‘Jeopardy!’ fans claim Ken Jennings ‘robbed’ contestant after shady ruling
What is … bad judgment?
“Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings is in the negative with fans after they claimed he “robbed” a contestant of his points during Monday’s show.
Jennings’ questionable judgment came when contestant Kevin Manning gave the correct answer to a clue — but with an invalid response, it seems.
“After the Last Supper, Jesus traveled to this garden to pray & was arrested there,” was the $1,600 answer, to which Manning immediately rang in with the Garden of Gethsemane, which is pronounced, “Geth-SEH-muh-nee.”
However, he rattled off the name of the place in Jerusalem with a hard “g” sound — like “gate,” which is correct — in the beginning, and a “d” sound — rather than an “n” — on the last syllable.
Jennings, 48, said that was wrong and moved on to the returning champ, Tamara Ghattas, who said used the “n” sound at the end but also said a soft “g” — like “gel,” which is incorrect — on the first syllable.
“Yeah, we just needed the ‘n’ in Gethsemane — that’s correct,” said Jennings, who also pronounced the name with a soft “g.”
The mistake cost Manning a spot during the Final Jeopardy portion of the show, dropping his $4,200 down to $2,600.
Jennings’ call sparked the ire of several fans on Twitter.
“Uhhhh @Jeopardy —-Who decided on the correct pronunciation of ‘Gethsemane’?? I need to hear that again,” tweeted one user.
“Ken, the host of Jeopardy does not know how to pronounce, Gethsemane,” slammed a second user.
“Unless I misunderstand #Jeopardy rules, the judges should not have accepted Tamara’s “Bible” answer of Jess-seh-muh-nee,” wrote an Episcopalian priest. “That’s an entirely different word than Gethsemane, which is pronounced geth-seh-muh-nee. Of course, it didn’t matter in the end.”
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Gethsemane is indeed pronounced with a hard “g” sound.
This is not the first time “Jeopardy!” has come under the scrutiny of audiences.
Last week, the host gave a contestant full points for answering a question about “Star Wars” actor Ewan McGregor with the wrong last name.
Professor Melissa Klapper answered the clue with, “Who is Ewan Gregor?”
Another misstep occurred when an editing error revealed the final scores of the players — but during host Mayim Bialik’s opening monologue, spoiling the episode for eagle-eyed viewers.
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