'Jeopardy!' Fans Divided After Contestant's Answer Rejected Over Spelling Error

Devon Forward
·2 min read
113

'Jeopardy!' set

The Monday, Nov. 6 episode of Jeopardy! ended in a surprising Final Jeopardy that led Jilana Cotter to cinch the win, but fans are wondering if a fellow contestant's disqualification for a spelling error was fair or not.

The Final Jeopardy category was Music & Literature, with the question being, "John Steinbeck called this 'one of the great songs of the world' & wanted the music & lyrics printed in one of his novels."

As host Ken Jennings went over the contestant's answers, Brian Adams revealed that he wrote, "What is the Battle Hymn of the Repubic?" with an "l" missing in the final word.

Adams only seemed to realize his mistake when Jennings said, "We can't accept that Brian," with Adams noticeably dismayed. The next contestant, Dave Pai, didn't write an answer down while Cotter got it correct, ending the episode with a total of $22,400.

While Adams wouldn't have won the game even if he got the Final Jeopardy question right, as he started the round with only $5,200, many fans disagreed with the show's decision to not accept his answer.

"They should have accepted that dudes answer," wrote one fan in the comments on YouTube, as another questioned, "I didn’t think spelling counted in Final Jeopardy?!"

Someone else wrote, "Sorry about that, Brian. This bothered me for the rest of the day."

"Seriously? You lose because you leave ONE LETTER out of a word in a multi-word title??? Not even the first letter. Not even the first word. Ugh!" commented a passionate fan who felt that Adams should've gotten the question right.

But others agreed with the show's ruling, noting that Jeopardy! allows for spelling mistakes but only when it doesn't affect that answer's pronunciation, as a viewer said, "Dropping the L in the last word changed the pronunciation for Brian."

"As long as [the spelling] matches phonetically, it doesn't matter. He missed a letter that changed the sound of the word," a different fan reiterated.

A similar situation on Jeopardy! in May of this year fueled the same debate, as contestant Ben Chan ended his nine-game winning streak due to a misspelling as well.

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