For those of you who have been reading my blog since last year, you may recall that I have two previous posts about Jeopardy Math, which combine two of my areas of interest – math and the TV game show Jeopardy.  Last year, my original post on this topic explored the question of the highest possible score in a game of Jeopardy, and I followed that up with another post in May which explored some mathematical scenarios regarding proper wagering on the show.  You can go back and find those previous posts here and here.

Today, for those of you who follow the show, I have some more thoughts to share on Jeopardy.  However, this won’t be a math-related post.  Rather, I’d like to focus into another subject we learn in school – grammar.  (If you’ve watched the show with any regularity over the last several weeks, you probably already know exactly where I’m going with this.)  While I’m at it, I would actually like to explore two separate questions here.  First, what should constitute an acceptable response on Jeopardy?  And second, who should be the permanent host of Jeopardy?

First, I’d like to address a development on the show regarding an unorthodox phrasing of responses.  We recently watched one contestant win 38 consecutive games on Jeopardy, a run that finally ended earlier this week.  An amazing streak, to be sure, but fans of the show couldn’t help but notice that this champion phrased every single one of his responses as a question that started with “What’s…”  Traditionally, correct responses will either start with “What is…” or “Who is…”, with “who” being the question word of choice when referring to a person.  However, even when the correct response was looking for a person, this contestant would begin his response with “What’s…” instead of “Who is…”  For example, a clue looking for the response of “Who is George Washington?” would have been answered, “What’s Washington?”  This garnered all sorts of attention, and Jeopardy even addressed this matter on Twitter several games into his run with the following tweet:

This tweet also included a link to an article that they published in an attempt to clarify some of their rules regarding correctly worded responses.  According to Jeopardy:

The rules state, “…all contestant responses to an answer must be phrased in the form of a question.” It’s that simple. Jeopardy! doesn’t require that the response is grammatically correct. Further, the three-letter name of a British Invasion rock band can be a correct response all by itself (“The Who?”), and even “Is it…?” has been accepted. So, Matt Amodio’s no-frills approach is unique but well with guidelines. 

If you are interested in more information on what Jeopardy considers acceptable responses, I will include a link to the full article which includes more information on acceptable responses at the end of this post.

So, Jeopardy has said that responses that start with “What’s…” are acceptable, whether or not it such responses are grammatically correct.  Okay then.  But my question is, should these responses be acceptable?  And even though nobody has asked for my opinion on the matter, allow me to weigh in.

No, these responses should not be allowed.

Before I go any further, I should mention that this is nothing against the long-time champion, Matt, whose responses during his run on Jeopardy generated all this discussion.  He racked up an amazing win streak, fair and square, within the rules of the show.  Good for him.  I have nothing against him, and he seems like the type of guy I would get along with.  However, this is about the rule itself, which allows for these types of responses.

Having said that, part of the allure of Jeopardy is that it requires the contestants to respond in the form of a question.  So, there are supposed to be two aspects of required brain power at work here – knowing the answer to a clue, and being able to phrase it in the form of a question.  If we allow all responses to start with “What’s…”, then that removes part of the required brain power that should be expected on the show – coming up with an appropriately phrased question.  If the question doesn’t have to be grammatically correct, then the concept of having to come up with a question at all then becomes pointless.  If we allow contestants to give all their responses with the word “What’s…” robotically added at the beginning, then is the show really any different than game shows in which contestants simply answer questions?  If we are looking for a response which includes an extra element other than just an answer, then instead of requiring it to be in the form of a question, we could have players simply cough before they answer.  Or perhaps touch their nose while they answer.  Would that really be any different?  It would require the same amount of brain power.  I’m not suggesting a game show actually do this; I’m merely pointing out that such a minimal base requirement doesn’t make sense.

Also, while grammar isn’t my expertise, I must acknowledge that I am part of the crowd that finds myself annoyed by the word “what” being associated with a person, instead of “who”.  Can a person technically be referred to as a “what”?  I’m not sure, but even if they can, the most appropriate response would definitely be “who”.  I don’t want to have people reduced to “whats”.  Furthermore, on a recent episode, the clue was looking for “Who is Christopher Columbus?”  While the response of “What’s Columbus?” was acceptable, the first thing it made me think of was the city of Columbus, Ohio, not Christopher Columbus the person.  So, while such an answer is currently acceptable, I think the show would be best served to require responses looking for a person to be phrased “Who is…”

If Jeopardy does not require questions to be grammatically correct, then this will open the door for another contestant to appear on the show and break it.  Suppose, for example, that the clue says, “Ottawa is the capital of this country.”  Which of the following responses do you think would be accepted?

1. What is Canada?
2. Where is Canada?
3. Who is Canada?
4. When is Canada?
5. Why is Canada a country?
6. How was Canada founded?
7. Is Justin Bieber from Canada?
8. Is the answer Canada?
9. Would you like to go to Canada with me?
10. Canada???

Based on the rules as I understand them, although I’m not totally sure on some of these, I take it that any of the above responses, except for the last one, would be accepted.  But many of those responses are simply ridiculous.  From the list I created above, I would be okay with “What is Canada?”, or even “Where is Canada?”  But not any the rest.  However, if someone appears on the show, gets creative, and provides responses similar to the ones above, and if the judges have to accept them, it could create a big mess.

• Who is the Magna Carta?
• When is Robert Frost?
• Where is 42?

Responses such as these are not what we want to see.  So, here is the new rule I am proposing.  Going forward, responses must be an “appropriately phrased” question.  For example, clues that ask for a person must be answered, “Who is…”  If a contestant provides a response that is correct but not “appropriately phrased,” we can give them one friendly reminder to use the correct question word going forward.  This would be mostly consistent with the current practice to remind contestants who forget to answer in the form of a question in the first round to do so, without penalizing them right away.  If they do it again, the host can wait, so as to prompt them to re-phrase their question, as long as they can do so before their time expires.  But if they do not, then they will be ruled incorrect.

Now, we don’t have to go too overboard with this, as there may be situations in which the correct grammar may be up for interpretation.  For example, if the clue says, “This team won the 2018 World Series,” there may be legitimate debate over whether the correct response would be “Who are the Red Sox” or “What are the Red Sox.”  It might depend on whether you consider a team to be the people on the team (who) or the actual franchise (what).  So, in certain situations, such as this one, either response should be acceptable.  In fact, I would even be willing to accept “where” for geographic locations (“Where is Paris?”) or “when” to specify time (“When is 1776?”).  There was even a recent Final Jeopardy in which contestants were asked to come up with the 1988 movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”  Therefore, the correct response was “What is, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’”  However, as the title of the movie, by itself, is a question, I believe simply providing a response of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” would have been accepted under the rules.  I would be okay with allowing this too.

I don’t want Jeopardy to go too far the other way and become too strict about what the correct question word should be unless it’s blatantly obvious.  So, let’s allow for alternate phrasing where it makes sense.  But in most situations, the correct question word is obvious, and does not include “what” to refer to people.  So, from now on, let’s at least require “appropriately phrased” responses which refer to people to start with “Who is…”  So, for any producers of Jeopardy who might actually read this blog, I hope I have presented you with a convincing argument to change the rule accordingly.

Also, in case any producers of the show are actually reading this blog, perhaps you might also like my input on who the new permanent host of Jeopardy should be.  This has been an ongoing saga for almost a year, ever since the unfortunate passing of longtime host Alex Trebek in 2020.  I gave my thoughts on this back in May on my “Jeopardy Math Volume 2” post.  Since that time, after numerous additional guest hosts, followed by a brief one-week tenure of the former executive producer as the new host, Jeopardy has still yet to settle on a new permanent host.  I won’t go into my thoughts here on the controversy which led to the quick departure of the new host. (While I do have some thoughts on that as well, I’ll keep them off here.)  I will say, completely separate from that, having the executive producer as the new host in the first place gave the appearance that he chose himself, whether or not he actually did, so I was hoping it would be someone else.  Now that the search for a new host is apparently open once again, perhaps Jeopardy is interested in my input this time.  With that said, here are six potential candidates that I would like to recommend to be the new host of Jeopardy:

• Morgan Freeman.  To my knowledge, he has never been a candidate, and may have no interest whatsoever.  But who wouldn’t want to hear Morgan Freeman’s voice reading clues?  At least give him a call and see if he would be interested.

• LeVar Burton.  I’m mentioning him because lots of people wanted him during the original search, and while I didn’t have any strong feelings on him either way, it seemed like he didn’t get a fair chance.  He guest hosted for only one week instead of the normal two, and it was during the Olympics when fewer people were watching, so of course ratings were down when he hosted.  I’m not saying give him the job, but at least offer him another week to guest host before deciding…if he still wants to do it.

• Myself.  Can I at least guest host for a week?  If you give me a week, you may be so impressed that you will offer me the job on the spot.  I have experience in being a quizmaster. Plus, you would be hard-pressed to dig up evidence of my something inappropriate on a podcast or social media way back in 2013.

• Mayim Bialik.  As a fan of the show The Big Bang Theory, I still think of her as Amy Farrah Fowler.  However, the current host of Jeopardy did a good job in her original stint as guest host, has been doing a great job filling in for the past several weeks as well, seems to be getting more comfortable with it, and would fit in quite nicely as permanent host.

• Buzzy Cohen.  A former Jeopardy champion himself, Buzzy hosted the Tournament of Champions in May.  He did such a great job with it that he would also be deserving of the role as permanent host.

• Ken Jennings.  As I wrote back in May, Ken has always been my top choice as host, and that still remains true.  As the Greatest of All Time contestant on Jeopardy, he brings a certain credibility to the role, and he filled in quite admirably as the first guest host after Alex.

Jeopardy, if you want my recommendation, although Ken remains my top choice, I would be good with any of Ken, Buzzy, or Mayim as the next host.  So, go ahead and pick one of those three.  And then after you do, please stick with them as the permanent host for longer than one week.

Oh, and don’t forget to change the rule for correctly phrased responses going forward too.

If you wish to read more information on responses that Jeopardy considers acceptable, their full article from July 30 which addresses this can be found here.