If a contestant on Jeopardy! gave the correct response "Alexandre Dumas" but pronounced the surname as "dumb ass", would the response be accepted?
If a contestant on Jeopardy! gave the correct response "Alexandre Dumas" but pronounced the surname as "dumb ass", would the response be accepted?
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Probably not as it is not close enough to the known pronunciation. Some people have been accepted despite pronouncing their answers incorrectly and received backlash. It's usually up to the host to determine.
I once watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune where the puzzle was completely solved: “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
But the woman giving the solution, who happened to be black, didn’t pronounce the “s” is bedbugs audibly enough. It sounded more like “don let de bedbug bite” which I think was just an accent thing.
But they didn’t give it to her. Maybe she did think it was “the bedbug” as if there’s one big bad boogeyman bug out there. I dunno. But it was pretty sad. The guy next to her was given a chance and walked away with the win.
Nothing will ever be worse than Mythological Hero Achilles
Ouch. This reminds me of a coworker of mine: they were born in one country, grew up in another, and then moved to the US. Despite only being here 5-ish years they speak perfect American English with no accent. However they are missing the last 20-30 years of American culture. They’re extremely smart but every now and then a conversation will trip up and we’ll have to explain something like “these guys are as bad as beavis and butthead.”
Now Achilles is a little better known than beavis & butthead but I don’t know how much Greek mythology they read in different countries. Especially the ones pumping out STEM geniuses like my coworker. WoF is all about catchphrases and references so I could easily see how an otherwise extremely intelligent guy could totally bomb like that dude did.
I think Greek mythology is well-known around the world, but not many languages pronounce the poor man's name as uh-kill-ease.