Baltimore ‘Jeopardy!’ champ’s scrawl legible enough
The Baltimore resident who won three games of “Jeopardy!” raised some eyebrows among the trivia show’s fans for his messy handwriting on Monday’s show.
Emmett Stanton, 34, who won Friday, Monday and Tuesday before losing Wednesday, is a freelance writer who lives in Mount Vernon.
In response to the clue, “The Governor of Massachusetts wrote, it ‘is a poor document, but a mighty act…wrong in its delay till January, but grand & sublime after all,’ ” Stanton wrote an answer that host Ken Jennings deemed correct: “what is the Emancipation Proclamation?”
Stanton wagered all his money, $8,000, on the Final Jeopardy! question in the category Historic Documents.
However, online commenters took issue with the legibility of Stanton’s response, where he crossed out an attempt to write “proclamation” before rewriting the word again.
Answers don’t need to be spelled correctly “unless the category requires it,” according to the “Jeopardy!” website. Answers to the Final Jeopardy! clue must be phonetically correct.
“Re: the handwriting concerns, conveniently the good folks at ‘Jeopardy!’ have a podcast that has, at various times, gotten into the specifics of how handwriting is adjudicated by the independent legal team that looks at everything borderline on the show,” Stanton wrote in his defense on a recap Reddit thread for Monday’s show.
In an interview Tuesday, Stanton said he initially ran out of room to write the word on the small screen and struggled with the bulky stylus.
Stanton also said “Jeopardy!” has rules and judges in place to adjudicate these kinds of controversies.
“It was definitely vetted by professionals who do this for a living,” he said. “To my knowledge, there wasn’t any complaints from any of the other contestants.”
Plus, he said, schoolteachers reached out to tell him that they found his scrawl perfectly legible.
Previously a digital nomad, someone who
makes a living working online in various locations, Stanton settled in Baltimore 2 ½ years ago when the coronavirus pandemic made a permanent address attractive. Although he occasionally watched the trivia show with his family growing up, Stanton was never a massive fan.
“As an adult, I don’t even own a TV,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen “Jeopardy!” with the sound on until I was on the show.”
To prepare for his appearance, which
was taped about two months ago, Stanton watched the last game of the previous season, plus Jeopardy-themed episodes of the shows “Golden Girls,” “Cheers” and the sports film “White Men Can’t Jump.”
In the shows he appeared on, Stanton is proud that he correctly responded that the currency of Panama is the balboa, named after the Spanish conquistador, a detail he said he remembered from a poem he read as a child. His experience covering the United
Nations for his freelance work came in handy for a question about the flag of Somalia, which is based on the U.N.’s flag.
Stanton said that although he didn’t feel nervous during the show’s taping, watching episodes air has spiked his adrenaline despite knowing the outcome. He was surprised by how many people in his life are avid viewers.
“You don’t realize how much ‘Jeopardy!’ touches people’s lives,” Stanton said.