‘Jeopardy!’: Mayim Bialik Admits She Mispronounces 5 Words per Show
On Jeopardy!, host Mayim Bialik appears like she knows all the answers and categories by heart. That’s just the magic of editing, Bialik says. She admits she actually mispronounces five words over the course of every taping for the half-hour game show. They just only use the take where she says it correctly.
Bialik was a guest on the Wild Ride with Steve-O podcast on March 17. As they discussed her hosting duties on Jeopardy!, Bialik dispelled the illusion that she understands the questions as well as the contestants.
On ‘Jeopardy!’ Mayim Bialik often has to learn new words
In order to keep the Jeopardy! contestants stumped, they have to offer clues with some big words. Bialik knows a lot of big words. She had a Ph.D in neuroscience, but she doesn’t know all of them. Fortunately, Jeopardy! is not live. When she messes up, she can try again. Actually, she can try until she gets them right.
“Keep in mind you’re watching an edited show meaning I mess up pronunciations all the time,” Bialik said on Wild Ride with Steve-O. “On average, five things per episode we have to redo. So when it all comes together, it looks like ‘Oh, she pronounces [everything].’ I mess up things all the time.”
Sometimes the simplest words stump Mayim Bialik on ‘Jeopardy!’
It’s not always big words that stump Bialik. Sometimes regular English language words trip her up. That’s just the nature of hosting, Bialik said. Bialik became one of the guest hosts of Jeopardy! after Alex Trebek’s death. She’s continued to host as the game show decides on a permanent host. In the meantime, Bialik is talking for so long, taping multiple Jeopardy! episodes every day, so she gets tired.
“Sometimes I mess up totally normal words in the language that I was raised speaking just because it’s a lot of words and you’re talking for hours and hours and hours,” Bialik said. “So just sometimes your brain gets slower than the words trying to come out.”
Foreign languages can sometimes make things easier
Sometimes Jeopardy! clues require foreign pronunciations. Bialik marveled at legendary host Trebek’s French pronunciations, because he was French-Canadian. Bialik said she has some language specialties of her own that help her with some of the difficult Jeopardy! words.
“I read Italian words, okay?” Bialik said. “I do pretty good. The one thing that is hard for me is French. I’m a Spanish speaker, so if something’s in Spanish. Or I know Italian is not the same thing as Spanish, but those I get. But French, there are letters that are there for no apparent reason. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to know not to pronounce some and you do pronounce others. So French is the hardest for me and I think everyone knows that.”
