Jeopardy is certainly not the easiest of the quiz catalog of shows. Contestants have to know a wide minutiae of facts, ranging from word origins to world capitols to the inventor of the Wurlitzer.

For one young man, he had all of the right answers, but not the right spelling. As a result, 12-year-old Thomas Hurley III says he was “cheated,” reports Today.com on Aug. 5.

Hurley qualified for the Final Jeopardy round, and was faced with this clue:

Abraham Lincoln called this document, which took effect in 1863, 'a fit and necessary war measure.'

His answer was spot on – Hurley knew it was the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that set slaves free.

The problem was that Hurley, who is in 8th-grade, misspelled “emancipation,” adding an extra “t” so it read “emanciptation,” which is not a word.

“I was pretty upset that I was cheated out of the final 'Jeopardy!' question. It was just a spelling error,” Hurley said in an interview.

Hurley’s mother Suzanne said her son was stunned and embarrassed. “It was hard to watch,” she commented.

For the record, even if Hurley had written the answer correctly, he still would have lost out to eventual pre-teen winner Skyler Hornback, who bet more on the category.

The cerebral host Alex Trebek even noted, “It is spelled correctly also.”

Jeopardy’s response to “cheating” out a little kid of big bucks?

“If Jeopardy were to give credit for an incorrect response (however minor), the show would effectively penalize the other players. We love presenting young people as contestants on our show and make every effort to be fair and consistent in their treatment.”