Re: OT - Jeopardy: Did anyone hear what I heard?

From: Bob Knowlden (nkbob_at_comcast.net)
Date: 07/22/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:40:03 -0400

The French spelling is Bruxelles which, if my dim memories of high school
French (which I completed just before Neil Armstrong did his "Tranquility
Base" thing) don't fail me, would be pronounced broo-zells, to use an
English phonetic spelling.

I've never been off the North American continent, so I have no idea how most
Belgians pronounce the name of their capital. It seems like broo-zells ought
to be good enough for a silly damned quiz show, even if the contestant has
already taken it for more than $1M. Sounds more like they're trying to trip
up the young chap more than speed him on his way. (No, I don't usually watch
Jeopardy. I see it only when I'm visiting my elderly parents. I prefer Wheel
of Fortune, even though I ration myself to one "Where do they GET these
people?" per show.)

Address altered. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"John Steinberg" <seesig@bottom.net> wrote in message
news:210720041945132204%seesig@bottom.net...
> I haven't watched Jeopardy since Art Fleming was replaced by the ever
> so smarmy Alex Trebek, but tonight my wife said you just have to watch
> this kid play.
>
> The kid is Ken Jennings, a 30-year-old software developer from Salt
> Lake City, who has so far won over a million samolians on the program.
>
> One of the questions on tonight's episode was about cities in Belgium.
> Young Ken buzzed in and stammered out an answer that sounded like this:
>
> ``What is Broo-sells?''
>
> No, says Trebeck, the correct answer is Brussels and it's not even
> pronounced as Broo-sells over there....
>
> Did my ears deceive me? Am I having flashbacks to Charles van Doren?
> How could young Ken pronounce it as he had UNLESS he had crib notes and
> just blew the pronunciation!?
>
> Is this the first *** in the armor of a huge new gameshow scam, or am
> I just crazy from the heat?
>
> --
> -John Steinberg
> email: not@thistime.invalid