Hi everyone,
Longtime fan, first-time poster here. I had a question regarding J’s rules for names in responses.
For English names, the judges will most often accept a last name (like ‘Washington’) but not the first name by itself (you can’t just say ‘George’).
Does the same apply to non-English names? I ask because my local station aired an episode from January 2018 recently (they show random episodes on Saturdays) where there was a world leader category in the first round. The correct response for the $1,000 clue was ‘Deng Xiaoping’. But champion Gilbert Collins gave the response as ‘Xiaoping’ to which Alex responded, ‘Yes, Deng Xiaoping’ and Collins was awarded the $1,000.
For anyone who’s unsure about the issue, Deng Xiaoping follows the Chinese convention of putting the family name first so ‘Deng’ is the surname while ‘Xiaoping’ is his given name. What happened in this clue is the equivalent of the player saying ‘George’ and Alex responding with, ‘Yes, George Washington’.
Having a Chinese name myself (a particularly tricky one at that), I realize that Asian names can be a challenge for folks who aren’t familiar with them. Having said that, this is Jeopardy! we’re talking about with its vaunted research staff. Did none of the researchers catch this? Or is the rule that given names are accepted for responses involving the surname first convention?
I wouldn’t think the latter is true but at the same time struggle to think of another instance where this has happened. My first instinct was to think that this was just a case of Alex and the judges dropping the ball and not realizing that they accepted a first name as a correct response. But maybe there’s a rule I don’t know about. Can anyone clarify?
