Jeopardy! tells contestant: a ‘gangster’ is not a ‘gangsta’
Is a gangsta the same as a gangster?
For Nick Spicher, a museum educator from Everett, Washington, it’s no minor matter of dialect. His pronunciation cost him a $1,600 answer on his “Jeopardy!” appearance on Monday, and the show’s decision has since been hotly debated.
The category was “Music and literature before and after,” requiring contestants to link two separate titles by a common word. The clue read: “A song by Coolio from ‘Dangerous Minds’ goes back in time to become a 1667 John Milton classic.”
“What is Gangster’s Paradise Lost,” Spicher answered, seemingly correctly. “Yes,” Trebek responded. But soon, the host delivered bad news. “Our judges have re-evaluated one of your responses a few moments ago, Nick,” Trebek said. “You said ‘gangster’s’ instead of ‘gangsta’s’ on that song by Coolio, so we take $3,200 away from you.”
Indeed, the chart-topping 1995 song is titled “Gangsta’s Paradise,” not “Gangster’s Paradise.” Spicher dropped from first place with $12,000 to second place with $8,800.
In its official blog, “Jeopardy!” offered its explanation.
“Although Nick’s response of ‘Gangster’s Paradise Lost’ was initially accepted, the hard R sound caught the ear of one member of the onstage team, who immediately followed up with a quick check,” the blog post said. “It turns out that ‘gangsta’ and ‘gangster’ are both listed separately in the Oxford English Dictionary, each with its own unique definition. Nick changed not only the song’s title, but also its meaning — making his response unacceptable.”
Sure enough, the Oxford English Dictionary defines gangster as “a member of a criminal gang, esp. one involved in organized crime,” while it defines gangsta as “a member of an urban territorial gang.”
Alison Shapiro, a spokeswoman for the show, said producers did not consider it a matter of pronunciation or dialect.
“Had we accepted ‘gangster,’ the other contestants would have a very good reason to complain, in that the title of the song is ‘Gangsta’s Paradise,’ and we would have accepted something that is not the title,” the producers said, according to Shapiro. “Every ruling we make not only affects the contestant who responded, but their opponents.”
There is a history of “Jeopardy!” judges being sticklers for pronunciation. In 2015, Rob Russell’s game unravelled on a $2,000 Daily Double because he pronounced “foliage” as “foilage,” a common regionalism that was once mocked on “The Simpsons.” In February 2016, Bill Murphy was originally given credit for naming France’s secondbusiest seaport as Le Havre, but it was overturned because he pronounced it in a way that rhymes with the former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre.
In October 2017, the six-time winner Austin Rogers got an $800 question wrong because he pronounced “sherbet” as “sherbert.”
The dispute ended up having little impact on Spicher’s game; he still triumphed.
On Twitter, Spicher appeared to have a sense of humour about it. At first he thought: “Didn’t I say ‘gangsta?’” But he figured they had listened closely enough to come up with a definitive answer.
“They had every right to call me out on it,” he said. “And I will be forever proud of the moment that Alex Trebek taught me how to say ‘gangsta.’”