Final Jeopardy: Shakespeare’s Characters (5-23-23)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (5/23/2023) in the category “Shakespeare’s Characters” was:
Both of the names of these 2 lovers in a Shakespeare play come from Latin words for “blessed”
9x champ Ben Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, WI, has won $252,600 so far, in as many runaways. In Game 10, his challengers are: Danny Leserman, a policy communications manager from Rancho Palos Verdes, CA; and Lynn Di Vito, a retired museum educator from Colorado Springs, CO.
Round 1 Categories: Art Imitating Life – Americana – Assisting the Detective – Book-Pourri – If There Was a Problem – “Yo”, I’ll Solve It
Ben found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Historical Hodgepodge” under the $600 clue on the 9th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $4,200, $3,800 more than Lynn in second place. Ben made it a true Daily Double and said convention. That was WRONG.
Though Geneva is pretty low as Swiss cities go, a Cold War meeting there was the first one called this top-level type show
Ben finished in the lead with $7,200. Denny was second with $1,600. Lynn was last with $1,000. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: Historic People – A Loss for Words – Walking in a Redwood Forest – Pop Culture 2003 – Vacation Spots – Rice Pudding
Lynn found the first Daily Double in “Medicine” under the $1,200 clue on the 6th pick of the round. She was in second place with $7,000 now, $200 less than Ben’s lead. Lynn bet $3,000 and she was RIGHT.
Blood pressure that’s higher in the doctor’s office than at home is referred to as this colorful type of hypertension show
Ben got the last Daily Double in “A Country By Any Other Name” under the $1,600 clue on the 10th pick of the round. He was in second place with $11,200 now, $400 less than Lynn’s lead. Ben bet $3,000 but blanked out so he was WRONG.
In 2022 it changed its official name, adding 2 dots over the “U” & changing the final “EY” to “IYE” show
Ben finished in the lead with $17,400. Lynn was second with $14,800 and Denny was last with $2,400. The $400 in the Country Name category was not shown.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHO ARE BENEDICK & BEATRICE?
Benedick and Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing” are the opposite of Shakespeare’s romantic lovers. We might say they are a great example of the “thin line between love and hate” expression. They had to be tricked into admitting that they really loved each other. Both of their names come from the Latin for “blessed”. Benedick, a variant spelling of Benedict, is from Late Latin Benedictus, literally “blessed”. Beatrice evolved from beatus meaning “happy, blessed”.
On Sporcle: Here’s a Shakespearean Lovers quiz where they spot you the names of the men. Too bad the players didn’t see that earlier.
Danny had Romeo & Juliet. He lost $1,400 and finished with $1,000.
Lynn had the same as Danny. She only lost $3,000, finishing with $11,800.
Ben had it half right with Beatrice & Benedict, but ending the man’s name with a ‘T’ instead of a ‘K’ resulted in a different pronunciation. Ben lost $12,201 and finished with $5,199. That made Lynn Di Vito the new Jeopardy! champ. So Ben’s runaway game streak was not the only thing that ended today but we will see him again in the next ToC.
2 triple stumpersfrom the last round:
A CENTURY OF TIME MAGAZINE COVERS ($400) A 1994 cover story alerted us to “The Strange New World of” this technology, including Gopher from the University of Minnesota
TV SITCOMS BY FAMILY ($1600) Mike Baxter, outnumbered by his wife & 3 daughters
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “Animals”
German settlers in Texas called this animal “panzerschwein” show
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Okay, enough is enough. If you’re mad about the ruling, take it up with the show — the link to the email is at the bottom of the recap.
The clue asked for the two names in the 16th century Shakespeare play. It didn’t ask for the root of the names meaning blessed. Idk why we have to go through this every time there’s a ruling some people don’t like, but it is or should be well known by Jeopardy! viewers that whether a misspelling gets accepted depends on how the pronunciation is affected as well as the discretion of the judges.
Any more comments objecting to the ruling will be deleted.
VJ, Thank you. I guess some people chose not to read your post below which is 100% correct.
Posted by VJ yesterday in case anyone missed it:
[By the way, “Béatrice et Bénédict” is a comic opera by Berlioz first performed in Germany in 1862.]
Well I certainly didn’t complain about the ruling VJ. In fact, only a very few over here did. After all, ‘Benedict’ and ‘Benedick’ are clearly two separate and distinct names. I mean, if I were one of the Jeopardy judges calling the shots, I would have (grudgingly) negated Ben’s response.
Well, in fact, Rick, the last 3 comments were all complaints the day after the show aired. I thought that was enough to represent the people who are unhappy with the ruling.
BullHockey!
French opera of Much Ado About Nothing spells is Benedict. Shouldn’t that count?
Exactly at what point in these games is it allowed to accept incorrect spelling and then not to?? The judges throughly accepted spelling errors earlier in this series of competition!! The root of the name was correct!
Really nice comeback by Lynn, and for once, a wise wager by a challenger.
I was kind of ready to see Ben go, but we’ll see him again someday.
Other than the Cold War meeting DD, which was not difficult, I got skunked on all the other DDs, the listed stumpers, and FJ.
I had the same experience as you with the stumpers, Howard. As for the DDs, I got the first one, my daughter got the second one and we both missed the third! However, I have seen that spelling of Turkey — I just didn’t know it was an official change.
I wonder if the clues on that country will reflect the change henceforth. The Cote d’Ivoire officially changed their name to French in 1986 and made it known that they don’t want to see Ivory Coast or any other translation of the name. I haven’t noticed that affecting Jeopardy! clues.
I had 10 years of French, so I love the name Cote d’Ivoire. We have a local news reporter here from that nation. She speaks beautifully accented English. Name is Christelle Koumoue’.
Well, I said “Beatrice & Benedict”. I’ve seen the play twice, once in London and once with Emma Thompson & Kenneth Branagh), and read it. It never registered that his name was one which I’ve never even heard before! (Except probably in the live plays, where it swooshed over my head that it wasn’t Benedict.) This was a crappy (am I allowed to say that?) final jeopardy. Sort of like that clue a couple of weeks ago where they all gave their best pronunciation of “Solzhenitsyn” (sp?) and were all ruled wrong.
Ben had a minor mistake on Final Jeopardy, although the word “Benedict” is unacceptable. That caused a triple stumper on Final Jeopardy for today. Ben wagered his score down to a score less than Lynn’s score. Lynn becomes the winner, and she’s going to play again tomorrow. Ben will be coming back in the next Tournament of Champions!
Ben(edict) rules, but sadly not tonight 😢 . Tough loss for Ben, and we will forevermore rememember that it’s the ‘dick’ that’s the blessed one in Will’s play 😂
Ugh! I also went with Romeo and Juliet for FJ, but Ben clearly gave it a good shot.
Well done Lynn.
While I think the judges ruled correctly in FJ, I was perplexed on ruling Ben correct on the clam clue in the first round where he tried 2 or 3 times, saying something like “qwags”; considering it is a 2-syllable word – quahogs – I can’t see how all his 1-syllable attempts were acceptable.
I agree, DC. That was just plain weird!!
Strange ending Ben got it right.
Spelling in fj??
Man, Ben was agonizingly close, he had the name spelled Beatrice correctly but he did not give the second correct character name of Benedick but instead spelled with a T at the end instead of the K, meaning he was very properly ruled incorrect. That cost him the game and the title, It also cost him a chance to become a double digit winner. Tough ruling for Ben but this was a 100 percent correct call from the judges. Benedict and Benedick are pronounced differently so that’s why Ben’s response was not accepted. Last week Erica Johnson’s response of Appalachin Trail was accepted while Ben’s response of Beatrice and Benedict was not accepted. So these two responses should be added to the spelling list decisions.
Right, Kevin, I’ll add them later in the week — right now, I have to save my energy for the Masters Tournament recaps tonight and tomorrow!
Thank you. This is like when almost a year ago we had a controversial ruling of Harriet Tubman when Sadie left out an N in Harriet Tubman and was ruled incorrect by the judges.
I don’t think those times are similar at all, Kevin. She ran out of time to complete her response. Ben either forgot the right spelling of Benedick or he always thought it was Benedict.
Ouch. Sorry about that, Ben, but with 9 wins and over $250,000, we’ll see you in the Tournament of Champions.
Well, I thought Ben’s runaways had to end sometime and I had a hunch it would be today. If he had to go out completely though, at least it was with an easy mistake to make.
By the way, “Béatrice et Bénédict” is a comic opera by Berlioz first performed in Germany in 1862