I kinda like the kid with the green shirt who doesn’t particularly enjoy spelling. I hope he finishes well.
I think the girl in the red dress is a lock.
The lock has been picked.
Have you noticed that every time someone mentions a particular kid, that kid goes out on their next turn?
she knows it
aww…no interviews
I don’t mind the etymology, definition, and alternate pronunciation questions, but when the guy tells you that a guayabera is a shirt, don’t ask what part of speech it is. A shirt is a noun.
I only caught the last few minutes. I knew ‘menhir’ and ‘oriflamme’ but the others had me flummoxed. I liked the boy who came in third and was glad he didn’t cry.
I made it to the county finals in 8th grade and missed ‘hearsay’. :smack:
A girl came in 3rd. The boy came in 4th, and the other one came in 2nd.
Are all of these words in the Oxford English dictionary? Is there a way to get the whole dictionary on a disk or by using Kindle? Call me weird, but some year I’d like to read through the OED because I’m interested in the etymology of words.
I made the Long Island finals when I was 12 and finished around 12th or 15th. I don’t know the official name of the round, but I think the winners went to the regionals- anyway I won two bees to get to that point. I’m pretty sure I was eliminated on “picayune.” I’ll probably never forget how to spell that one, and in fact I just used it in a post yesterday.
I was pulling for the girl who came in 3rd, the one who got knocked out with “menhir.” That’s one of those words you assume must be more complicated than it really is.
I also liked the girl with the punky hairdo, I think her name was Serena. She had a really great personality and it was hard to believe she was only 13.
I had xebec, menhir and oriflamme. Then I went to bed.
My daughter and I believe they were just making up words to screw the kids over.
Come on, they were all perfectly cromulent words.
All of these words are in the Merriam-Webster Third International Dictionary, which is the official dictionary of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
One word was not in my Shorter OED – I looked it up because they never provided the definition. Now I can’t remember it, dammit.
I got xebec (shows up in Patrick O’Brian novels), axolotl (shows up in old Mad Magazines), oriflamme, neufchatel, psitticosis, tagliatelle, blancmange, wisent, Anasazi, Reykjavik. Not a friggin’ clue on the others.
“Laodicean” piqued my curiosity – it’s a reference to Revelation 3:14 - 16, where some angel rebukes them for being wishy-washy. Apparently it applies to politics as well.
I will remember the spelling of xebec for the rest of my life.
Oh, and for menhir I was yelling “Asterix! Doesn’t anyone read Asterix anymore!” Yeah, I guess not. I love dating myself.
Bzzzzzt! Siddown.
:smack:
You can buy the unabridged OED on CD-ROM, but it’s $200. Also, bear in mind that it takes up 20 volumes in print (you can get the hard copy for $900). Some guy wrote a book about reading the entire OED in a year, but I can’t help but think he started skimming at some point. Most of the OED consists of snippets of literature to show the first known usage and how the word has been used through the centuries.
I was at Nationals a while back and did decently (past the prelims but not to ESPN). As far as parental pressure goes with the National bee, most of the kids I knew had the independent motivation to study, and their parents would either get involved in the study, hire a coach (rarely), buy the books, etc. Almost every kid I met was the motivated one; the parents were mostly supportive and helpful, but mostly just along for the ride.
There are definitely exceptions: Evan O’Dorney, the 2007 winner, seemed to have such a suspicious aversion to spelling that made it difficult to believe he even wanted to be there, and one of the kids in Spellbound definitely had a very intense father who coached him.
That being said, I don’t know anyone who came away from Nationals with a negative experience. You study a little, learn some Latin and Greek, get your fifteen minutes. It’s pretty harmless fun.