Jeopardy!

Seen on Curmudgeonly Skeptical.

They had me at Jeopardy!

Becky Sullivan, a news producer for All Things Considered on National Public Radio, became a bit famous after unintentionally scorching liberals during her appearance on the show.

They showed contestants a picture of a flower. If I showed you the picture now, there would go all the fun. Let's say if you saw the picture you would immediately identify it without even hearing the question (on Jeopardy!, the answer).  Curmudgeonly Skeptical does not show the flower and that forces readers to guess by the question (answer).

"The flower pictured here is called this, also a disparaging term for the people on the political left."

Okay, guess the flower they showed the contestants.

Come on, GUESS!

Remember, she saw the picture.

Is there another possible flower? 

Whatever picture they showed her of this flower, it's shape tells you the answer. You see a heart. And in your stage nervousness you think, pink heart, hanging heart, dangling heart, cherry blossom heart, tender heart, delicate heart, lovely heart, lover's heart, whatever, eventually *ding* bleeding heart. 

But no. She writes pansy. 

I had these little things pop up in my garden from nowhere. The next year they formed a patch. The next year they took over an untended corner under a tree. 

A friend had some growing in between stone pavers. He did not plant them. They get stepped on and still survive. They took over all the spaces between all the pavers and he remarked on his admiration for such intrepid volunteer  surviving plant spirit. 

I said, "They should be named Sturdies, not Pansies." He thought that was hilarious. Because it's true. And thereafter we call these things Sturdies, and giggle at knowing we mean Pansies, and at the reinterpretation all over again, and about them being so hardy while being called Pansies. It's altogether ridiculous. 

But why are they called Pansies? That's a very rude name to give them. And it's wrong. Why did they do that?

They have other names. Viola and Violet with some distinction of petal arrangement between them. 

The word pansy comes from the French word pensée, thought. 

They're called different names all over the world. Wikipedia gives a whole list of various names. Football flower, Stepmother, Flammola (Little Flame,) Small Orphan in Hungary, that makes sense given they pop-up from blown in seeds apparently. In Israel they're Ammon and Tamar, after King David's children.