It all came down to a single syllable on Jeopardy!‘s Tournament of Champions quarterfinal on Thursday (January 30).
The episode featured Tennessee political organizer Will Stewart, Ohio-based systems administrator Ryan Manton, and Washington software engineer Mehal Shah competing for a coveted spot in the semifinals, and they all came to play.
Things got off to a solid enough start for Shah, who nabbed the first Daily Double and correctly identified hummingbirds as the answer to the clue, “These avians can rotate their wings to generate lift while flapping both up & down, enabling them to hover in the air.” He had a couple of incorrect answers but still led the pack at the halfway mark with $4,200 to Manton’s $4,000 and Stewart’s $2,200.
Then, the second round saw Stewart and Manton soar past Shah to nearly double his score each. Manton nabbed both Daily Doubles and got both right. (In the category “Communication,” he correctly named Estonian as the answer to, “The Baltic-Finnic languages include Finnish & this national language spoken due south across the Viro Strait,” and doubled his $7,400. Then in the category “Authors,” he knew that Babbitt was the character described as, “Sinclair Lewis created this guy, a symbol of materials conformity; Matthew Broderick played him on stage in 2024.” For the latter, though, he only wagered $100.)
Heading into Final Jeopardy, Will Stewart and Ryan Manton were neck and neck with $14,900 and $14,400 respectively, with Mehal Shah trailing behind with $7,400. The latter was still very much in it, though, so Final Jeopardy was clutch, especially given the closeness of the two highest scores — a miscalculated wager could change the dynamics entirely.
In the category “Latin Phrases,” the Final Jeopardy clue was: “After Camillagate, a fire at Windsor Castle & marriage problems in her family, Queen Elizabeth II dubbed 1992 this.” The answer, of course, is annus horribilus, and only Shah seemed to know it… but there was a big problem. He misspelled his answer by writing, “What is an Annus Horriblis?” and because the typo also removed a syllable from the answer, it was counted as wrong.
Shah had wagered $7,001, which meant if he’d just gotten the other “i” in there, he would’ve won. Alas, Manton (who incorrectly guessed “What is annum no grata”) wagered small and lost just $501, leaving him with $13,899 and a ticket to the semifinals because Stewart’s incorrect answer (“What is anno terribilis”) was much more costly at a loss of $14,900 and a total score of $900.
After the episode, Stewart took to Reddit to lament his Final Jeopardy results, writing, “My high school Latin teacher liked my Facebook post about my appearance on this episode. I’ve already mentally composed a heartfelt apology for letting him down.”
Meanwhile, fans on the same thread pointed to the rule book to assure other viewers that the decision to mark Shah’s answer wrong — despite him clearly knowing the answer — was the right move on the producers’ part. Referencing the official rule that while incorrect spelling doesn’t invalidate an answer, it still needs to be “phonetically correct and not add or subtract any extraneous sounds or syllables,” one commenter wrote, “Leaving out the middle ‘i’ in ‘horribilis’ drops a syllable. The show was correct to rule against Mehal’s response.”
Another added, “Ugh, one of those ‘tough but ultimately fair’ rulings for the FJ response…. I think the debate over this clue is more if it should have been in this ToC or Masters instead.” The user went on to say, though, “Will definitely deserves kudos for leading before FJ, and Mehal was this close to a come from behind win. All three players definitely made it a close game!”
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