Jeopardy seems like the game that should penalize pronunciation, and Wheel of Fortune shouldn’t; but I have seen plenty of episodes of Wheel where they didn’t give the contestant the win because they mispronounced a word in the solution; like the viral one where no one could pronounce “Kelly Ripa.” But not one I can recall on Jeopardy.
If they gave the response “Alexander Dumas” wouldn’t it be rejected, regardless of pronunciation, because it wasn’t in the form of a question?
I don’t have much to add about the pronunciation question, but every time that Alexandre Dumas is mentioned, I feel compelled to recommend The Count of Monte Cristo, a work which I would describe as the mid-1800s rough equivalent to a shonen manga’s plotline. The novel starts in 1810s southern France, just after the Napoleonic era, detailing the luck, misfortune, and events that befall Edmond Dantes, a young and intelligent sailor of modest means.
Admittedly, the unabridged book is quite a long read, with some print editions exceeding 1200 pages. The 117 chapters may be intimidating, but IMO it’s a worthwhile read. It’s also available in the public domain in the USA, so Project Gutenberg has an eBook of it from the 1888 English translation, retaining much of the “antique” translations, for added intrigue.
equivalent to a shonen manga’s plotline.
It’s funny you should say that as there is actually a loose anime adaptation, titled “Gankutsuou”.
Not 100% on the rules, but I think it depends if the question is a Daily Double or not, and there’s more scrutiny if it is.
The closest example that comes to mind is when Arthur Chu pronounced Elbridge Gerry as Jerry. He ended up getting the $800 but got a lecture from Trebeck.
Earlier in the same clip he lost $5000 from the Daily Double because he pronounced Frances McDormand as McDarmand
I think that has to do with whether it is single or double jeopardy. I think they get a free pass from the host if they forget to phrase their answer as a question in single, but not double.
IIRC for Single vs Double the difference is they will enforce the “form of a question” part. In either round, they will let you mangle the pronunciation as long as you don’t insert or omit phonemes beyond what could reasonably be the result of only having read the word.
So “Alexander Dumb-ass” would be fine, though you’d likely get some gentle chiding, or maybe even have to refilm the question (“portions of the show not affecting the outside have been edited”) afterwards, but if you were expanding NASA and left the ‘s’ off the end of “Aeronautics,” it would be wrong.
Typically, yes. Pronunciation mistakes are not ruled incorrect unless they change the spelling of the name or word, such as adding consonants. Ken corrects the pronunciation without calling the mistake out, usually, although he labors under strange conceptions, such as insisting in not pronouncing the initial “t” in “tsunami” and “tsar”.
Strange conceptions?
Tsunami doesn’t start with a T sound, It’s just a strange artifact of the romanization of the Japanese sounds. It’s not exactly a S sound either. The sound it’s supposed to be just doesn’t have an english equivalent at all, so they made up something close-ish but it does a poor job of communicating that.
The one Japanese mis-pronunciation that bothers me is that Tokyo only has two Syllables, To-Kyo, not To-Ky-O like almost all western people pronounce it as. Kyoto has the same problem, It’s Kyo-to, not Ky-O-To.
This is a strange take. In Japanese it’s literally a consonant cluster [ts], which is to say it’s literally a Japanese “t” followed by a Japanese “s”. The Japanese “t” and “s” are not exactly the same as English, but they’re close enough, and English has the same cluster in, say, the plural “mats” of “mat”.
What “tsunami” breaks in English is not really the sound, but instead just the fact that English doesn’t allow [ts] unless it’s preceeded by a vowel.
It’s not at all like the T sound in Japanese followed by the S sound. The normal T sound in Japanese is pronounced by putting your tongue behind your top teeth and flicking your tongue down a bit. Tsu on the other hand starts with your tongue below your top teeth, and your cheeks pulled together a bit.
It’s also nothing like the TS in Mats in english.
Strange conceptions?
Yes. That’s humor.
Tsunami doesn’t start with a T sound, It’s just a strange artifact of the romanization of the Japanese sounds.
Yes, and English speakers have an established collective inconsistency regarding whether to pronounce loanwords anywhere on the spectrum from (somewhat) faithfully to the original language to transliterated to entirely reinterpreted with English pronouciation norms. To declare that the “t” in that word is silent (as Ken has done, at least once) overstates the situation. At most, it’s optional.
I pronounce those cities as two syllables, although it doesn’t bother me when others don’t. I also pronounce “Mangione” as three, even though I don’t overdo it on the Italian vowels.
Living on the west coast of Canada, where we talk about Tsunamis fairly regularly, I’ve never heard anyone add a T sound to Tsunami at the start. Only Sue-Nah-Me
