Final Jeopardy: South America (12-16-14)
The Final Jeopardy question (12/16/2014), in the category “South America” was:
In 2004 the dollar replaced the guilder as the monetary unit of this country.
New champ Alysha Rooks won $18,412 yesterday and defeated a 2x champ. She’ll be a 2x champ herself today if she can beat her two opponents: Josh Vittor, from New York, NY; and Jean Parker, from Montgomery, AL.
Round 1: Rooks found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Name the Decade” under the $600 clue. She was in the lead with $4,000, $3,400 more than Jean in second place. She bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is created. show
Rooks finished in the lead with $6,200. Jean was second with $3,000 and Josh was last, in the hole for $800.
Round 2: Josh found the first Daily Double in “Historical Fiction” under the $1,200 clue. He was in third place with $2,400, $5,800 less than Rooks’ lead. He bet $2,000 and came up with “The Other Anne”. That was WRONG.
14-year-old Mary catches the eye of Henry VIII, but her sister Anne is soon favored by him in this novel by Philippa Gregory. show
Lots of triple stumpers and for the second day in a row, we didn’t get to see the last Daily Double when the contestants ran out of time. It was either under the $1,600 or $2,000 clue in the category “Italian Islands”.
Rooks finished in the lead with a runaway $11,400 and Jean was next with $3,800. Josh just got out of red on the last clue and had $400.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHAT IS SURINAME? Formerly Dutch Guiana, it’s the only Dutch-speaking country in South America. Renamed Suriname in 1948, it won full independence from the Netherlands in 1975. The image above shows a guilder note from 1971 on the left and, on the right, is the Surinamese dollar, adopted in 2004. For fast facts on Suriname, check out this World Atlas page, which also shows a $20 note.
Wikipedia has a list of currencies used in South America.
Josh thought it was Ecuador. He lost his $325.00 bet and finished with $75.00.
Jean wrote down Peru and crossed that out in favor of Guyana. She didn’t bet anything so she remained at $3,800.
Rooks got it right. She only bet $12 and mentioned that her fiance’s birthday is 12/12. Hmmm… you shoulda bet $1,212, Rooks, but, no matter — she still won the match with $11,412 and now has a 2-day total of $29,824.
Rooks did not talk about her writing today either. She talked about her hair and Alex kidded around with her and with Jean about her frog.
2 years ago:: ALL of the players got this FJ in “People in British History”
In 1805 the second in command to this hero said, “I wish (he) would stop signaling. We all know what we have to do”. show
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Why did Alysha go by her last name of Rooks instead of her first name?
Her friends left messages yesterday that she always goes by Rooks
Thanks, that was bugging me!
Another trivia item on Suriname: The President of this country is Dési Bouterse, “probably Suriname’s most controversial figure”, per wikipedia. “Europol has issued an arrest warrant for him, but as Suriname’s President, he enjoys immunity.”
He also has a son named Dino so I have imagined him watching “I Love Lucy” and Dean Martin reruns down in Paramaribo.
I couldn’t agree more with Jacob’s last statement. Further, I would like to recommend that the younger ladies (although all would benefit) watch Emily Graslie’s (@ehmee on Twitter: Cece) Voices in Science on YouTube. Also, Emily is an awesome host of the Brain Scoop (also: YouTube).
Thanks Eric. I did watch some of her video clips on youtube and read her bio. She is a quite brainy “scientist” to be only 24. My daughters said they had heard of her. I had not until I read your post. Thanks again.
You are most deservedly welcome. As they are both academically (to name only one way) advanced, Voices in Science probably won’t motivate them, but perhaps they could find it a relevant home.
Thanks Eric. I’m going to check her out on YouTube right now.
And Twitter! (Haha)
You’re most welcome. The piece on Passenger Pigeons is pretty good as well.
btw: I am off Twitter until next week, but please drop in. You’ll probably have a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.
The last category shouldn’t have been started in the top box with the less than a minute warning given, she probably should have gone to a lower box to find the second DD.
the dollar is on the right,right..? :):)
obviously josh and jean did not read or see “papillon” , dutch guiana (now suriname) and british guiana (now guyana) were prominently featured.
i wonder how confident our champ was,she could have risked a lot more..?
I didn’t see the movie either. Rooks was quite confident John. She started writing asap in fj. I bet she wish she wagered more. As vj pointed out in her recap $1212 would have been appropriate.
Btw, finally a right prediction of 1 correct response for me. It’s about time. There were a lot of triple stumpers.
Categories such as chemistry element symbols and inventors appeared in this game with 2 female contestants for the individual who posted yesterday that females get soft questions.
One of the ts was “cutex” with 2 female contestants. So maybe the gender bashers can take a hike…a long hike.
yeah, it was a book first, very prominently featured in europe, since “papillon” (henri charriere, the author) was french. the facility was finally shut down in 1953 (there was a lot of flak by the red cross about the inhumane conditions there ). alfred dreyfus was the most prominent inmate, until zola wrote “j’accuse”. a.d. was given a new trial, was still convicted but given a pardon. the whole affair was anti-semitic.
but what was in the book that would give you this FJ answer? Did Papillon pay somebody in guilders?
PS. I did a post a couple of years ago with casting suggestions for a Papillon remake
yes, all kind of currencies were used in the guyanas, pound, gulden, francs,u.s. dollars. but mainly he went through then “dutch guiana or guyana”, which would have led you to the only dutch possession in south america > guilder…,today suriname instead of dutch guyana. it came to me in a flash since the only possessions the dutch had/have are in the caribbean, dutch guyana the ONLY exception in s.a.
Like Eric, I too totally agree with you. That same individual also posted yesterday “She [Rooks] won’t last long unless they redo the categories again.”
Yes, I tip my cyberial hat to you, Jacob. 🙂
LOL on Cutex. Still synonymous with nail polish remover at least, I thought. Alex seemed simultaneously amused and perplexed.
cutex?? have not seen the show yet, but j archive shows that a “cutex” clue was in a 1996 and also 2003 show.
and a little trivia to the dollar on the right side: to stress their independence, it’s called suriname dollar. despite the name “dollar”: the exchange rate is kept par with the EURO, not the U.S. dollar. so the dutch connection still exists to a certain degree….
actually, the currency list I linked to shows that Ecuador and Guyana use the dollar, too (U.S. and Guyanese, respectively). But they don’t fit the other parts of the clue, 2004 and guilder.
LOL on “Did Papillon pay somebody in guilders?” Anyway, it made me laugh when Rooks mentioned that people like touching her hair, because people do the same to me. But we Brazilians don’t get bothered much by this type of thing.
LOL. I just put a video of that segment in the recap, Cece. Refresh the page if you don’t see it.
Thanks VJ. I just watched it again and it’s funny every time! 🙂
had you read the book you would have gotten it instantly. when papillon was fleeing west, all different money was used, francs, gulden, pounds, u.s. dollars. and it would have told you that DUTCH guyana was the ONLY dutch possession in south america > today surinam.