Wheel of Fortune is, at its essence, a game show about words and how they fit together. So, it would spell trouble and be ironic if a puzzle contained a mistake, even if it were minor. Two months into Ryan Seacrest’s host era, attentive fans spotted a puzzle with a not strictly correct spelling of the beloved Thanksgiving food “Cornbread.”
On Thursday, November 21’s episode, the players were presented with a three-word “Food & Drink” puzzle. Lisa, a hunter and fisher from Starkville, Mississippi, got control of the wheel after another player incorrectly called for a “K.” She picked an “N” and “C,” at which juncture the puzzle read as, “‘CORN’ ‘_READ’ ‘ST_ _ _ _ N_’.
Lisa, who would go on to win the episode and the bonus round for an impressive $54,657, requested to solve it. She did so correctly as “Corn Bread Stuffing.” Vanna White displayed the full puzzle with the former two words separated and without a hyphen.
Seacrest confirmed she was correct, and he got momentarily whisked up in the imagery, “Good job. My favorite stuffing. I love it brown on top,” he gushed.
A fan took to the WoF Reddit forum after it aired to call out the typo, which was that “Cornbread” is actually one word, not two, which can be confirmed by an easy Google search (below).
“Shouldn’t that be ONE word?” the fan titled their post sharing a screen grab of the puzzle.
Of course, there have been worse offenses, but words are the show’s bread and butter so grammar should be letter perfect, and multiple other fans chimed in to say it bothered them.
“I came here to say the same thing,” one fan responded. “Funny enough, my mother just emailed me saying she made cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving. I told her according to Wheel of Fortune, she made corn bread stuffing.”
“Dictionary.com says cornbread,” wrote a third.
“Or at least hyphenated,” wrote a fourth.
“Come on guys. Bread with corn in it,” joked a fourth.
Meanwhile, WoF fans are warming up to Seacrest, who became the official replacement for Pat Sajak after four decades for Season 42. His debut month was the strongest ratings month for WoF in the past three years, and viewers were already treated to a viral moment (via a round of sausage). That said, there have been some other puzzling moments.
In September, Seacrest suffered what fans dubbed his “first blooper”, involving a delayed reaction to rewarding a bonus round. Fans also called out the host for ruling against another player before the timer was up. There have also been a few on-screen “glitches,” including White appearing to separate from her body at the puzzle board with her reflection strutting away. Plus, during his first week, many fans blamed a lack of experience on Seacrest’s mishandling of a contestant’s $1million wedge, which she instantly forfeited.
What did you think of the “Corn Bread Stuffing” puzzle? Do you think the slip-up went past the writers? Let us know in the comments section below!
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