Here’s a sampling of late-round words from the Colorado state spelling bee (courtesy of the Denver Post):
sympatric
vinyl
isotope
sinecure
homophony
peristaltic
umbrageous
nautical
fuliginous
guttiferous
Now then. Which word are YOU (or your kid) gonna get? “guttiferous”? or “vinyl”?
The kid who got “vinyl” muffed it. Um…he really shouldn’t have been in a late round IMO.
Dang, I was all ready for Bee words such as:
honey
wax
sting
buzz
apiary
hive
drone
I don’t think I would make it to the late round either.
Beagle. B-E-A-G-E-L. Beagle.
When I was in 8th grade, I got dinged on “justification”. I left out one of the "I"s in the middle.
:o
In fifth grade, I messed up and spelled “vicinity” V-I-N-C-I-N-I-T-Y.
All was not lost, however. One day we played Spelling Kickball, in which you had to spell a word correctly to get a chance at kicking. As someone who tried to pretend I had asthma to avoid taking Phys Ed, I felt a great deal of vindication at being the only student who could spell “aspirin” and then kick the ball directly at the clique queen, have her bobble it, and make a single. Sometimes life is fair!
I can’t spell *long words out loud; I get lost in the middle. Writing them down is not a problem.
*Long meaning more than say 7 letters.
Fail.
Could never spell A-TROS-FO-PEE.
I’m 61, I should know better by now.
I once spent many work-hours constructing a word list for a conservation-themed spelling bee. Which was summarily cancelled. Just one of the reasons my ex-workplace is my ex.
It was a great list. It had example sentences, hyperlinks to dictionary.com definitions, was seeded and sorted by suitability for student age, cross-referenced with ability/round… I hope someone, somewhere, gets a chance to use it.
Just to show how my language and speeling skills exude me… I parsed this as Vince in NYC at first glance. I used to play bass ket ball with him and Cheryl Crow on 59th.
I was a pretty good speller when I was a kid. Won my school’s spelling bee in both 6th and 8th grade (different schools). At districts I choked on “lariat” (thought it was spelled with an “o” like “chariot”) in 6th grade but two years later I WON districts and went to the regional spelling where, had I done well enough, I would’ve won a trip to Washington, D.C.!
Alas, it wasn’t to be. At regionals there was a written spelling challenge, first. If you did well enough on the written you’d get to proceed to the verbal (I don’t remember how many kids got to advance to the verbal spelling round). Problem was that I had to use the restroom and I refused to ask to be allowed to do so while the exam was going on (even though we’d been told that that was okay). Not saying I would’ve done well enough to advance to the verbal round, necessarily, but having that bodily function on my mind certainly didn’t help me! Oh, well. All water under the bridge, now.
umbrageous — love this word!!!
I need to make it my new user-name.
If the above were spoken to me and I had to spell them out? I probably would have gotten 3, maybe 4 of them correct.
Of the listed words, “guttiferous” and “fuliginous” might give me pause, the former because I might waffle over whether or not the “t” is doubled and the latter because I might conflate it with “fulminous” and leave out the “i”. If the words were pronounced clearly enough, I’d probably be okay.
Oddly enough, despite being rather spelling-obsessed child, I only recall ever participating in one spelling bee, and that one was just at the classroom level. Apparently, schools in my area just didn’t go in for spelling bees.
Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all those words.
Missile: M-I-S-S-L-E. Missile.
This from the daughter of a USAF ordnance guy . . .
Spelling Bees = at or near the top of my How Is This Still A Thing? list (along with Daylight Saving Time, beauty pageants, and standardized testing).
Try this one on:
stavekonkurrence
