Final Jeopardy: British Authors (12-23-19)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (12/23/2019) in the category “British Authors” was:
In 2016 the OED celebrated his 100th birthday by adding words connected to his writings, including scrumdiddlyumptious
2x champ Eric Smith, a bartender from Tucson, AZ, won $42,000 last week. In Game 3, he is up against these contenders: Robin Miner-Swartz, an editor & consultant from Lansing, MI; and Jason Dozier, a non-profit professional from Atlanta, GA.
Round 1 Categories: FBI Headquarters – Rivers – Their Jobs in 2019 – Literature – Chairmen of the Boards – The “LL”, “LL” You Say!
Eric found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Rivers” under the $400 clue on the 2nd pick of the round. He had $200 from getting the first clue. He bet the $1,000 allowance and thought it was the St. Lawrence. That was WRONG.
Hydroelectric plants & pumping-generating stations on the U.S. & Canadian sides of this river have a 4.8-million kilowatt combined capacity. show
Robin finished in the lead with $6,200. Eric was second with $3,800 and Jason was last with $2,400.
Round 2 Categories: Mythology – Big Words – Figures of Speeches – The Not-so-young Sheldon – Birds of a Feather – Women on TV
Eric found the first Daily Double in “Figures of Speeches” under the $2,000 clue on the 15th pick. He was in second place with $11,000, only $400 behind Robin’s lead. He bet $4,000 and tried “hands across the America.” That was WRONG.
From a 1988 speech by a presidential candidate: “a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like” this 5-word phrase. show
4 clues later, Robin found the last Daily Double in “Big Words” under the $1,200 clue. In the lead with $12,600, she had $5,200 more than Eric in second place. SHe bet $3,000 and went with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. That was WRONG.
Of the 7 Ancient Wonders, the name of this one from the 200s B.C. reflected its huge size. show
Robin finished in the lead with $14,400. Eric was next with $9,800 and Jason was in third place with $5,200.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
September 13, 2016 was the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth. From Atlas Obscura: “Entries for scrumdiddlyumptious, human bean, golden ticket, oompa loompa, the “witching hour,” and Dahlesque have each been added to the Oxford English Dictionary … making permanent a few of beloved author Roald Dahl’s contributions to the English language.” That is, of course, only a small sampling of Dahl’s “gobblefunk” vocabulary. The OED also put out “The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary”, subtitled “from aardvark to zozimus, a real dictionary of everyday and extra-usual words”
Interesting: Zozimus is defined in the Roald Dahl dictionary as “what dreams are made of.” It is also a name, with a second “z” (as in the nickname of Michael Moran) or with an “s” instead of the second “z” (as in a 5th century Pope)
Jason didn’t have a response. He lost his $4,601 bet and had $599 left.
Eric went with A.A. Milne. That cost him $9,000 and dropped him down to $800.
Robin got it right. She bet $5,201 and won the game with $19,601. Robin Miner-Swartz is the new Jeopardy! champ.
A triple stumper from each round:
LITERATURE ($800) Lila & Elena are pals in this first book of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet
THE NOT-SO-YOUNG SHELDON ($1600) Sheldon by birth, this late stand-up comic played Larry David’s father on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “Authors”
A prefatory poem he wrote to one of his novels tells of “The dream-child moving through a land of wonders wild and new” show
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Honestly, I thought the final was harder than it looked today. When I was watching today I first thought of Milne but I knew he was born way earlier than 1916 and then I thought of C.S. Lewis because I knew he was a British children’s author. But, when Alex said Roald Dahl I thought ohh why didn’t I think of him. Also, I thought today’s game was overall pretty challenging, especially that Sheldon category. There just really isn’t anyone famous named Sheldon except the lovable nerd from The Big Bang Theory.
@Campbellnator, I think one reason Sheldon has been rude in the past ever since he was a kid it’s because of his smart intelligence.
@Campbellnator, I’ve seen 3 of the films based on Dahl’s books but I was watching them with kids and was not a kid myself. I don’t remember much about them. I wonder if the kids do. lol.
For our future reference, wikipedia has a list of British children’s authors who were active between 1900 to 1949, that goes by year of birth. There are only 6 on there who were born in the 20th century and besides Roald Dahl, I only found J! clues for these three:
T.H. White (The Once and Future King, The Sword and the Stone)
Mary Norton (The Borrowers)
Rev. W. Awdry (Thomas the Tank Engine)
For us older folks, there’s always Sheldon Leonard – actor and producer, did both for The Danny Thomas show. Also well known for his turn as a gangster in the Frank Sinatra version of Guys and Dolls. And the namesake for both Sheldon and Leonard on BBT.
Those daily doubles didn’t work out for Eric as he made too many bad guesses today and I was hoping that the remaining contenders knew Roald Dahl. I mean come on, Charlie and the chocolate factory, Matilda, James and the giant peach does that even ring a bell for them VJ? And here I thought they were avid readers. It’s better to start off at the top and work your way to the bottom instead of bouncing around the board.
Not only that, all 3 DDs were missed resulted our third skunking of the season.
I’ve seen all those movies especially Fantastic Mr. Fox, except BFG. I agree with you @Lou, bouncing on the board is idiotic.
There’s a point when bouncing on the board is idiotic.
I thought the “Figures of Speech” daily double was brutal. Although, it was before my time. It’s probably good to be cautious with bets on $2,000 clues when the category is that broad.
I agree, JP. I had a real bad feeling when Eric made that big bet.
LINK: more clues from the game