end?
Or, always stated as a question, but had to be bleeped? “What the fuck is a parallelogram?”
Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen them both in the same place.
Huh what? How is 0 a possible answer? A line isn’t a rectangle, or is it?