Big Brother Chastens Sloppy Spellers

We’re constantly banging on about the importance of accuracy here at Lifehacker. While we don’t claim to be perfect, correct spelling and grammar is something everybody should at least strive for. We were therefore immensely tickled when contestants on the reality TV show Big Brother were taught a sharp lesson in accuracy — to the tune of $5000. If only they’d bothered to learn how to spell at school, eh?

[credit provider=”Channel Nine” url=”http://catchup.ninemsn.com.au/bigbrother/2013/8707948/ep19-big-brother-showdown”]

During the weekend I watched Big Brother‘s weekly games showdown where ‘housemates’ compete in challenges to win $5000 via a series of elimination rounds. (Look, my wife likes the show and I’m too lazy to switch rooms, okay?)

During Saturday’s finale, the three surviving contestants were tasked with spelling out a series of simple phrases on a giant Catchphrase-style game board. They were given all the required letters and told exactly what to spell; hardly rocket surgery, we’re sure you’ll agree.

Amazingly, despite there being no time-limit, two of the three housemates managed to botch the spelling and subsequently left the game empty-handed.

The top two lines in the photo above are supposed to spell ‘Presidential Suite’. As you can see, the hapless housemate managed to spell both words incorrectly, which probably says something about modern education in Australia. (He also got the bottom word wrong — it should be ‘medal’.)

Another contestant also misspelled ‘presidential’ and suffered the same fate. We wonder how many times these guys wagged English in high school and whether they now regret it. The moral of the story is that accuracy always matters — even on moronic reality TV shows.

See also: Big Brother Reminds Us: You Don’t Have To Store Every Piece Of Data

Lifehacker’s Mind Your Language column offers bossy advice on improving your writing.


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