A compendium of Alexisms

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floridagator
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A compendium of Alexisms

Post by floridagator »

I am starting this thread to catalog Alex's quirks, catchphrases, and quotes that might be useful and memorable. I will just list a few and please add to this thread.
  • Now's the time for [x] (when a correct answer comes up that was given as an incorrect answer in the same category)
  • No harm, no foul (when all three contestants get it wrong, notwithstanding that the amount deducted was not necessarily the same proportion of their scores)
  • Oh, no! (when a contestant is wildly Off the Mark in an answer, for example, answering a twentieth-century poet when the clue was going for a Renaissance poet)
  • You picked the right one (implying that the contestant made a wild guess)
  • We were afraid you might say that (when a contestant gives an obvious wrong answer, and Alex suggests that he discussed it with staff ahead of time)
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by TenPoundHammer »

How is "ooh, soary" not the first one on the list?

"Boo hiss" comes to mind as well.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by seaborgium »

Sometimes the writers will be cute and have a category where the correct responses sound like they'd fit a category they actually don't, in a punny way or by some phonetic association, and the category name will be that category they don't actually fit, with a question mark after it. Like a category of words that end in -ium, and the category is called NEW ELEMENTS? because the words are podium and tedium and opprobrium or whatever, or HISTORIC SUPREME COURT DECISIONS? from the 2007 ToC (rerun around last Christmas) which had, for example, "bush v. gore," clued with definitions of those two nouns. Anyway, sometimes there would be categories like that that didn't require as much explanation as the above two and Alex would read them with the question intonation, and add, "I don't know...!" at the end.

Another thing is that sometimes with the first correct response in a category, he'd affirm it by restating (or stating, as the case often was) the thrust of the category. So like if "A" IN SCIENCE was a category and someone got the $200 right with "What are asteroids?" Alex might say, "That begins with A!" (Sometimes if the top row clue was a TS, he might do it in a chiding manner. "What are asteroids? That begins with A...")

Both of these were ideas I've had for Alex moments that could be cues to take a drink in a J! drinking game, but I can't really describe them briefly, so I never posted about them.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by NoWhammies10 »

"S/He's the one" -- when the response refers to a person

"This is a two-day total point affair" -- every tournament final had him say this at least once across the two days

"Good for you!" -- need I say more?
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by nserven »

"You're out of the hole." Alternately, "You're back on the plus side."
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by MarkBarrett »

One that Alex had to say dozens of times: "Our returning champ, Ken Jennings"
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by Bamaman »

[Letter] is in quotation marks. You know what that means.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

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Rabbie Burns
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by twelvefootboy »

I'm not sure it counts as an Alexism when it's just him reading clues and categories, but I think there's a je ne sais quoi factor associated with his pronunciation of "genre". (I never quite got the joke, so maybe this is fake news).
Disclaimer - repeated exposure to author's musings may cause befuddlement.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by bigblue999 »

Let's go to work!
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by Lefty »

"What is Jamaica, Mon".

I was disappointed he never got the chance to say "Now is the time for 'every good man to come to the aid of their country'".
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by nserven »

For way-off geography responses: "You're in the wrong part of the world."
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Before the Jeopardy round: "The easy round. The fun round."
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by The Talking Mime »

Calling wagers "savvy" or "interesting." Most of the time, they were neither.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by Rackme32 »

Not the phrase, but they way he said it... "Stooopid Answers!"
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by Woppy T »

Picked Off wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:56 pm Rabbie Burns
and Dracula
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by clprez »

genre
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

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You ran into a buzzsaw today.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by Robert K S »

clprez wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 1:33 pmgenre
I never understood this one. There was nothing particularly unique or intriguing about Alex's "genre". Just goes to show you can make a meme out of anything.

Am I misremembering, or did Alex Trebek reference the meme during one of the All-Star Games when Alex Jacob was on stage, without acknowledging that Alex Jacob was progenitor of said meme? I must be misremembering, since it seems the meme came in late 2019 and the All-Star games aired in early 2019.
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Re: A compendium of Alexisms

Post by This Is Kirk! »

Referring to younger female contestants as "young lady."
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