Today, we’ll spin the Wheel of Fortune and talk about Pat Sajak
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with stories about current events and trending topics. And an important part of learning English is learning about people in the English-speaking world.
Pat Sajak and Vanna White. The two names just go together. And the two people have gone together, as hosts of the game show “Wheel of Fortune” for four decades. “Wheel of Fortune” is the second-most-popular game show on American television. At its peak , it reached 40 million viewers daily. Today, that’s down . But for millions of Americans, it’s a dinnertime tradition to buy a vowel and try to solve the puzzle.
But “Wheel of Fortune” will look a bit different this time next year. It will have a new host. That’s because Pat Sajak will be retiring. Pat Sajak has hosted the show since 1981, but his forty-first season hosting the show will be his last. He’s got one season left in him.
In the second half of today’s lesson, I’ll tell you what it means to slip up. And JR, our producer, has selected an English song of the week.
This is lesson 593 of Plain English, so that means the full lesson, including the free transcript, is online at PlainEnglish.com/593. Let’s get going.
‘Wheel of Fortune’ host Pat Sajak to retire
“ Wheel of Fortune ” was created in 1975 by Merv Griffin, a television personality . He hosted a game show, he guest hosted for talk shows , and eventually he created two game shows of his own: Jeopardy!, which you learned about in Lesson 141 , and Wheel of Fortune.
In Wheel of Fortune, a word puzzle is displayed on a large board . The letters of the words or phrase are hidden . There are three contestants . Their job is to guess the hidden letters and, eventually, to solve the puzzle.
Here’s how the game works. The first contestant spins a large wheel —the Wheel of Fortune—which is parallel to the ground . The wheel contains cards , arranged like pizza slices . The card that faces the contestant when the wheel stops spinning—that card controls the game play.
Some cards cause the contestant to lose a turn . Others cause the contestant to lose all their prize money . Some are vacations and other prizes. But most cards have a dollar value —say, $500. The contestant shouts out a letter—”R”—and if there’s an “R” in the puzzle , the letter is revealed and the contestant gets $500 in prize money, or whatever the card says . The contestant can continue spinning the wheel until he or she loses a turn or guesses a letter that’s not part of the puzzle. When that happens, it’s the next contestant’s turn.
If the contestant wants to guess a vowel , however, the contestant must pay money out of their accumulated winnings . “I’d like to buy a vowel,” is what they say, before guessing an A, E, I, O, or U. And the contestants always have the option to solve the puzzle if it’s their turn . At the end of the game, the contestant with the highest dollar value gets to keep the money and, potentially , other prizes. Second- and third-place contestants get consolation prizes like vacations.
“The letter is revealed”—I said that earlier. Did you like that passive voice ? For years, the letters were physical cards up on the big board. When a contestant correctly guessed a letter, someone would have to walk up to the board and turn the card around, revealing it to the contestants and the audience at home.
It’s a job in the spotlight , all eyes are on this person turning the cards . This person gets a lot of camera time . So who should do that job? Why, a beautiful woman, of course. That’s Vanna White.
She turned the cards on the board, every time a contestant guessed a correct letter. When she wasn’t turning the cards around, she was clapping and smiling and empathizing with the contestants that lost a turn. In 1997, they updated the board to an electronic screen . But Vanna was so popular, and such a part of the show, that she stayed on . Now, she still walks up to the board after a contestant makes a correct guess , and she taps the boxes to reveal the letter.
But standing at the wheel, off to the side of the contestants, all these years, was Pat Sajak. He keeps control of the game. He offers encouragement to those who are doing well and sympathy to those who aren’t. Near the beginning of the game, he does brief personal interviews with all the contestants.
He holds index cards with biographical information about the contestants. His famous line is, “It says here that…” and then he asks about a detail of the contestant’s life. The contestants talk quickly about their jobs or hobbies , and they give shout-outs to families, friends, and pets.
Pat Sajak—this is an underrated talent —Pat Sajak always has a positive, humorous , or encouraging thing to say about every contestant. He has only slipped up on a very few occasions over four decades of work. He’s neutral. You don’t see much of his own personality .
Unlike Alex Trebek, the former host of Jeopardy!, he’s not serious on camera. But he keeps control of the game and makes sure everyone is upbeat . He reminds the audience not to give clues to the contestants.
At the end of every episode, during the closing credits , Pat Sajak and Vanna White have a few seconds of general chit-chat, the only time in the show that Vanna speaks. Pat Sajak is 75. After he retires , he’ll become the chairman of a small college . Vanna White is now 64 and she is expected to stay on the show.
Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune—I think I said this back when I talked about Alex Trebek—these two shows were on in millions of houses, every day, including mine, when I was a kid. The times depended on the city, on the time zone, but for most people, these shows would come on in the early evening , one right after the other. Jeopardy! usually first, Wheel of Fortune usually second. For us, they were on at 7:00 and 7:30 pm, so it’s dinner time or right after dinner while you’re washing dishes .
A lot of people—I mean, a lot of people—would make it their dinnertime routine to eat in front of the TV and watch these two shows. They are especially popular with the elderly . My grandmother loved them, both these shows, she watched them every night.
Ryan Seacrest will be the new host of Wheel of Fortune starting in September 2024.
JR’s song of the week
Now remember, we’re changing things up a little and we’re putting the song after the main story, so it’s time for an English song of the week.
This week’s song is “Mary on the Cross ” by the Swedish rock band Ghost. There’s no consensus on if this is about drugs , love, religion, or all three; we’ll let you make up your mind . But I can tell you the song came out in 2019 and is one of the band’s most popular. Ghost is the band; the song is “Mary on the Cross.”
Now, it’s time for today’s expression, which is “slip up.”
Learn English the way it’s really spoken
