WOF pronunclation question

[Twentington]

I found this post on a Wheel forum from a former contestant:

[size=\"2\"]Backstage, as we went through the categories, we were specifically told on SONG LYRICS, SONG TITLES, and PHRASES (among others) that we had to read the answer EXACTLY as it appeared on the board, even if it wasn't complete or grammatically correct (for example, "Blowin' in the Wind" or "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog"). The coordinators even emphasized this when they read through a few sample puzzles.

[/size]

The funny thing is, a day after this, a contestant clearly left out the D in HICKORY-SMOKED COUNTRY HAM and they didn't catch it.

[snowpeck]

This story is now generating a lot of press. Good Morning America is doing another segment on the controversy near the end of their 7AM eastern hour tomorrow (Monday).  

Using a different pronunciation of a word is one thing (the hypothetical pecan issue mentioned earlier,) but completely leaving off the last letter of a word is another. If the producers had wanted it said that way, they would have put swimmin' on the board.

[thomas_meighan]

Has WOF ever rejected pronunciations like /gover'ment/ or /Feb'uary/? (Curiosity question, not rhetorical.)

[MSTieScott]

Not only that, but that wouldn't eliminate pronounciation issues.  I remember once a puzzle was "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" and a contestant was ruled incorrect when they added the G.

The real solution is pretty easy: Don't use any puzzle on your show that offers a reasonable chance of setting up a situation like this,

Are you proposing that they don't use puzzles that end in I-N-apostrophe, or that they eliminate all puzzles with gerunds? Because if it's the latter, it seems like nearly every time the category is Event, the puzzle contains an "-ing" word, yet this is the first time I've heard of where a contestant lost money because they left off the G.

"Hickory-smoke" is actually the more-discussable story, but since viewers don't watch the show that closely, that slips by. They only notice "swimmin'" because the show had to do the right thing and point out the error (even the contestant realized what had happened as soon as the buzzer sounded).

[clemon79]

Are you proposing that they don't use puzzles that end in I-N-apostrophe, or that they eliminate all puzzles with gerunds?

I agree that you can't kill gerunds wholesale, so I *think* I'm proposing the former.

Honestly I'm reminded of the weird spelling rules in Final Jeopardy; it's an idiotic rule, but they approach it as "the bed's made, now we have to lie in it."  Which they don't, but if they are going to, they owe it to their contestants to mitigate the possibility of a landmine as much as possible, and the easiest way to do that that is also transparent to the audience is simply not to use landmine puzzles. The world will not end if you never see HUNK-A HUNK-A BURNIN' LOVE up there on the board.

[Twentington]

Has WOF ever rejected pronunciations like /gover'ment/ or /Feb'uary/? (Curiosity question, not rhetorical.)

As far as I know, no. I've seen several instances where Pat has explicitly said on-air that an answer has more than one "valid" pronunciation. I remember him doing this with "espresso" and "poinsetta", among others.

[mparrish11]

So what you're saying is that someone who says "PEE-can" in "Pecan Pie" (Like, say, someone with a southern accent)--would get ruled incorrect?

I'm on the opposite end--I think she should have been ruled correct.  There's a huge variance in dialects in North America--some leeway needs to be given.

I'm not Southern and I pronounce it "pee-can". As do a lot of people.

It's not "swimmin", it's "swimming".

Myself included--and I'm from Northern Michigan.

[NickS]

Question for discussion: does the "Smoke(d)" punt by the judges open up a can of gazpacho because of this?

[Matt Ottinger]

I've seen several instances where Pat has explicitly said on-air that an answer has more than one "valid" pronunciation. I remember him doing this with "espresso" and "poinsetta", among others.

I'm not about to challenge your encyclopedic and obsessive knowledge of the show, so I'll just point out that those two examples aren't words with more than one valid pronunciation.  Those are words that are commonly mispronounced, just as some people commonly slur the 'g' off of the gifts in that Christmas song. So if WoF has taken those, I have a harder time getting behind their hard-line stance on this one.

[Jimmy Owen]

Can of worms opened:  The word "often."  How is it pronounced on WOF?

[clemon79]

I'm not about to challenge your encyclopedic and obsessive knowledge of the show, so I'll just point out that those two examples aren't words with more than one valid pronunciation.  Those are words that are commonly mispronounced, just as some people commonly slur the 'g' off of the gifts in that Christmas song.

This. As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, if you actually deigned to call it "expresso", I do believe the police wouldn't step in to break up the horde beating you with lengths of garden hose.

[Jay Temple]

This has me scratching my head.

I really don't get why people are so up in arms over this. You have to read what's up there, letter for letter. If I ever get lucky enough on the show, I might look foolish but I'm going to be solving every puzzle slowly with enunciation so every syllable is heard.

Same here, right down to making the "hw" clear in a word like "whether".

I'm not going to look for the posts to quote, but there's no issue with a puzzle like "Burnin' Love," because in that situation, they always put the apostrophe up anyway.

[clemon79]

I'm not going to look for the posts to quote, but there's no issue with a puzzle like "Burnin' Love," because in that situation, they always put the apostrophe up anyway.

Then you completely missed my point (and I'm sorry you couldn't be bothered to do the due diligence to find the quote), which is that it works both ways; that makes "burning" a wrong answer, and that's a minefield you still don't want to step into.

[TLEberle]

I thought it was Jeopardy! that was supposed to be draconian hardasses about pronunciation and Wheel of Fortune was the happy-go-lucky show that everybody watched because it was fun and accessible and easy.

[jjman920]

I'm not going to look for the posts to quote, but there's no issue with a puzzle like "Burnin' Love," because in that situation, they always put the apostrophe up anyway.

Then you completely missed my point (and I'm sorry you couldn't be bothered to do the due diligence to find the quote), which is that it works both ways; that makes "burning" a wrong answer, and that's a minefield you still don't want to step into.

Case in point.