Sadie was robbed on Jeopardy

[wvoutlaw2002]

Did anybody notice how Sadie clearly wrote "Harriet Tubman" only for Mayim to declare that her answer was unacceptable?

And the sad thing is, Sadie even bet enough to win the game.

[ooboh]

If what the J! Archive says is correct, then she wrote down “Harriet Tubma,” which is not correct, as her misspelling of the correct response altered its pronunciation.

The show made the correct decision. She was not robbed.

[WilliamPorygon]

What she wrote was:


Which may or may not be "Who is Harriet Tubman"

I mean I can understand either way, but quite frankly the constant anal-retentive judging is frustrating and makes for bad TV in my opinion which is why other than a few notable instances in the past years (Holzhauer's run, Trebek's final episodes, the first several weeks of the phony host tryouts) I really don't like the show enough to watch it regularly.  In the first two seasons of GSN's Masterminds I've seen at least a few instances of written answers being misspelled in a way that clearly would've been called wrong on Jeopardy but were accepted and the misspelling not even being pointed out, and I feel like it's a better show for it.  If some viewers prefer seeing people get dinged because they can't perfectly pronounce an overly unusual and complex word like Tenochtitlan even though they clearly know it's what the clue was asking for, well fine for them I guess.  I mean there are complaints about these kinds of rulings on social media constantly and it hasn't hurt them enough to get them anywhere near cancellation, so it's not like there's any reason for them to amend the rules to be a little looser.

[GRWHAMMY the 2nd]

imo, people LOOK for reasons to deride the show (or any game show for that matter, see also WOF)


also, judging from the screenshot, it looks like chicken scratch that no one can read

[tpir04]

Yeah I don't think illegible handwriting should be ruled correct in any circumstance. With that handwriting, I can make out anywhere from "Harriet Tubman" to "Harriet Tulney". I think the show did the right thing here.

[TPIRfan#9821]

If you forced me to read just that second word, I would have guessed "Tulnr", and because I don't know if you're allowed to assume anything, it probably should be marked wrong.

At the same time, I'm in a group chat with someone who appeared on Jeopardy! this season, and they brought out that this was once ruled acceptable for Jefferson:



My only rebuttal was that this is the same group of people who ruled Barry and Berry were different, so the judging's changed since then, but that's a pretty good counterargument.

[PatrickRox80]

People who disagree with decisions like these find it a lot easier to complain about the rule than to look into the rule itself. The writing in question looks almost illegible and not clear at all like what the OP is saying. It looks more like she wrote "Tubnuy". Right call by the judges.

[gamesurf]

I’ve heard some ex-Jeopardy players recommend that for historical figures, unless you have a very good reason to include the first name, make it a habit to answer with the last name only.

You write “Tubman”, everybody knows who you’re talking about, and you reduce the risk of screwing up the first name a la “Annie Frank”.

[imhomerjay]

No one was robbed. I know I have atrocious handwriting, and I say this honestly: that was an incomplete answer. The Harriet part and the "Tub" are clear enough that of course we know what she was going for, and now people want to see it being there with that context. But there is no reasonably standard by which the end of what she wrote could be construed as an "n" in script, and the supposed "a" looks more like a "u," followed by...some kind of line that might be more like a "y."

It's not anal retentive or whatever other silly term someone wants to throw around. This is same rule as always, and there are numerous times when Alex would note someone's answer was heading toward the correct one but wasn't complete enough. C'est la vie.

The production staff can also watch what is being written on the screens "in real time." They can discuss the ruling well before the host reveals it. If they looked at this and felt it simply didn't meet the standard of being complete, so be it. I'd have gotten dinged by every teacher I ever had if I turned in something like that--it would not have been considered correct, intent or not.

[GameShowFan1987]

Maybe I'm way off on this one but I'll throw my theory as to what happened with this situation out there anyway. The issue wasn't so much the bad handwriting but rather she ran out of time before she completed her answer. Mayim said, "It looks like you were going for Harriet Tubman but you did not finish so unfortunately that is not gonna be acceptable." Sure that's an odd way to word it if running out of time really is what happened but it's the only reason I can think of for Mayim to say such a thing because I find it highly unlikely that Sadie gave up on her response it in the middle of writing it. She likely thought of the answer at the last possible second and tried to scribble it down before time ran out which made it come out looking like an illegible mess. Whether that's what happened or not, what she wrote down does not clearly say 'Tubman' and therefore should not be an acceptable response so I'm on the side of the judges with this one.

[tpir04]

For that matter, using the example of the contestant thinking of the answer at the last second, what happens if a player is in the process of writing down their answer when the 30 seconds expires? Does their pen stop working? Automatic disqualification?

[mellongraig]

Sometimes if this affects the outcome (as in this case), the show has invited people back on due to an error. I don't know if Sadie has appealed the ruling yet to ask for an invitation to come back to the show...

[ooboh]

For that matter, using the example of the contestant thinking of the answer at the last second, what happens if a player is in the process of writing down their answer when the 30 seconds expires? Does their pen stop working? Automatic disqualification?

I'm 99.9% certain that their pen stops working. I'm sure I've seen it happen before.

[blozier2006]

I'm 99.9% certain that their pen stops working. I'm sure I've seen it happen before.

There's someone at the producer's table with an on/off switch controlling the pens. At least in the Trebek era, they'd turn them on when Alex said "Good luck players" and turn them off when the "think" music stopped.

[imhomerjay]

Indeed, the pens are deactivated. And they can see the pen strokes and better determine if in fact an answer was completed.