Some contestants phrase every question with "What is...?" Matt Amodio is well known for doing this. He won many times.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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Which is technically correct, since you are answering "What is [the answer]?"
That's a super smart strategy. It reduces the amount of thinking required and speeds up your ability to answer.
There was one funny episode of celebrity jeopardy where an actor responded to the answer with ....
"The Eiffel Tower ... what's that?"
Everyone laughed but at the time, Alex Trebek had to wait for the judges to be able to accept that response. And the celebrity actor continued to respond in the same way for the rest of the show.
What if your intonation just made it sound like a question?
"The Eiffel Tower?"
lol ... I know several young people who practically speak as if everything they say is a question.
Hello? .... I went to the store? ... in the car? ... with my friends?
This is called "uptalk," and it's most famously associated with the "valley girl" culture of 1980s Southern California. Many of those people are now pushing 60 years old
What's uptalk?
Not much, what about you?
It might have originated there in the 80s but I live in northern Ontario in Canada and things tend to take a while to percolate through to our part of civilization.
While hilarious, i can't find a trace of that on a web search
I used to watch jeopardy on a daily basis in the late 90s, early 2000s. My wife's mother loved watching the show every night and we even kept score with one another to make our own guesses. My wife's mom was a really bright lady, well read and a great mind. She won in our group most nights.
I remember watching this episode and thought it was funny .... I'll have to search for it as well.
Don't waste too much energy on it, it's really not a big deal. I can totally believe that it happened but that it's not something that would ever turn up on a websearch
The only hard rule is that it be phrased as a question, which implies the rest of the phrasing is irrelevant as long as the answer is in the question. In your example, “Who is the Eiffel Tower?”describes it incorrectly but correctly names the tower and should be accepted, but “What is that famous tower in Paris, France?” describes the correct answer but is missing the critical answer and should not be accepted. Also, who/what/etc. is not required to be part of the question.
What’s ... in a question? The rules state, “...all contestant responses to an answer must be phrased in the form of a question.” It’s that simple. Jeopardy! doesn’t require that the response is grammatically correct. Further, the three-letter name of a British Invasion rock band can be a correct response all by itself (“The Who?”), and even “Is it...?” has been accepted. So, Matt Amodio’s no-frills approach is unique but well with guidelines. https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/behind-scenes/what-are-some-questions-about-jeopardy
Whoa - “Is it the Eiffel Tower” is professional level…
Fun fact of the day! Thanks!
I can't speak for the official rules, but I swear I've heard "What is..." in times when that's not the most appropriate response.
It sure feels like "in the form of a question" is more important than if the question itself makes grammatical sense.
“How about the Eiffel Tower?”
As others have already mentioned the response just has to be in the form of a question. If you forget in the first round you get a pass and a reminder to "remember your phrasing". Then in double jeopardy if you forget, you'll be ruled incorrect.
Another fun fact is that if the correct response is already in the form of a question, you don't have to add anything. For instance "who's afraid of virginia woolf?" would be accepted as a correct response.
I've also seen a few instances of people unintentionally posing a question and it being accepted. Something along the lines of "oh, uhhh, is it Edward Albee?"
Also the question doesn't have to fit the clue. People often use "where is..." for places, but the clue is almost never describing the location of the place.
You have to answer questions in the form of a question. This is a requirement in Jeopardy, and has been since its beginning.
In case of the question, the answer should be "What is the Eiffel Tower?", but that's a grammatical thing.
only if you want to get paid.
You have to phrase it as a question to get the money. When you buzz in you get something odd like 7 seconds to answer the question. If you just say "Eiffel Tower" then Ken Jennings will now probably just stare at you expectingly to rephrase your reply in that time. I think in the past Alex Trebek may have prompted candidates to rephrase their non-question answers but I haven't seen that happening in a while (but I don't watch it that regularly either so 🧂).
The whole point of the show is that the standard quiz show mechanic question->answer gets put on its head. The clue on the wall is the answer and the candidates have to provide a question it answers.
Jeopardy isn’t asking questions, it is giving answers. The contestants need to figure out and provide the correct question to the answer given.
I’d imagine “who is the Eiffel Tower” would be wrong because that question doesn’t make sense.