JEOPARDY! fans were left extremely bothered by a hair-splitting ruling on Thursday's episode.
Contestant Kiran MacCormick suffered a $4000 swing when he was deemed incorrect on a clue based on a debatable mispronunciation.
Returning champ Holly Hassel faced Suzanne Goldlust, a marketing manager from Reston, Virginia, and Kiran, a math teacher from Burlington, Vermont.
Holly is an English professor from Fargo, North Dakota, and the one to beat after inking out six-day champ Suresh Krishnan.
Going into the Double Jeopardy! round, Suzanne had $5,600 Holly $3,600, and Kiran $2,800.
Kiran chose first as he was in third place, picking “G Look at that” for $2000 - a category entailing every response starting with G.
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The video clue displayed a painting and host Mayim, 47, read: “Seen here is a work of the Venetian Renaissance by this painter, whose name means 'Big George'."
Kiran buzzed in and responded with what seemed to many fans like the correct response: "Who is: Giorgione."
However, he broke up the syllables so it sounded like: “George Gione?” which apparently rendered him incorrect [seen in the video above].
“No,” Mayim ruled and Krian’s score sunk to $800 - if he had been ruled correct, he would have had $4800.
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Mayim then replied when no one else buzzed in: “Correct response- Giorgione.”
Kiram shook it off and by Final Jeopardy, Suzanne led with $17,700 Holly had $8,000, and Kiran $5,600- meaning he was in far last place.
Final Jeopardy! Under “The U.S. Government” read: "Established in 1938, this congressional group was still issuing subpoenas in 1969 & finally ceased to exist 6 years later."
Holly and Suzanne were for the abbreviation of "HUAC" while Kiram spelled out the group in full and was unfortunitely incorrect with “Commission” as the last word was “Committee.”
Holly wagered everything jumping to $16000, but Suzanne wagered $1000 which was enough to make her the new champ.
'SOUNDED OK'
Fans in a Reddit internet forum felt for the newcomer and didn't agree with the costly ruling, many thought his response wasn't necessarily incorrect whether or not the results were impacted.
One person wrote: “Was surprised that Giorgione wasn’t accepted? Seemed like pretty reasonable pronunciation.”
Outgoing champ Suresh who watched the game agreed: “I was also surprised. I was in the audience and thought that sounded OK.”
A third person replied: “There wasn’t a protest by him or anything?”
Suresh replied he wasn’t sure: “You cannot really see from the audience if there was any protest.
"If you wanted to protest something you wait until the commercial break and talk to somebody in the contestant team who would convey it (not exactly sure how) to the judges and you would find out what happened after.”
A fifth person wrote: “I had to rewind the DVR. It sounded like he paused after the first syllable.
They are getting very strict with foreign-name pronunciations”
A sixth wrote: "Yes, just saying "George Gione" instead of Giorgione cost Kiran $4,000. That might've meant the difference in this being a runaway."
A seventh wrote: "Pretty harsh call on that final [too]. Didn’t matter anyway."
EVERYONE'S RIGHT BUT ALSO WRONG
An episode earlier this year caused a major backlash when all three contestants including eventual 8-day champ Hannah Wilson were deemed incorrect with three different pronunciations of the correct name.
Mayim read the clue from "The Quotable Alex" - "The author and former prisoner that said 'socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit.'"
Each player guessed the right author, [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn, but one by one Mayim ruled them each incorrect.
"This is a tricky one to pronounce," Mayim said.
"Eh I did not like that Solzhenitsyn ruling," one viewer tweeted.
"If you're not going to accept anyone's attempt to pronounce Solzhenitsyn, don't write a clue about him," another added.
Some fans explained in a thread on Reddit why they believed these types of tricky clues should be eliminated from the show.
"A good reason for them to abandon these types of clues. It's one thing with clues that ask about translation of common French or Spanish words or idioms, but Russian has several letters that are difficult for Americans."
Another argued that Wilson's pronunciation "fit within the guideline of being reasonably supported by the spelling."
"Give me a break. They all had the right name!" another viewer added.
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Ken Jennings and the actress are the co-successors to the late, great Alex, who passed away from cancer at age 80 in 2020.
Mayim is finishing out the regular season until the summer- barring the last week of Season 39 as Mayim is bowing out and supporting the writers' strike.
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