Final Jeopardy: 19th Century Novel Characters (6-17-14)
The Final Jeopardy question (6/17/2014), in the category “19th Century Novel Characters” was:
His “spinal column was curved”… the “head was between the shoulder-blades” and… one leg was shorter than the other”.
New champ Andrea West won $21,800 in yesterday’s game. Today she is up against these two contestants: Peter Solderitsch, from Havertown, PA; and Paige Ormiston, from Norfolk, VA.
Round 1: Peter found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The Body Shop” under the $800 clue. He was in a tie for the lead with Paige. They both had $4,400, $800 more than Andrea in second place. He bet $1,400, and he was RIGHT.
Because of its inherent rhythm, the sinoatrial node is the specialized heart tissue known as the natural this. show
Paige finished in the lead with $5,800. Peter was second with $4,800 and Andrea was last with $3,600.
Round 2: Peter found the first Daily Double in “National Historic Sites” under the $1,600 clue. He was in the lead with $12,000, $5,000 more than Paige in second place. He bet $2,500 and guessed Patriot Missiles. That was WRONG.
In South Dakota, you can visit a launch facility for these Cold War missiles with a Revolutionary War name. show
Paige found the last Daily Double in “The Name of the Law” under the $2,000 clue. In second place with $11,000, she had $1,300 less than Peter’s lead. She bet $3,000 and she was RIGHT.
Named for an Illinois representative, 1910’s White Slave Traffic Act is better known as this “Act”. show
Paige finished in the lead with $17,200. Peter was next with $15,500 and Andrea was in third place with $4,800.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
There are a lot of descriptions of Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s “Notre-Dame de Paris”, which we know as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. When Quasimodo was found on the steps of Notre Dame by Frollo, he is described as “a monster of deformity. The poor little wretch had a prodigious wart over his left eye, his head was close to his shoulders, his back arched, his breast-bone protruded and his legs were twisted…” Frollo adopted the child and baptized him “Quasimodo, either to commemorate the day on which he found him [Quasimodo Sunday], or to express the incomplete and scarcely finished state of the poor little creature.”
The description in the clue comes after his death and is about his skeleton. Esmeralda was already dead when Quasimodo went to her grave to embrace her dead body and die.
Andrea got it and bet $4,798. She finished with $9,598.
Peter said he almost got it but not quite. Hmmmm… See what you think…
He lost $7,200 and finishing with $8,300.
Paige got it and bet $15,000 so she won the game with $32,200.
So Paige Ormiston, a Navy JAG on active duty for about 11 years, is our new champ! She works primarily for Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic helping to equip all of the carriers and squadrons east of the Rockies.
2 years ago:: ALL of the players got this FJ in “Fabrics”
The name of this fabric includes the initials of the city where it was introduced at a World’s Fair site show
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@ VJ, i guess what happened there was “nice try, but NO cigar”..???
benedict and john paul are rather recent history. one resigned (the first one since gregory XII in 1415 who was FORCED to resign ((western schism)) and john paul? they might as well have stated: “this is the result of 16 + 2”.
math for kindergarten.
I just showed it to my daughter. She said Peter’s answer looks like:
The square root of Gumby
Good night all. Will chat with you tomorrow. This was fun.
Same here.
I assure you now that I’m laughing so hard, it may hurt.
Maybe Peter should get his dad to bitch up a storm like that kid in the tournament.
He’s too busy commuting two and a half hours to work one way every day to complain. You did not see the show but he stated that he commutes two and a half hours one way to New York where he is a software developer. The train ride is about one hour and a half he said. Was unclear to me about where the additional hour came in.
You reminded me of what he does. That’s another reason that Paige should have gone Roger Craig, Peter was likely to dominate “solve for x”.
no he didn’t dominate solve for x — nobody knew the total of Popes named Benedict plus the total of Popes named John Paul.
I don’t know if he is Catholic or if you even have to be to know that — but he also rang in on a Catholic saint question and got it wrong.
Ouch. I thought it was math. Still sticking to dream category for lawyer.
There were 16 Benedicts?
yes 16 Benedicts.
The saint clue was the very last in the first round ($1,000). At that point, Paige and Peter were tied for the lead. The clue was:
Now a saint, she founded the first free Catholic school for girls in America.
Nobody rang in at first then he did and answered “Who is Drexel”
Back to that question I asked over the $800 on Nostradamus and Genesis. Why throw away, in this case, a grand if you’re not sure? The first free Catholic girls’ school was founded long before Drexel was born.
For above VJ: at the time Katie, a two-time champ had over 7. She had to be looking like a juggernaut and rolling, too. Sometimes it makes sense to gamble and often you have to break up momentum.
one thing is for sure about peter:” rain man” he ain’t….sorry for the slang english but it seemed to fit perfectly…
VJ and Eric, clearly Peter knew that his handwriting was illegible. It reminds me of the days when I would give an essay test to my graduate students and they did not know the answer. Their writing was legible until they got to a concept they didn’t know and they expected me to guess what they meant. Of course, they got a big fat zero.
Peter was pulling the same trick. Note that “who is” is legible. After that he tries to be tricky. Just like it didn’t work for my grad students it didn’t work for him.
(Edward G. Robinson voice) a wiseguy, eh?
LOL!!
I hope everyone knows I mean the person pulling the trick (omg)
I didn’t see it happen. I know, for me, my mind is way quicker than my hand and it causes problems. I think he was short on time. Also, if Andrea had given an incorrect response, he may have been able to verbalize the correct answer. I know, slim but somewhat defendable.
You do make me feel bad for those who had to read my grad school written exam, but they got through it and I passed with flying colors. Glad that you weren’t there. Haha…ha.
There were just a few who would try to pull that trick. The majority of the students knew that it wouldn’t work so their handwriting was quite legible and they did of course pass with flying colors.
Speaking of being tricky, while I’m posting here I’m watching the Congressional hearing rerun from today on CSPAN about high frequency trading.
Love this because my instructors ALWAYS PUT IN THEIR INSTRUCTIONS…if not legible, no credit will be received for your answer. WRITE SO A THIRD GRADER CAN READ YOUR ANSWER! OR YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT FOR THE ILLEGIBLE ANSWERS.
Hey Talia -so glad to see you comment! I really meant to reply to your geography comment last week but got distracted. I wanted to say that you had a good point about some people just not being able to retain that info (I am that way with math). Hope your husband tries out for the show. 🙂
Talia, does anyone ever use crayon?
Peter’s and Andrea’s bet were idiotic: yes, more Game Theory!!
Andrea: when you’re in third with no chance to overtake anyone, your only way to win is for the both to bet and miss (thus you need to cover the other players’ maximum after loss). That is, Paige should have bet 13.8 (maybe +$1), so her downside would be (17.3-13.8) 3.5. So, Andrea is only decreasing her chance to win if she ends up <3.5, thus, the most she should bet is 1.3.
Peter: simple (and not done nearly enough), when a second player can bet enough to take the lead and still be over the third player's double up, then that range should be chosen (eliminating the third player either completely or tying). So: Peter can tie Paige (bet zero) with 1700 or can tie Andrea's double with 5.7. Thus, he should bet between 1.7 and 5.7 (exclusive, unless he wants a tie).
Again, this can be dense for some, but thorough. My apologies to those who have to read everything, but at least you made it.
so i am not the only one thinking peter’s wager made no sense…?
Clearly, no one wagered correctly.
*Peter:…and EVEN WITH THE WRONG ANSWER still be over the third player’s double up…*
you would have to have a very vivid imagination to read that as “quasimodo”. i would say…maybe 30%??
not that it mattered – since they ruled him wrong anyway plus paige was right and bet sufficiently: but what did peter try to accomplish with a 7.200 bet? if anyone could dissect that for me i would appreciate it. some strange wagering in fj going on lately! just look at how katie won and lost her title….
since i was reading up about human trafficking lately, i even knew that last dd to my surprise. i thought the other 2 DDs rather on the easier side and fj was a joke. i am just curious if they had accepted “the hunchback of notre dame” -although it is the novel title- as a correct answer. after all, quasimodo and the hunchback are one and the same person and i know a lot of people who refer to the character rather as “the hunchback” than “quasimodo”.SO, @ VJ: what do you think? would YOU accept ” the hunchback o.n.d.” as correct???
however, the german title is “Der Gloeckner von N.D.” =” the bell ringer of n.d.”, so in german it would be NOT so obvious, and the original french title does not refer to the person at all but the cathedral . but the clue was in english and the english title of the novel refers to the hunchback=quasimodo.
the clue did not specifically ask for the NAME. you could interpret it as asking for the (title) character. i know this is splitting hairs but since you are a literature specialist i am curious what you think!?my guess is, you would insist on the actual name of the hunchback, practically synonymous or not, since the ORIGINAL french title does not mention quasimodo by ANY definition ??
I would accept the Hunchback of Notre Dame and just assume the person went with that rather than the easier to write Quasimodo for fear of a spelling error – I’ve seen it spelled Quasimoto online.
btw the French title of the Disney film is “Le Bossu de Notre-Dame” Also, Quasimodo is not the only bossu in French literature. Paul Féval had one and so did Marcel Pagnol and their hunchbacks have been in films too.
thank you for offering your opinion. i would have thought you might insist on quasimodo. but then again, the clue WAS in english and the english title IS the HUNCHBACK (=QUASIMODO) of n.d…… you are generous!
Lol. My handwriting is about that bad! In grad school I finally took to the habit of rewriting my notes: it took me longer to figure out what I had scribbled than to organize the ideas.
how’s your printing?
I wonder what that colon in the middle of Peter’s scrawl was supposed to be.
The “i”. Actually, I can make out most of it
It is hard to give that pi looking symbol credit for odo, though.
Lol: I only print
the i, huh? LOL. he didn’t have the same trouble with the i in “who is”. I wonder what really happened there.
I would imagine he wrote “who is”, then thought, then rushed. But, didn’t see it.
I think they are told to write down who is or what is, and maybe even before the clue is revealed, not sure. So if he wrote who is before he saw the clue when he was making his bet, then I guess that either means he can’t write under pressure or like Jacob said, he was trying to be tricky.
Peter should have wagered less than $5900 so he could have won on a triple stumper and kept Andrea from any chance of winnings.
The only way FJ could’ve been easier is if they showed us a picture and just said “this guy”…
indeed!!
well, they do that sometimes and it could have been harder if they did — they would have had to show 2 skeletons since they are talking about the novel. Most of the films end differently than the novel.
What novel: the Gipper?
Maybe they saved that category, Name of the Law (and the DD) for when they knew they would have a woman lawyer up there. Conspiracy, anyone?
The stupidest thing that I have ever seen a player do was when the last clue was the DD. The leader, who found the DD, had 19, second was at 11, third was out. The leader said “I’ll bet 1500” (or somewhere). She got it right, and lost the game in FJ!!! By betting 3+, she could’ve, for the same risk (risk is of chance of winning game, not dollar amount), made it a runaway.
There are times when one should pull to an absolute lead. I don’t know how many clues, and their values, were still on the board when she found the second DD, but if Paige had more than 1300 (the amount she trailed) plus the value of all of the other clues (so in this case, if all of the other clues added to less than, or even exactly, 9700), she should have bet everything. There really isn’t an easier category than “The Name of the Law” for a bloody lawyer. Go all-in, give correct response, put the buzzer away, know that you’ll have the lead in FJ. Please note that this almost always applies only to the second DD.
There were 13 clues left after that DD — two whole categories: The Big Bukowski, and Solve for X; the $2K clue in National Historic Sites and the $400 and $800 clues in the same category she got the DD in.
Ah, thanks, but the theory still holds if the conditions apply. However, if I’m in her position, I’m still going to Roger Craig that badboy. She’s a freakin’ lawyer.
To give credit where due, I believe Colby Burnett was the first one to use the verb, Roger Craig. He, however, used it in terms of a whole tournament.
I wished she had bet more on that too, but Peter was doing well in Historic Sites and then got hit with a clue he couldn’t figure out. Maybe she didn’t know Peter’s and was afraid that would happen to her too.
If she would gone into FJ without the lead, gotten the answer right and not won, she would never hear the end of it at work.