I love the WHEEL, but recently it was wrong.
Back in December, a contestant on WHEEL OF FORTUNE was presented with the puzzle “SE_EN S_ _NS A-S_ _MM _NG” under the clue “Living Things.” The contestant, Renee, correctly guessed “Seven Swans A-Swimming.” She pronounced the phrase as “Seven Swans A-Swimmin” to which Sajak responded “no” and moved to the next contestant who guessed it correctly. Who was wrong here?
Linguistically the final sound in “swimming” is NOT /g/. The final sound is a phoneme (smallest unit of sound) that is written this way: / ŋ/. This is the sound you hear when you say “swing” or “ring” it is not the /g/ that you hear in “flag” or “dog”.
So, take that Pat Sajak, you are incorrect and Rene was correct with the spelling but pronounced it incorrectly according to her own dialect. Is that a wrong response? She backed it up with the proper spelling. In this case, I believe two wrongs do make a right response!
Give her the win.
Order yours now!