Final Jeopardy: Word Origins (6-16-14)

The Final Jeopardy question (6/16/2014), in the category “Word Origins” was:

This noun meaning a secret plan comes from the Latin to breathe together.

2x champ Katie Frank has won $38,600 so far. Today she takes on these two players: Andrew Winner, originally from Spokane, WA; and Andrea West, from Columbia, SC.

Round 1: Katie found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The 1950s” under the $600 clue. She was in the lead with $3,400, $2,000 ahead of Andrew in second place. She bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.

One guest said of their 1953 wedding in Newport, Rhode Island, it was “just like a coronation.” show

Katie finished in the lead with $7,200. Andrew was second with $2,000 and Andrea was last with $1,400.

Round 2: Andrea found the first Daily Double in “Dialects” under the $1,600 clue, the second clue chosen by her in the round. She was second place with $2,600, $4,600 less than Katie’s lead. She bet $2,000 but didn’t know so she was WRONG.

Rioplatense is a dialect of Spanish found in a small geographic area that includes these 2 South American capitals. show

Katie found the last Daily Double in “Noose Men” under the $800 clue. In the lead with $12,000, she had $200 more than Andrea in second place. She bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.

Just before he was hanged on December 30, 2006, he mocked Shiite clerk Muqtada Al-Sadr. show

Katie finished in the lead with $13,000. Andrea was next with $11,800 and Andrew was in third place with $5,600.

ALL of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS A CONSPIRACY?

“The words respiration and inspiration have the same Latin root, spirare, which means “to breathe.” The word conspire has the same Latin etymological root. But what does conspiring have to do with breathing? The source of this term is [the] notion that people who conspire are thinking in harmony, so close that they even breathe together.” (A Way with Words)



Andrew bet $3,000 and finished with $8,600.

Andrea bet $10,000. She finished with $21,800.

Katie bet $5,000 so she ended up in second place with $18,000. It was the first game that she had the lead going into FJ. Ironically, she lost the same way she won her first game when Darren O’Connor failed to protect against her second place score.

So Andrea West, a college composition instructor, is the new Jeopardy! champ. She specializes in hyperinflation so she has a Zimbabwe 100 Trillion Dollar Bank Note.

2 years ago:: TWO of the players got this FJ in “Fictional Pairs”

These 2 men first meet after one of them tells a friend, Stamford, of needing new lodgings in London. show

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22 Responses

  1. Aaron says:

    It came down to confidence in the category. Andrea was very confident with word origins, which makes sense since she did well with dialects. Remember that Katie won the Friday game when everyone missed FJ because she wagered conservatively. That probably was fresh on her mind.

  2. eric s says:

    This would have been soooo much better if Katie had won and we could have synthesized conspiracy theory and Tom. It does seem from my view that they don’t seem to be putting up the creme of the male crop.

  3. john blahuta says:

    and as a p.s. for andrea: there are only 2 capitals in all of south america so close together that you could swim over (well, almost….) both located at the estuary of the rio de la plata. what was the dialect again? ah yes, “rioplatense”…..
    should have been in a “geography” category.

    • vj says:

      On a map, Georgetown and Paramaribo look pretty close too, john, Though looking at it now, I can see the other two are closer.

      • john blahuta says:

        the “rioplatense” should have been enough already, the estuary is even completely “clean”, nothing like the amazone estuary (one should actually use the plural here…), where you can get lost in a hurry.
        m.v. and b.a. are just about 35 miles farther apart( just under 130 miles) than the straits of florida is wide ca. 90-93 miles). so, yes swimming would be just a LITTLE exhausting 🙂
        but i am almost sure that if somebody has not tried to do it already, it will be attempted sooner or later. it’s not so long ago that the lady (i forgot her name right now) swam (protected by shark repelling techniques etc) swam from cuba to florida. and i think she was close to 60 or so?
        but i found the DDs and fj rather easy. especially the saddam hussein one. teenage material imho.
        to get back to your 2 cities, they look not too far apart either, depending the scale of your map, but south america is huge, just 1 or 2 mm on a map can mean days of travel as you know.
        in closing: HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!!!

  4. eric s says:

    To: Ginny
    I would like to apologize for my telling you in an earlier post to “settle down” as I don’t usually use that term and find it condescendingly dismissive. I have felt bad about it since. I hope that it has nothing to do with you not posting since.

  5. eric s says:

    To note: yes it is time for Game Theory! Katie’s wager certainly didn’t cover the double up of Andrea, but it was wrong on another level: it put her at risk by the third person as well. That is, sometimes the leader may have no confidence in the category, or believe the category does not favor the person in second (this usually involves the extra knowledge found only through a tournament: e.g. Brad Rutter in BoD) and wish to lose only if the second person gives the correct response. In this case, Katie’s range would be between zero and 1800, with zero to 1200 being preferable in the odd case of Andrea not betting.

    • john blahuta says:

      how was she at risk against andrew, eric? he could have maxed 11.200. so only if katie had been wrong she would have ended up behind andrew, but regardless whether she wagered 5 K, 10.601 or anywhere in between?
      and any wager over 1.800 and a wrong answer would have put andrew ahead of her. am i missing something here? but regardless, katie committed the cardinal sin of fj wagering and paid the price. it hurts double when you get fj right and have to go home because of an “inoptimal” wager. my only explanation is that she considered the category so difficult, that it might result in a triple hiccup. ironically i have found that ” word origins” or “etymology” usually provides rather easier clues and answers than one might expect. “etymology” sounds intimidating, but they even used “word origins” instead. semantics, i know. but it was – unfortunately for katie and luckily for andrea the classic “fj betting 101” mistake.or complete lack of confidence that she OR anyone else would get it. i would like to know what katie’s motive was.

      • eric s says:

        CLEARLY her bet of 5 could slide her down to 8 (13-5=8). 8 is less than double the value of Andrew (2×5.6). Since, SIMPLY her amount at loss is less than Andrew’s plausible double (or even optimal range), she placed herself at risk against Andrew.

        • eric s says:

          Oh, I see. I was only answering your first question. I guess now it seems that it was perhaps rhetorical?

  6. john blahuta says:

    katie,katie,katie……
    you take a breathing test (lung volume at your doctor: spirometry…
    and “with” in spanish AND italian: con
    so a rather very easy fj.
    but violating rule #1 in betting strategy is more likely to do you in than pull off an upset. we talked about that at length last week.
    too bad, it would have been a nice 3 day total and a lucky break twice over for andrea since her 10.000 bet did not make much sense really, but was still enough to win.
    so congrats and another lady champion.
    i think by now a can afford one rose again…..so here you go,andrea (unless you prefer cigars… 🙂 )

  7. jacobska says:

    I’ve loved watching Jeopardy because there’s always a contestant who leaves me speechless. When Andrew mentioned that Nostradamus was a book in the Bible I was floored. What will come next? Keep watching folks. You will always be amazed.

    • eric s says:

      Holy Carp man, you’re making me want to get a television.

    • vj says:

      it reminded me of that classic scene from the Sopranos (video)

      Quasimodo predicted all of this

    • eric s says:

      Anyone else have Cliff Claven’s voice going through their mind on this one?

    • McGushin says:

      You have to admit that it did rhyme…….also I think Nostradamus predicted that in his future that at some point his name would be mentioned as a Book of the Bible.

      • vj says:

        I’ve never heard Nostradamus pronounced with a long A like Amos myself. Don’t know about the bible book prediction. Anyway, that was the very last category in the first round they picked so I’ll have a video of it after a while.

        • eric s says:

          I think Nostradamus predicting his name in the Bible was meant to be a joke (although it’s entirely possible that I find humor in too many things).

        • vj says:

          OK. LOL. #scatterbrained

          Here’s the video link. Andrew laughed after Alex said no.

  8. eric s says:

    I think this week may have more one hit wonders than the ’80s.

  9. vj says:

    Lucky break for Andrea who did a good job catching up in Round 2. Felt bad for her with that dialect DD. Didn’t know it either.