Final Jeopardy: Abbreviations (11-11-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (11/11/2015) in the category “Abbreviations” was:
Its meaning as an individual product dates to 1977; its meaning as conforming to orthodox opinion dates to 1986.
The 2015 Tournament of Champions continues with the third quarter final match featuring 13x champ Matt Jackson vs. 5x champ John Schultz vs. the 2015 Teachers Tournament champ, Jennifer Giles.
Round 1: John found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Technology” under the $800 clue before the first break. He was in second place with $2,400, $800 less than Matt’s lead. He bet $2,000 and he was RIGHT.
During WWII computer pioneer Grace Hopper helped maintain the Harvard Mark I and its successor, the Harvard Mark II. One day she removed a moth from the circuits, making her the first to literally do this. show
Matt finished in the lead with $8,600. John was second with $7,600 and Jennifer was last with $1,200.
Round 2: Matt found the first Daily Double in “Medieval Literature” under the $1,600 clue. He was now in the lead with $10,200, $1,600 more than John in second place. He bet $5,100 and he was RIGHT.
His 14th century collected “Canzoniere” established & perfected the Italian sonnet form. show
John found the last Daily Double in “Dinosaurs” under the $800 clue. In second place with $14,400, he had $9,300 less than Matt’s lead. He bet $3,000, and he was RIGHT.
In 2015 scientists concluded that this old name was valid after all; the apatosaurus was another beast. show
Matt finished in the lead with $24,900. John was next with $17,800 and Jennifer was in third place with $10,400.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
According to Webopedia, “Personal computers first appeared in the late 1970s. One of the first and most popular personal computers was the Apple II, introduced in 1977 by Apple Computer….
The clue obviously refers to common usage of the abbreviation, but Phrases.org has a very interesting article showing that the earliest use of “politically correct” was in 1793.
Abbreviations.com has a list of many other uses for PC ranging from Professional Corporation to, in law enforcement, probable cause. In your kitchen, it stands for pork chops.
Jennifer wrote down “idem.” She lost her $6,600 bet and finished with $3,800.
John didn’t have anything and that cost him $2,800. He finished with $15,000.
Matt wrote down “Trad”. He bet a whole two bucks so he won the semi-final spot with $24,898.
So, Greg Seroka and Jennifer Giles are going home with $5,000, and the wild cards are now:
$16,599 Vaughn Winchell
$15,000 John Schultz
$14,000 Dan Feitel
$12,800 Kristin Sausville
2 years ago:: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Mythology”
Rich with electrum, the Turkish river Pactolus is where this legendary man was said to have washed off his curse. show
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When Greg Seroka and Jennifer Giles were mathematically eliminated, for some reason, I said ”Once Greg Seroka and Jennifer Giles made history, now they ARE history!” If you’re really wondering where I got that from, it’s from the ”Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey” trailer.
The announcer of that trailer says ”Once they’ve made history, now they ARE history!”
Badly worded, misleading question. I’d say PC is an acronym but I see the dictionary defines it as “a type of abbreviation”. But “PC” is definitely NOT the same as “conforming to orthodox opinion”. No wonder no one got it.
and PC is a type of individual product, not the
name of an individual product.
I have been informed that PC is an “initialism” not an acronym since it doesn’t make a word. NASA is an acronym, NSA is an initialism. I think of abbreviation as a shortening of a word such as street to st. Calling PC an abbreviation is really a stretch evidenced by the fact that nobody got it right including Matt!
One of the more easy ones today..
All should or should have got it right.
The moth “debugging” inspiring the term “computer bug” was the subject of Joe Trela’s(IDing the insect) winning Million DOllar question on Regis WWTBAM in 2000.
PC is the acronym not the abbreviation of the terms stated in the answer. This is why all three got it wrong; the topic was misleading.
Matt is too good here I mean seriously, he should have won that 14th game before the tournament of champions but still someone has to beat him next week in the semi-finals.
I have an off-the-wall question. (It’s for my husband). In the introduction to Jeopardy, there is a picture of a yellow bird with parakeet- like markings but a finch- like beak. Does anyone know what it is? Thanks.
idk Marilyn, I took a look at this page Birds Containing the Color Yellow and didn’t see anything similar. Then I tried searching on “exotic birds” and found this gallery. I came across a golden pheasant with similar markings, although the one they show has a red breast. So I’d guess it’s either a pheasant or a relative of one. 🙂
Thanks, VJ. Ed says he thinks you’re right (as usual).
Who is going to beat Matt next week?
Michael Bilow if he gets a DD and can bet big.
Of course, he’ll have to know the answer, too. LOL
John’s bet absolutely baffled me. He was fine at 17.8. His bet was all risk and no return.
I agree. With 2 QF games left, that wasn’t very wise of him. Hope he’ll be OK though.
Cece! I’m sure he will most likely be, but some of these players need to brush up on their game theory. Remember last year it was a good move on Ben’s part at the end of day one which allowed him to win. Lest it be forgotten, A Chu led into both FJs. Again, game theory is the single most important topic in prolonged jeopardy success.
I am surprised John, who is a computer programmer, missed fj. The history of Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak inventing the Apple ii PC is taught in computer classes and in business courses.
Perhaps he skipped over that chapter or missed class that week.
Nah, I’m sure he thought of Apple but he just couldn’t get a bead on the other part, Jacob. It looked to me like he put it together when Alex said “personal product you use everyday” and would have done a big face palm if he wasn’t on national TV. :-0
Personally, it hurts my feelings that the contributions of Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak (who is still alive btw) are not associated with the 1970s and the PC.
This why I don’t predict how many contestants will get fj correct anymore, as I told vj, because who in the world knows what they will come up with. Today is a classic example. Where did they get their weird responses from?
Thank god I didn’t say the same thing over and over again like last month.
Darn it. Now John Schultz has to be a wild-card. I would’ve love to see someone beat Matt.
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!
well, I think he is really going to have to beat himself, as in getting a DD wrong, for his opponents to have a chance of knocking him out in the semi-finals.
That being said, John was holding his own until Matt got that big DD win. His misfortune was to get the first DD too soon and not have a lot to work with; and the last one too late when he had to worry more about protecting his wild card standing than winning this match..
THAT TEARS IT MATT!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU’RE GOING DOWN NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy bajeezus. Calm down. You’re going wilder than I expected (and I didn’t really expect anything!). I agree with you though, I do want Matt to go down next week.
Pearls before swine. Which means you’re on my side.