She was close. But as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
On an episode of āWheel of Fortuneā last week, a contestant barely missed out on solving a puzzle after she gave a broken English version of the phrase.
The show has had a history of brutal defeats for contestants who couldnāt quite offer the right answer.
Whether it was the college āWheel of Fortuneā episode where a student lost his chance at $1 million over not being able to pronounce Achilles or the contestant who confused flamenco and flamingo, getting the answer exactly on the dot is important.
That same demand for precision persists today.
During a show that aired Thursday, most of the letters for the phrase āknock it out of the parkā were visible on the board. Player Amanda Morris proudly declared sheād like to solve the puzzle.
However, she couldnāt quite muster the correct words.
Morris provided the answer of āknock it out the park,ā omitting the crucial preposition āof.ā Host Pat Sajak informed her she was unfortunately not correct and called on the next contestant.
Kerry Ruiz, the gameās eventual winner, pronounced the phrase correctly.
Some users on social media were upset the game show didnāt give Morris some leeway.
āThatās messed up, they should of given it to her!ā one user wrote.
However, the majority of users praised the show for enforcing grammatically correct English.
āPat Sajak is a national hero,ā one user wrote.
āThank you, Wheel of Fortune, for preserving the English language,ā another watcher posted.
While perhaps in other aspects of life forgetting a single word can be glossed over, puzzles and games wouldnāt be right that way.
What if Wordle gave you the right answer for only getting four letters? If a jigsaw puzzle was complete with 99 percent of the pieces?
Thereās a right and a wrong solution; unfortunately, this contestant gave the wrong one.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.