enthalpy

Thursday, July 22, 2004


More crap on Jeopardy, but this will be the last. I thought this was in interesting take on something that has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Actually, it's a fun idea, when it's being done (well, was being done) by Johnny Carson as Karnak the Magnificent. But on Jeopardy, they just don't follow through with it. Sure, they insist on the answers being in the form of a question, but they don't seem to care whether the questions the contestants come up with could actually be answered by the answer on the blue screen. No matter what answer is presented, the contestants' questions always begin with what is or who is. Never any verb other than is, and never any of the other why words that English provides.
To think that the answer would follow from "the question" is totally absurd, so why force contestants to say "what is" before they give their response? If there's a token phrase they have to regurgitate before answering a question, why not "Ken Jennings delenda est"?



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