I watch “Wheel of Fortune” to convince myself how smart I am; I watch “Jeopardy!” to prove how little I know about a lot of categories to teach me humility.
How do those people have so much trivial information stashed in their craniums? Or is it crania? And why do they have it in there?
Remember Ken Jennings? Jennings holds the record for the longest winning streak on “Jeopardy!” and is the second highest-earning contestant in American game show history. In 2004, he won 74 games in a row. His total earnings are over $3 million ($2,520,700 for his 74 wins, $2,000 for second place in his 75th appearance, $500,000 for second place in the “Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions,” $100,000 for second place in the “Jeopardy Battle of the Decades,” and half of a $300,000 prize in the IBM Challenge, when he competed against the computer “Watson.”)
How in the heck do you prepare for a show like “Jeopardy!”?
On Ken Jennings’ website, he says this: “Studying up for ‘Jeopardy!’ isn’t like studying up for a bio quiz in eighth grade. ‘Jeopardy!’ can ask you questions on literally any subject from the entire history of all human knowledge, ever. This makes it a little bit hard to cram. That said, there are topics that, ‘Jeopardy!’ fans know, come up time and again on the show: U.S. presidents, world capitals, Shakespeare, and so on. So I made flash cards on topics like these, plus a separate set on cocktail ingredients, since ‘Jeopardy!’ loves their ‘Potent Potables’ category, and I don’t drink. So, after I got The Call, my wife drilled me incessantly on the flash cards for the next month. That February, the only topics of conversation in our house were, for the most part, the presidency and cocktails, the presidency and cocktails, the presidency and cocktails. It was like going to college with George W. Bush.
“Also, I set new nerdiness records by deciding to start watching ‘Jeopardy!’ (a) twice a day, (b) standing up behind my recliner to imitate the podium experience, and (c) hammering my thumb on my toddler’s Fisher-Price ring-stack toy, which I figured was about the same size as the ‘Jeopardy!’ buzzer. I looked and felt like an idiot, but I think it helped.”
Well, I’m sure I’ll never be a contestant on “Jeopardy!” because I know I don’t have the discipline or the “nerdiness” to prepare like Jennings did. So I just watch and answer the occasional question — and never in the form of a question. That’s so weird.
But a few weeks ago, “Jeopardy” had a category called “The state of spelling,” and I ran the board! The idea was to ask a question (whoever decided on that stupid rule?) in which you gave two state abbreviations which made a word that fit the answer. See how confusing that is?
Here’s an example: the answer was “to repair a garment.” The question was “What is MEND?” Get it? The postal abbreviation for Maine is ME and the abbreviation for North Dakota is ND. ME plus ND is MEND!
Well, I got all five of them, but Marilyn disqualified me because I didn’t give my responses in the form of questions! Stupid rule! And one of them was the daily double, too!
So, anyway, word person that I am, I thought this might be a great game for my readers, but I won’t insist that your answers be phrased in the form of questions! If I give you all the official postal abbreviations, how many words can you make?
Here are the abbreviations: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY.
No words — as long as they’re clean! — will be disqualified. You may even use proper names. There’ll be special honorable mention recognition for words which are more than four letters long or if you come up with something using TN, TX or WV! So go for it! You don’t have to buzz in. Send me your lists.
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