Jeopardy fans criticize inconsistent penmanship rule on the show

What is... illegible penmanship?

Jeopardy fans are not pleased with what has been called inconsistent rules pertaining to penmanship and spelling on the show.

The rules of the game became a talking point during a tie breaker segment on Monday's episode. Host Ken Jennings read the clue, "Asked to design a new set for a re-staging of this 1952 play, Alberto Giacometti came up with one scraggly plaster tree." Contestant Erica Weiner-Amachi scribbled down, in what viewers have deemed in illegible penmanship, "What is Waiting for Godot?," which Jennings accepted as the correct response.

Jeopardy Ken Jennings hosting 'Jeopardy'

The moment evoked the June 22 episode when contestant Sadie Goldberger's response ("Who is Harriet Tubman?") was deemed incorrect after producers ruled that her penmanship was illegible. While Weiner-Amachi lost the game to Megan Wachspress, the inconsistency has drawn the ire of fans on Twitter.

Jeopardy's website states that written responses during Final Jeopardy! don't have to be spelled correctly, "but they must be phonetically correct and not add or subtract any extraneous sounds or syllables."

Regardless, viewers have since rallied for the response format to be changed, substituting handwritten answers for typed-out answers on a keyboard. "I don't quite get why contestants don't have keypads for Final Jeopardy," one Twitter user lamented. "It's 2022."

This isn't the first time the show's rules have been called into question. Last August, Jeopardy had to clarify a rule after viewers expressed discontent with contestant  Matt Amodio's style of answering ("What's?" rather than "What is?"). The game show said there was nothing wrong with Amodio's preferred method of response, noting that contestant responses must be phrased in the form of a question, but there aren't any grammar specificities.

We'll take a confusing set of rules for 200, Alex.

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