Jeopardy fans can’t believe Ken Jennings accepted mispronunciation of ‘larynx’ as correct response

Everyone’s favorite answer-and-question quiz show sparked controversy this week when host Ken Jennings accepted a mispronounced response from a contestant who went on to win the game.

While playing the $400 clue in the “Taking You to School” category, contestant Matt Brooks responded with an odd pronunciation. The clue read, “Anatomy: There are both false & true vocal cords in this hollow, tubular structure, also called the voice box.”

Brooks answered “larynx” but pronounced it like “lare-uh-nix,” to which Jennings hesitantly replied, “Oh, yes, we will take that,” while also restating the word with the correct pronunciation.

‘Jeopardy’ contestant Matt Brooks.ABC

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It wasn’t the first time the show allowed for that variation of pronunciation: The same utterance was accepted on Nov. 14, 1997, and March 27, 2006. In the case of the 1997 episode, the score was adjusted after judges decided that the pronunciation was acceptable. And in 2006, then-host Alex Trebek even noted that it was “a common pronunciation.”

But that didn’t stop debate from raging online this week, particularly on a lively Jeopardy Reddit thread where users complained about the lack of consistency in rules.

“How in the world did they accept ‘larnyx’ as a correct response for ‘larynx?'” asked one redditor. “They say pronunciation doesn’t count, but they routinely count answers wrong when the spelling and pronunciation don’t go together — ‘larnyx’ is just not a conceivable way to pronounce ‘larynx.; We were expecting them to come back and correct the score on that and they didn’t. It really soured the whole game for me.”

‘Jeopardy’ host Ken Jennings.Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty Images

Debate raged, with some fans pointing out that Brooks’ pronunciation could be a regional variation, with suggestions that it was the common way to say the word in the American South or Midwest.

But the main issue was that there is no clear-cut ruling when it comes to regional dialects or variations. Another redditor pointed out that contestants have previously been dinged for mispronouncing words such as “sherbet” and “foliage.”

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“I would like to see a rule that’s more consistent so one region’s regional pronunciations don’t wind up ruled OK while others are ruled against,” one fan chimed in. “Specifically, either a correct pronunciation or one that is consistent with the spelling in a phonetic way.”

Despite the kerfuffle, Brooks went on to win Monday night’s game with $10,600.