Jeopardy! fans get particularly vocal about mispronunciations and how they’re judged. Such was the case with new champ Eamonn Campbell, who was denied a clue he got correct but unquestionably had trouble saying.
On Friday, October 11’s episode, five-day champ Mark Fitzpatrick, who’d lose decisively to Campbell, selected the $800 “Just Doin’ My Job” clue. It was: “Knows the proper use of propofol; can count to 16 (letters in the job); can tell people to count backward from 100.” The correct answer was “anesthesiologist.”
Campbell, a lawyer from Vermont, buzzed in with the right answer, but it sounded like: “anateesiologist?” with a “t” in the middle instead of “sth” according to the J-Archive.
Are you frikin kidding me?!!! Eamonn Campbell doesn’t have a lisp. He doesn’t have a cleft lip or palate. He just can’t seem to pronounce “anesthesiologist.” Or maybe he just doesn’t know the word. But he did win his first #Jeopardy game! pic.twitter.com/0K3dgT2TH8— The Sport Dogtor, M.D. (@MartySande34622) October 12, 2024
Ken Jennings gave him a second try: “Can you say that again?” the host prompted. Once more he was close but apparently no cigar, seemingly saying: “Anathesiologist?” this time with a “th.”
Campbell was ruled incorrect and the third contestant, Dot White, a clinical psychologist from Maryland, buzzed in with what sounded like: “What is an anesteesiologist?.” This time, Jennings ruled: “I think you got there, yes.”
While Campbell clearly said the word wrong — both times — fans debated whether he was close enough (especially given it was a mouthful) to be ruled correct, and what made Dot’s response acceptable enough in tow.
“Not sure what was said differently between the two contestants on the anesthesiologist question,” one fan wrote in the Reddit thread for the episode.
“Eamonn clearly said ‘Anethesiologist’ with no first S sound,” explained another.
“It makes sense that they would rule it incorrect, but I wonder what would have happened if someone with a lisp had answered,” wrote a third.
“They make accommodations for contestants with different speech patterns. Santhosh Sastry’s episode was on a couple weeks before your episode and he had a heavy accent; Ken and the judges are lenient. That’s why they gave Eamonn a chance to clarify his answer,” explained a fourth.
“I thought it odd that they denied that answer, but were ok with FJ misspelling Thatcher,” wrote a fifth.
A sixth explained: “The rule isn’t a vague ‘is it close enough that you can pretty much tell what they’re going for’, it’s ‘could it be a reasonable phonetic interpretation’. Spoken responses can be a phonetic pronunciation of the correct spelling, and written responses can be a phonetic spelling of the correct pronunciation. ‘Ch’ on its own can make the same sound as ‘tch’, so ‘Thacher’ is fine, but Eamonn’s pronunciation of anesthesiologist left out the first S.”
In a Jeopardy! Facebook group, another fan started a post asking the same: “Not that it affected the outcome, but did anyone else believe that it sounded like Eamonn pronounced the word Anesthesiologist correctly on his second attempt – before Dot was ruled correct? They sure sounded the same and even Ken paused a bit while considering his response.”
“Yes! But my wife could hear the difference. He left out the first ‘s’, pronouncing it “anethesiologist”…it took me 3 rewinds to hear it, but sure enough. The omission made it 15 letters, not 16,” a second fan replied.
A third argued: “C’mon, who hasn’t mispronounced that word the first seven times?.” A fourth agreed: “That was tough to pick up. There’s a lot of harsh syllables in that word.”
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However, others had the last word: “Judges would have given him credit if they heard him say it correctly. I heard it. Wrong pronunciation is wrong.” And “Of course, Ken didn’t pause to consider his choice, but to listen what the row of judges decided. Those decisions are not his to make. Totally mispronounced twice!”
Pronunciation-based rulings seem to draw ire because they’re up to the judges’ discretion and often feel subjective to fans. Late last season, a player was ruled correct on a mispronunciation of “larynx” (“larnyx?”). Around the same time, another player was ruled incorrect on “wagyu” because she said “way-gu,” Jennings justified that she “didn’t have a ‘y.’”
Regardless, the takeaway from the game was mainly how badly Fitzpatrick got trounced; by both challengers. Bombing a Daily Double he finished with $4,800 to Eamonn’s $12,200 and Dot’s $10,400. Fitzpatrick wrote of his performance on Reddit: “It took 6 games but I finally reverted to my true trivia identity: an overconfident, overthinking, hot mess.”
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