# Spelling Insects?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 15, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486 "2005-04-15T15:49:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Re\_PT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a698b9/32.png) [@Re\_PT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Re_PT)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486/1 "2005-04-15T15:49:39Z")

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I watched bits of “Spellbound” yesterday on TV and it got me wondering whether any mistakes have ever been made, or if a good game could be made up based on it…

Official: “Contestant number 12 your word is mnemonic.”

12: “Nemonik, um…N-E-M-O-N-I-C, nemonik”

Official: “Correct. Contestant 287 your word is paramnesia.”

287: “Paramnesia? Could I have a definition?”

Official: “We cannot remember the correct meaning for that.”

…

It also got me wondering why it was called a spelling bee. Is there a strange insect in America (much like the Sphinx in Egypt - although less mythical) which stings you if you can’t spell the word it says? M-M-M-M-M?

Of course we could have fun with sounds and onomatopoeia

839: “Excel, X-L, excel” _ding_

Official: “Contestant 45 your word is krrrrpchuuuffffshhhhhhhhh”

45: “What?! Can I have a definition?”

Official: “The sound of a Schweppes lorry hitting a wall”

45: “Can I have a diferent word?”

…

One reason why an international spelling bee wouldn’t work…

Official: “Your word is color”

27: “Colour, C-O-L-O-U-R, colour” _ding_

…

Would we allow synonyms?

66: “Homeopathic, W-A-T-E-R-Y, homeopathic”  
170: “Copulate…F-U-” _ding_

Offical: “The correct spelling is C-O-P-U-L-A-T-E. Contestant 3 your word is missing.”

_Silence_

Offical: “Contestant 3?”

3: “Have you found it yet?”

How about a smelling bee?

_sniff_ “Chloro…zzzzzz”

PT

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**Author:** ![Re\_PT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a698b9/32.png) [@Re\_PT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Re_PT)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486/2 "2005-04-15T15:51:43Z")

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:smack: Obviously contestant 45 cannot spell dif **f** erent…

PT

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**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486/3 "2005-04-15T18:35:07Z")

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They used to have “quilting bees,” so I’m thinking a “bee” means a get-together of one kind or another. But why a bee?

I had a linguistics professor once tell us that they don’t have spelling bees in other countries because they’d go on forever. Only English has enough oddly and irregularly-spelled words to make spelling bees possible.

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**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-insects/299486/4 "2005-04-15T18:50:52Z")

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> [@a35362](#):
>
> They used to have “quilting bees,” so I’m thinking a “bee” means a get-together of one kind or another. But why a bee?

One theory is that this sense of “bee” is derived from the Middle English _bene_, which means “a favor”, and the later dialectal form _been_, which refers specifically to [“voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task”](http://www.spellingbee.com/terminology.shtml).