When the participants are asked to spell a word, they can ask for the definition of a word, for the language it came from, for its part of speech, for any alternate pronunciations of it, and for a sentence that it is used in. In having the participants define the word, you would be changing the rules of the spelling bee. Again, the organizers of the National Spelling Bee have a fixed idea of how a spelling bee works. I doubt that they would want to change that. The problem is that when the concept of a spelling bee was created, it was rigorous enough that the participants in even a national event could be distinguished with difficult but not hopelessly obscure words. People have now figured out ways to study for the bee that anyone with enough time to do such studying can become so good there will be a number of participants at a national event that are good even on hopelessly obscure words. You would have to change the point of a spelling bee to make it possible to distinguish between the best contestants.
Now you’re taking an objective contest and making it completely subjective. I believe the goal is to improve the spelling bee, not eliminate it.
The competition had three rounds (i.e. quarterfinal, semifinal, and final).
In the quarterfinal rounds, each team of three, one contestant at a time (or, if they wanted, they would have one person do all of the spelling) had 90 seconds to spell as many words as the host could read off, but had to spell them backwards. For example, “spell ‘forwards’ backwards.”
In the semifinals, only the word’s consonants would be shown, along with the number of letters in the full word; the contestant had to say the word, then spell it backwards. For example, “FRWRDS, eight letters.”
The finals were played like the quarterfinals, except that the third word (and every fifth word after that) had the contestant spell just the consonants in the word, backwards, and the fifth word (and every fifth word after that) had them spell just the vowels in the word.
There is no way to make a “definition bee” work. Spelling bees work because the judges can quickly say whether the spelling that the participant gives is correct. I suppose they can complain that the participant is mumbling when they spell, but the judges can insist that they spell it again and not mumble. In a definition bee, they would have to judge whether the definition that the participant gave was close enough to the one in the dictionary. Any definition can be expressed in a number of ways that are close enough and some ways that aren’t close enough to the dictionary definition, and there’s no clear line between them. There’s no way to make sure in a few seconds that the participant understands the definition or not.
What the others said: a game of elimination based off of “provide the definition” would quickly turn into a judging nightmare. Sure, some definitions are obviously wrong - “circumference” is not “a chocolate biscuit baked with cinnamon” but what if someone gives a definition that is truly on the margin/borderline? Eliminating the contestant would lead to a flurry of appeals or criticisms.
Honestly, these national bees start with what? Two or three hundred thousand participants? More? And by the end there are eight left?
If that’s a “participation trophy,” then the concept has pretty much lost all meaning. This whole thing seems like a bunch of solutions in search of an actual problem. Even if there were 50, so what? They’re still the cream of some complicated word that means “crop.” I mean, we give SuperBowl rings to the WHOLE TEAM, right? Where’s the outrage?
This is different. A team is a team. Whereas this would be like giving the Lombardi Trophy to 8 different NFL teams simultaneously.
I’d do a challenge round to crown a champion if the normal process leaves us with a tie.
Each contestant gets a buzzer. There will be 10 words to spell in the challenge round. The moderator will read the word, wait 10 seconds then the definition, 10sec, then use it in a sentence, etc. The first contestant to buzz in and provide the correct spelling gets a point, misspell… lose a point, most points win. In a tie, you get a second challenge round. Second tie… sudden death!
When you’re down to 16 participants, eliminate origin, definition, use in a sentence.
When down to 8, start introducing homonyms.
What do you mean by introducing homonyms? Do you mean that the judge would give a word for the participant to spell for which there are several homonyms? The participant would be expected to guess which one the judge meant? Then the participant would have to guess at random which one the judge meant? If not that, what do you mean?
Which I would be perfectly fine with, if there were 300,000 NFL teams in the playoffs.
That’s exactly what I mean. We would end up with a winner. Not fair, maybe, but life’s … well, you know.
So why not just toss a coin?
Thunderdome style = 8 spellers enter, one speller leaves, armed only with unabridged dictionaries…
Brian