Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Robert K S
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

opusthepenguin wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 5:17 pm Neither is your rule. Unless you're saying we should accept any abbreviation that anyone uses in any capacity. I've explained that I draw the line at specialist abbreviations vs those used by everyone when talking about the subject. Surely you can understand that even if you disagree.
All you're doing there is reducing the game to what fields you consider sufficiently specialist and what fields you don't. By your rule, Brown v. Board of Education would be held wrong while Brown vs. Board of Education would be held right.
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Mathew5000 »

nserven wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:54 am
Mathew5000 wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 4:24 am In explaining her answer, Reshima said "I started to write Thailand" which could be why the judges ruled her wrong. If instead she had stated "It's the abbreviation for Thailand", the ruling might have gone in her favour.
I'm imagining a scenario in which Reshima enters FJ in second place, starts to write "The Philippines," getting only to the first H, and then having the third-place player's response of Thailand revealed as correct. Then Reshima says her Th was intended as an abbreviation for Thailand.

There's a problem with the game if we are simply left to judge responses based on contestants' stated intentions. And Th. is far from universally recognized as, say, UK for United Kingdom.
I agree that a contestant's "stated intention" about what they were going to write is irrelevant. But contestants can "argue their case" for the answer they wrote being correct. Example, recently one contestant tried to write "Who is CURIE" but the C was kind of odd-shaped and to me it looked like "Who is LURIE". The contestant is permitted to say, "That's a C; there's a little curl at the top of the letter" and the judges can examine what was written to see if there really is enough of a curl. Similarly a contestant can argue "What I wrote is a valid abbreviation for the response you are looking for." In this particular case, because of Reshima's statement it probably never occurred to Alex or the judges that "Th" is the internationally recognized standard abbreviation for "Thailand".
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Robert K S wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:48 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 5:17 pm Neither is your rule. Unless you're saying we should accept any abbreviation that anyone uses in any capacity. I've explained that I draw the line at specialist abbreviations vs those used by everyone when talking about the subject. Surely you can understand that even if you disagree.
All you're doing there is reducing the game to what fields you consider sufficiently specialist and what fields you don't.
As are you. Or, and I repeat, do you believe that they should accept any abbreviation at any level of specialization or obscurity, provided there is a single attestation to it somewhere? If not, then you are also drawing a line. If you're willing to admit that you're drawing a line that also requires some interpretation, then we're just differing on where the line is. If you're not willing to admit that, there's no way to continue this conversation.
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

opusthepenguin wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:56 pmdo you believe that they should accept any abbreviation at any level of specialization or obscurity, provided there is a single attestation to it somewhere?
I think that would be the summary of my position, yes, with the proviso that the abbreviation must, of course, be unambiguous within the scope of the field of the expected response. Perhaps the judges will not be aware of or prepared for all such abbreviations, but if it matters to the outcome, the contestant should have an argument to return.

To answer an earlier question, I don't believe the letter F alone would be an acceptable abbreviation for Ford outside the context of stock symbols, notwithstanding the fact that the NYSE stock symbol for Ford Motor Company is F, because "F" is not unambiguous for Ford. Other auto companies also begin with F: Ferrari and Fiat (or Fiat Chrysler, if you prefer), to name just two extant.
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Robert K S wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 10:56 am
opusthepenguin wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:56 pmdo you believe that they should accept any abbreviation at any level of specialization or obscurity, provided there is a single attestation to it somewhere?
I think that would be the summary of my position, yes, with the proviso that the abbreviation must, of course, be unambiguous within the scope of the field of the expected response. Perhaps the judges will not be aware of or prepared for all such abbreviations, but if it matters to the outcome, the contestant should have an argument to return.

To answer an earlier question, I don't believe the letter F alone would be an acceptable abbreviation for Ford outside the context of stock symbols, notwithstanding the fact that the NYSE stock symbol for Ford Motor Company is F, because "F" is not unambiguous for Ford. Other auto companies also begin with F: Ferrari and Fiat (or Fiat Chrysler, if you prefer), to name just two extant.
Ok, how about the IAU abbreviations for planets? You're ok with contestants writing J for Jupiter, S for Saturn, U for Uranus, H or Me for Mercury, E or T for Earth?

What about abbreviations used only in 4chan or by a group of 5 nerds who used to play D&D together back in the 80s and one of them documented their abbreviations online? That would seem to fall within the scope of "a single attestation to it somewhere". Heck, if one of them just wrote the abbreviations down in a notebook and one of the judges is aware of that notebook, that should count.

I think we need a more restrictive approach which will unavoidably involve judgment calls about where the line is.
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Robert K S »

opusthepenguin wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:28 am I think we need a more restrictive approach which will unavoidably involve judgment calls about where the line is.
As long as you're not one of those guys who says it's not enough to say "Sgt. Pepper"
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Robert K S wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 3:44 pm
opusthepenguin wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:28 am I think we need a more restrictive approach which will unavoidably involve judgment calls about where the line is.
As long as you're not one of those guys who says it's not enough to say "Sgt. Pepper"
Nope, not me. Totally acceptable. Nice to end on a point of agreement. :)
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Bamaman »

Suppose the FJ category is Presidents and at the last few seconds you figure out they want Eisenhower. Not enough time to write that so you put down “Who is Ike”?

Would you accept that?
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Bamaman wrote: Sat Sep 26, 2020 12:45 pm Suppose the FJ category is Presidents and at the last few seconds you figure out they want Eisenhower. Not enough time to write that so you put down “Who is Ike”?

Would you accept that?
For me, that's an edge case where I'd rely on precedent. If the archive had an advanced search function, we could search for "Ike" in the answer field. Absent that, I don't recall Ike being accepted when the expected response was Eisenhower, so I'd vote no. Same with "Dutch" for Reagan, "Old Hickory" for Jackson, "Slick Willy" for Clinton, and "Tricky Dick" for Nixon.

Is there any presidential nickname that generally gets accepted? I know the show accepts the initialisms FDR, JFK, and LBJ. And that's it. Similar abbreviations are no doubt used and attested by presidential trivia enthusiasts--RMN, WHH, DDE, RR, TR etc. But I don't think the show accepts those. RMN seems to be an untested edge case. Maybe TR as well.

EDIT: The following Google search seems to do what I'm asking for:

site:www.j-archive.com/showgameresponses.php ike

Result, "Ike" was accepted as a correct response one time... as Mike's partner in the fruit-flavored candy.
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Re: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

opusthepenguin wrote: Sat Sep 26, 2020 1:33 pm Is there any presidential nickname that generally gets accepted?
I'd throw in Bush Sr/Jr, even though they aren't (Bush 41/43 are kinda nicknames).
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