JEOPARDY! and host Ken Jennings are getting negative buzz from fans over an overly harsh ruling that some even called “positively disgusting.”

On Wednesday night’s episode, Ken and the judges refused to accept the reigning champ’s answer because it was pluralized.

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Drama ensued during the last clue of Double Jeopardy!, which was in the category “Waterfalls.”

The $2000 clue was, “A Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like a diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.”

Returning champ Kelly Proulx, a communications director from Billerica, Massachusetts, buzzed in with, “What is Bridalveil Falls?”

Unfortunately, she was off by an “s,” and was ruled incorrect.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ken, 50, said. “It’s actually Bridalveil Fall, so we couldn’t take that. It is, ‘What is a Bridalveil?’”

Kelly looked distraught, and her opponent, Isaac Hirsch, could be seen staring at the camera in surprise.

That clue was especially tricky because many Yosemite sites, including Yosemite Falls, Wapama Falls, and Carlon Falls, have the appended “S.”

In addition, she added an “S” to the word “fall,” which wasn’t part of the desired response.

Kelly entered Final Jeopardy in last place with $8,000, Dana Keane had $8,300, and Isaac had a runaway with $18,000.

After Final Jeopardy, Isaac, a customer support team leader from Burbank, California, won out with $19,185 – ending Kelly’s one-day streak.

‘THAT RULING WAS GARBAGE!’

Viewers flooded social media to discuss the ruling; many felt it was unnecessarily harsh.

“Wow, Kelly was robbed. That ruling on Bridal Veil Fall/ Falls was ridiculous,” one Redditor wrote. “Adding the S seems to fall firmly in ‘yea, we’ll take that’ territory.”

“I typically give long and wide deference to the judges, but f–k the judges for that ruling,” another Reddit user posted. “There is nothing pinning the clue to ‘fall,’ so she got the required information correct. That was positively disgusting.”

“Yeesh that’s a brutal call on the last clue,” a third user wrote.

“‘Fall’ was in the clue, so clearly did not need to be said in the response. And yes, people do call it ‘Falls.’ To rule her incorrect there was extremely pedantic,” wrote a fourth.

“And it made the game a runaway. Brutal ruling,” wrote a fifth.

“That ruling was garbage,” a sixth bluntly wrote.

“If she said ‘bridal’s veil,’ I’d probably still be mad but could at least see the argument for not accepting it,” wrote another. “This is beyond the pale of pedantry, imo. Completely unjustifiable and a detriment to the game.”

“If the clue only required you to say “Bridalveil”, why does it matter if Kelly said “fall” or “falls” after?” one more wrote. “People call it ‘Bridalveil Falls’ all the time, including the National Park Service!”

Others were surprised the ruling wasn’t reversed before Final Jeopardy.

“Fully expected to hear ‘before FJ, we have a scoring change…’.”

And, “I have to wonder if there was any stoppage of taping for that ruling. It seems absolutely absurd to me.”

Over on X, another user wrote, “@Jeopardy just cheated champion Kelly by not accepting Bridal Veil Falls because it’s actually ‘Fall’.”

They added, “But they accepted “larynx” for the larynx. Make it make sense.”

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IN-KEN-SISTENT?

As the last internet user recalled, Ken and the judges accepted a blatantly mispronounced word on Monday, which irked some fans.

Matt Brooks, a healthcare IT analyst from Virginia, was leading against Zoe Strassfield and one-day champ Cat Pisacano.

Matt took the $400 Jeopardy! round clue in the “Taking You to School” category.

The clue read, “Anatomy: There are both false & true vocal cords in this hollow, tubular structure, also called the voice box.”

He answered “larnyx,” mispronouncing larynx.

However, host Ken accepted his guess.

“Oh, yes, we will take that,” Ken said, who then repeated the word with the correct pronunciation.

Matt won the game with $10,600, and viewers took to social media to croak about the larynx debacle.

“How in the world did they accept ‘larnyx’ as a correct response for ‘larynx,’ ” one Redditor began a thread.

“They say pronunciation doesn’t count, but they routinely count answers wrong when the spelling and pronunciation don’t go together – ‘larnyx’ is just not a conceivable way to pronounce ‘larynx.’

“We were expecting them to come back and correct the score on that and they didn’t. It really soured the whole game for me.”

Another fan agreed, “Yeah, that was unbelievable. How on earth can that be considered an acceptable answer when, historically, the judges have been total sticklers for pronunciations?”

A third person noted that Cat “was flustered” after that and could have otherwise won the game.

Other fans noted that late host Alex Trebek accepted “larnyx” as an answer in November 1997 and March 2006, explaining that it was “a common pronunciation.”

Jeopardy! airs at 7 p.m. ET—check your local listings.

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