Call it Bad Luck or Cheating, the fact is that Paul Atkinson lost a million dollar over bad pronunciation on one of the most popular game shows ‘Wheel of Fortune’.Paul was thrilled when his spin landed on the slim One Million spot, padded by the Bankruptcy spots on both sides, on the show’s 31st season premiere. However, he was unaware that his triumphant smile wouldn’t last too long. Paul attempted to solve the puzzle and he chose the letter ‘C’ and there were three words: CORNER CURIO CABINET.
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Things looked bright but the word CURIO did not come out quite right; rather it did not ‘sound’ quite right. After a long pause, the judges pressed the wrong answer button and the puzzle was passed on to Paul’s neighbor, who pronounced the three words correctly. Paul was absolutely shocked but later showed positive attitude towards his “missed-fortune”. Host, Pat Sajak later joked saying “Sometimes your mouth says what your brain doesn’t intend for it to”. Paul though sad took the whole situation sportingly.
This isn’t the first time that a contestant lost a fortune over “mispronunciation”. In one of last year’s episodes, contestant Renee Durrett was declared incorrect when she did not pronounce the letter “G” in the puzzle ‘Seven-Swans-A-Swimming’ which cost her $4000 and she lost the game. But that was not all. In one of the following episodes, contestant Michael Rufus won $4600 despite having missed the letter “D’ in the word ‘smoked’ in the puzzle ‘Hickory-Smoked Country Ham’. The rulings were contradictory and a lot of questions were raised. However, the show did not comment on Rufus’s ruling.
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Paul’s incident made the fans and viewers irate and they felt that he show cheated Paul of his ‘Fortune’. So for all those who want to participate on the game-show: make sure that you practice your spellings and pronunciations before you spin the ‘Wheel’.
