1. I have always wondered about the Before and After puzzles -- let's say the puzzle answer was Cream Cheese Cake, and the player said, " Cream Cheese, Cheese Cake". Would they accept their answer, or would they lose their turn.
2. Has anyone ever been to a taping, or heard of an incident where an audience member blurted out an answer, and a contestant heard it?? Or something similar?? Pat, on almost every show, is going ""Shhh, Shhh, audience very quiet please...shhh" Makes me think that audience members inadvertently shouting out the answer to a puzzle happens a lot.
For your first question, the answer is that the puzzle solution must be EXACTLY like it is on the board; otherwise, it's considered a wrong answer. Pat and the judges might make an on-the-spot exception, but, according to the official rules, you have to state exactly what's on the board to be considered correct.
For the second question, while I'm sure it's happened in the past, at the taping I was at, before the show started, Charlie explained to everyone how we shouldn't be whispering puzzle solutions to each other because they might be heard over the mikes in the audience. Of course, not everyone follows that rule, but, during tense rounds like the speed round and the bonus round, they send some extra pages through the audience who will come up to you and warn you to be quiet if they see you doing anything that suggests you're whispering puzzle solutions to someone else (I know...because it happened to me and a lot of the people I was sitting with!). Usually, there are three pages total in the audience, but it jumps up to at least five (that's how many I could see) near the end of the game.
Pat most likely just says it if he can see people in the audience who look like they're whispering answers to each other as an extra security measure; he also warned people about it during the taping of the first episode. None of the puzzles had to be thrown out during our tapings, BTW.
Anthony
