Devoted fans of the long-time TV game show “Wheel of Fortune “—“You know, morons!”— are enraged, as least based on the uproar on social media, because the puzzle board above foiled a competitor in the “bonus round,” costing him a car.
David Shepard of Atlanta, Georgia, was the unfortunate contestant. The pop culture media seems to think it’s relevant that he’s a cancer survivor. It isn’t. If the puzzle was unfair, then it was just as unfair whether he was cancer survivor, Sydney Sweeney, a convicted felon or Eric Swalwell. The amplified fury is another example of “toxic empathy,” as well as ethics ignorance.
But back to the issue at hand:
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is that puzzle unfair?
I can’t tell you the answer, because if you know it on your own, it will probably influence your answer to the quiz. According to TV Insider, fans of the show are screaming that “nobody uses that word” and that it was part of a conspiracy to avoid giving away a $50,000 Audi. I didn’t solve the puzzle in the time allowed ( I tried before my coffee) but I certainly know the word. “Have you ever heard that phrase? Let us know in the comments,” asks TV Insider.
Take me now, Lord.
And it’s a word, not a “phrase.”
On the side of the protesters as much as I can stand to be, that puzzle reminds me of the gag in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” where the mystical keeper of “The Bridge of Death” asks three easy questions of one of King Arthur’s Knights (“What is your name? What is your quest? What’s your favorite color?”) then replaces the color question with “What is the capital of Assyria?” for Sir Robin (who is magically flung into the gorge) and “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” for King Arthur.
Nonetheless, it is a real word, and the show never promised that its puzzles could all be solved by people who never progressed beyond Junior Scrabble…
Post Script: According to the AI bot I just asked, the average airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is about 24 miles per hour, or 11 meters per second. Of course, that answer could be completely made up, and I don’t care enough to check.
Ethics Alarms 
I got it, but I wasn’t sure that was it. A quick search shows this happens a few times/year at least. I have more sympathy for the ‘cashew milk’ answer since milk does not come from cashews. I have more sympathy for coconuts, since they are almost mammals. Don’t believe me?
‘Hairy’?
‘Hard Skeleton’?
‘Give Milk’?
See, almost a mammal…ouch…ow… Biologists are throwing things at me now.
Took me awhile but I think I got it.
That’s hard but it’s a much more common word than it used to be.
It’s also borderline a stupid made up word.
Wow. Supposedly has been in use since 1610.
But it’s definitely a word that hit corporate board rooms in the 2010s as the latest cool guy buzzword.
I sent the screen to my long-time friend who is a word geek and read the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary for recreation as a child. Here’s his response:
“Ideating” is the simplest, most obvious, and (likely) only correct answer. Not the most commonly known word, but hardly obscure. It’s been in use since at least 1610, and in frequent use since the late 19th century. See the graph at
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ideate_n?tl=true
Too brainy for Wheel of Fortune? Probably, but then again – what isn’t?
Just glad to know I’m not the only weirdo who read a dictionary as a kid.
I looked it up. I don’t care. Bite me.
If this is the final puzzle at the end of the game, yes, it is unethical. They all are. They used to let players pick all of their letters and vowels. Now, they give you a set of vowels and consonants and you get to pick a couple. That rigs the game against the player. The puzzle-master can pick words and phrases that don’t use the standard letter choices to make solving it extremely hard.
I heard they made that change because so many contestants picked the same letter and it saved time. However, it ruined that part of the show for me because the puzzle-master should not know in advance what the letters are going to be.
-Jut
The puzzle isn’t unfair in the least. I know the word as well and have heard it used, though I wouldn’t have guessed from those letters had I been given 10 minutes to solve it. Remember Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life”? In that show, contestants had a chance to “say the magic word and split $100. It was a common word, one you use nearly every day.”
“Wheel of Fortune” is not that. The final prizes are substantial, up to and including $1 million. As a consequence, the final puzzle should not be easy. Plus, contestants get fully one third of the alphabet revealed as either in the solution or not. And much of that final round’s success comes down to the luck of the individual picking well his/her 3 letters and a vowel. So some skill and some good fortune in somewhat equal measure.
And frankly, the “cancer survivor” part is just people george-floyd’ing all over the situation. They highlight some unrelated aspect of the individual and use that to create sympathy where none is needed. George Floyd lost…and he was a loved family man. Michael Brown lost…and he was a young man, recently graduated, who begged not to be shot. The “Wheel of Fortune” guy lost…and he was a cancer survivor. He should have just been handed the keys to a car.