‘Jeopardy!’ contestant gets schooled on how to pronounce ‘Mika Brzezinski’

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“Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, known for being a stickler about pronunciation, wasn’t having it when a contestant pronounced “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski’s name wrong.

• On the Oct. 15, 2019, game, a clue at the bottom of the “TV Morning Shows” category read simply “She co-hosts MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.'”
• The correct response is “Who is Mika Brzezinski?”
• However, contestant Dmitriy Pikovskiy appeared to throw a wrench in things when he rang in and pronounced her name more like “Mike-ah” instead of “Mee-kah.”
• Trebek then appeared on camera saying, “that would be ‘Mika Brzezinski,’ you’re correct.”
• It appears that either a pause in gameplay or a judges’ off screen correction may have been edited out of the episode.
• In general, “Jeopardy!” does not penalize contestants for mispronouncing vowel sounds in responses, though changing it “too much” or meddling with syllables or consonants.