Pedant Potables and Errant Quotables of the Politically Notable
Yes, I'll take This Personally for $600 please, Kenneth.
It’s the little things that count, people say. I hate most things that people say, but in this case they have a point. That is, if you think of it negatively. It’s the little things that count toward the apocalypse. Also the big things, but whatever. The point is, every small annoyance can be a big one if you let it. And I do.
Today that annoyance is Jeopardy! clues, for starters.
At the Howe house, we usually watch Jeopardy during dinner. And when there’s no new episode because it’s a weekend or summer or YouTube TV is being a dick, we’ll watch an old one, and that often triggers pet peeves about the show that come up over and over and over again. The other day, that trigger was the insidious use of regional pronunciations when covering rhymes or homophones or whatever the case.
I know, this seems trivial (ugh), but I’m certain I can derive some larger meaning from this so just go with me here for a minute. I’m rolling, as I think the kids say.
It’s best to explain this by specific example, obviously. Here’s the one that caught my eye the other day.
The category: Sounds Just Like An Animal.
The clue: “Synonym for ‘pawn’, as in ‘my jewelry is in…’”
The answer?
HOCK. Which they say sounds like HAWK. Which makes me want to hork.
There are other examples with varying degrees of offense. Dents and dense is understandable, though I personally can say and hear the T in the first. “Trussed” and “trust” may sound mostly the same but there is a difference between a T and a D and most of the time, you should say it. “Knotty” and “naughty” or “not” and “naught” bug me. The “au” and “aw” sound is always blurred away by Jeopardy.
The biggest offender, though, and one that has driven me insane forever, is the show constantly insists “caulk” or “chalk” rhyme with “block” or “sock.” Or worse, treat it as a homophone of “cock.” SAAHK. CAAHHK. So hawk, hock, caulk, cock, and mock are all perfect rhymes. Madness. What they all actually rhyme with is “anarchy.”
I don’t know when the show started exclusively hiring cab drivers from the Bronx to write their clues but come on with this.
When I was a kid in Texas, my fourth grade teacher was covering homophones and homonyms. Now, most of the kids in the class were Texan, or Southern, or just not from Chicago. Unlike Ms. Fourth Grade Teacher. She wrote a word on the board and asked us to name its homophones.
We gave her the word “pour” and the word “pore” but, for the life of us, could not come up with another.
After a few minutes, and with an expression of surprise at our failure to produce the answer, she finally wrote this on the board.
She tapped it with the chalk. We all looked at each other and then said “paw” the way it’s pronounced, like “naw” or “jaw.” But our Chicago teacher interrupted saying “what’s this ‘paw’?” She then pronounced each of them for us.
Poo-uh, poo-uh, poo-uh, and poo-uh.
Broo-uh. I mean, it’s hard to give you the sound of it by typing, but suffice it to say those are only homophones if you are from a certain part of the country. And the same is true of “cock” and “hawk.” If you call them homophones, in my part of the country I might respond with “y’ain’t from rount heah, ah yuh?”
Here’s the thing though. It’s more than just a regional accent hilariously showing up in a classroom. Jeopardy clues are more like signpost. A warning sign, even.
COMMENCE SOAPBOX: It’s the Borg. It’s the monoculture and its elite adherents. Its Coastals telling Flyover how to “tahk” in addition to how to think and how to vote and how to diversity and how to socialism. AIN’T IT!
That’s not to say there’s a Grand Conspiracy afoot in game shows. But there is something here. Something beyond bad clue writing or America’s general acceptance of “good enough” as good enough in communication.
The way this wedges into a bigger point isn’t enforcement of uniformity but the *presumption* of it. In the “elite” culture that permeates every facet of daily American life, that writes and produces TV shows and movies, that delivers the news and interviews politicians, that crafts Jeopardy clues and decides what holidays Google and Disney will celebrate — in that mass-produced and homogenized reality, they all just know that Democrats are the good guys deep down, and Republicans aren’t. Being a liberal progressive is what good and smart people do. Being religious and conservative is what bad people or dumb people do.
If you’ve seen it, then you see it. Everywhere. It doesn’t require explanation.
Now, am I saying that Jeopardy (especially under Jennings) isn’t just home to paw-ly written definitions, imprecise clues, and pronunciation bias, but is actually subtly using subversive Jedi mind tricks to reinforce that Rich Men North of Richmond, Democrat, Coastal Elite worldview to 1984 us into a Newspeak boot stamping our faces forever?
No, of course not. I wouldn’t say it outright like that. But hey, I can’t help what you think I’m saying. It’s hard to get a precise meaning across, you know? What with everyone using inexact rhymes and whatnot.
The fact that we have a *default* viewpoint in the United States is something that liberal progressives decried when they thought that view was Catholic or Protestant or “White.” But what they said was objection in principle was actually just a viewpoint dispute. They don’t mind the principle of establishing a moral code. They just want to be the ones who do it.
See? I knew I could shoehorn in some larger complaint! And hey, maybe imprecisely rhyming hawk and hock isn't the apocalypse. Maybe the whole point of my new feature is to complain about small things and treat them like some kind of sign of the End Times because it amuses me.
Maaybe.
But then again, it's the little things that count. I mean, that's what people say! Right?