Ah now I see why you insist that “silver” was the only answer to the original question. You have problems reading simple English. Let me lay it out for you.
"Ag is the answer to either of the questions. Silver is the answer to the first one only."
There are two questions. “Ag” is a valid answer to either of them. That is, “Ag” is a valid answer to number one. And “Ag” is a valid answer to number two. “Silver” is a valid answer only to number one. “Silver” is not a valid answer to number two. Hope this made it clearer for you.
If you read “this element’s symbol” as ambiguous, I can’t see how “the symbol for this element comes first” is any less ambiguous. It seems to me either they’re both ambiguous, or they’re both asking for the (English name of the) element.
I’m with Jeopardy! on this one. It’s the way the game is *always *played. The first answer was the correct element, but the clue required a symbol.“Silver” is not a symbol.
I don’t think the writers will lose much sleep over this. I’ve seen contestants tripped up in a similar manner before. It’s how the game works. Contestant #1 forgot the rules.
Well, I don’t think it’s ambiguous, but you do, so I put it in there for your benefit with the hopes of avoiding the argument. But that didn’t work.
Look, I’m responding at how I interpret it as a native English speaker. To me, it clearly is asking for the element, not the symbol. I do not see ambiguity in the phrasing. I do not interpret “Ag” to be the name of the element, otherwise, why mention the symbol as a separate thing? Like I said in my initial post, I have no problem with the judging.
It sounds to me like both answers were ruled as being “correct” in the OP. Or did I misunderstand that? If “silver” were judged wrong and “Ag” were right then, yeah, I have a problem with that. It seems to me that both “silver” and “Ag” were ruled as “correct.”
ETA: At any rate, there’s clearly ambiguity because folks are arguing about it, but I just can’t see it or hear it.
See, that’s where we differ. In a question that mentions both an “element” and a “symbol”, I do not consider answering with the symbol name as being correct. It’s like answering “This element’s symbol is Ag” with the answer “Ag.” I would consider that incorrect.
Then I don’t know why you bothered separating it in bold and declaring that the answer is “Silver” and not “silver and Ag.” If it’s ambiguous, what other meaning do you think it can have other than “the symbol of this element”? Do you think it can also mean “this element symbol”? Again, if so, than “silver” could never have been deemed correct. If something else, what?
My English is fine. You didn’t answer my question.
I think it definitely helps to look at it that way. But it was actually phrased a little differently than the OP posted:
Question: “What is Ag”
Answer: “Of the element symbols that don’t match the element’s English name, this element’s symbol is alphabetically 1st”
I don’t see how that can be deemed correct. “This element’s symbol” would have to mean that the name of the symbol is not what they’re looking for but the English name is.
Of course you would. So would I. Because the answer is in the question. Now if Ag wasn’t in the question (hard to think of a question where it’s the only answer but: “This element is a metal that has been used as currency, making mirrors and photography”, “Ag” would be a perfectly valid answer.
No one is saying that they were asking for the symbol, just that they were asking for a way to express the answer “silver”, and answering with the chemical symbol for something is usually allowed. When the answer they’re looking for is “water”, “H2O” is usually allowed.
My argument is that “This element’s symbol” disqualifies the symbol itself from being the answer (question, actually).
It just comes down to the fact that there are multiple ways to skin that cat. For example, if the question had been “The only mineral we eat”, the answers could all legitimately be (in descending order of pedantry) “What is Halite?”, “What is salt?” and “What is sodium chloride?” All describe the same thing in the context of the question- nobody really eats halite, but it is the mineral name. Salt is probably the most likely answer, and sodium chloride is the chemical name for what the mineral is composed of.
In the OP, the ambiguity is in the ‘this element’ part. You can refer to elements by the symbol or the name interchangeably in my experience.