you, too, can be a championship speller

In a neat little article, Slate's Nina Shen Rastogi asks, "How Would You Do at the National Spelling Bee?" She gives you 14 prize-winning words, pronounced properly, with parts of speech, definitions, sample sentences, and language of origin. You can use as many or as few hints as you need.

How'd this former National Spelling Bee loser fare?

10 out of 14. (I missed #s 1, 3, 4, and 13.)

trauma and nostalgia at the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

When my sister told me that she had three free tickets for the SecondStory Repertory's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, (through April 30th; see it!) I was cautiously pessimistic. I was a little worried that the trauma of past failures would keep me from fully enjoying the show's irreverent sendup of the nerdiest of nerd pastimes.

When she said that she wanted to volunteer me to take part in the Bee, though, my whole attitude changed. All of a sudden it became yet another nerdy adventure--I've recently had a few--and a chance to re-experience the trauma firsthand.

So of course I said yes.

Upon signing up to be one of four non-actor contestants, I was given three simple instructions:

1. Always ask for a definition.
2. Always ask for the word to be used in a sentence.
3. Don't act.

The first two were essential to set up jokes. The third instruction was to ensure the right contrast between the actors and the amateurs. If I had attempted to ham it up--and believe me, the temptation was real--I might've spoiled the show. So I didn't act.

I just spelled.

The first word was easy: "xanadu." My only concern was that I'd make a silly mistake and screw up--my pulse raced, my voice broke a little at the end, but I nailed it. I didn't expect real nerves for a fake bee, but there they were.

The second was easier: "putsch." Also easy. I had encountered it in a real bee back in the late 80s, and I believe I misspelled it then. No way I would fail this time.

I forget the third word, which I spelled right, either because it wasn't a real word, or I was darned lucky. (It was an Irish something, starts with a K, and I can't find it in my unabridged Webster's.)

I figured it was my time to exit the show when I was called up immediately afterward. Lo and behold, I went out on "pheochromocytoma," which I heard wrong, starting with a T, so they sounded the fateful bell, leading to the hug and serenade and juice box from Mitch.

At least I was the last non-actor standing. Ignominious defeat never felt so good.

how they ruined the National Spelling Bee

They started televising it.

And then this happened.

is being in the spelling bee nerdy?

No. Not at all. Not in the very least. No, no, and no.

Negative. N-E-G-A-you know the rest.

In fact, surveys show that spelling bee participants are rated among the least nerdy members of our society, right up there with movie stars, professional athletes, and supermodels. They are revered and respected. They are admired and imitated. They are beatified and bedecked. They receive their nation's highest plaudits and prizes. Most of all, they are loved.

Unsure? Just look at me.

That's right. You should join up. And you will.

Because you're cool.

Spelling Bee cool.



[150th in a series]

a spelling bee in any other form

It's Spelling Bee time again, and Josh had to point me to a Slate piece on the various kinds of orthographic and grammatical contests the world over. (As every linguist knows, English is uniquely tough on spellers, what with all those undocumented nouns slipping over our unprotected border and into the language.)

Cheap irony points:

Correction, May 30, 2007: The caption on the photograph accompanying the piece originally misspelled the name of 2006 spelling bee champion Katharine Close.

an inverse correlation

My brother-in-law, my dad, and I spent a good part of the afternoon descending into madness. It started when snow canceled the Mariners doubleheader, forcing us to watch the Lakers take on the Suns. Steve Nash was running circles around LA defenders, Raja Bell was simultaneously holding Kobe to under 50 and knocking down threes, so in the end Phoenix won handily.

That done, we started to get nervous. Wasn't much else on the sports schedule, at least on the basic cable lineup, so we flipped over to The Masters, where some guy beat Tiger Woods despite finishing a stroke over par. Riveting.

That led to a half hour of a rerun of this year's Seattle regional spelling bee, the one I won a number of years ago. (Spelling bees are pretty easy in retrospect. C'mon, can't spell "consortium?" Nerd.) Highlight: the pronouncer's first name was Feliks. How can they let you emcee if you can't even spell your own name?

When that drama was done, I left for a bathroom break, only to return to raucous laughter--the laughter of madmen. My dad and the bro-in-law were watching professional wrestling, where a half-contact battle royale had broken out in the ring. Dubbed in Spanish, grown men in spandex, faking kicks and punches, assaulting their dignity and not much else.

It was tragic. I almost couldn't watch.

When Dad suggested playing a round of Turbo Yahtzee, we meekly went along. I'd have plotted that level of desperation on the graph, but I ran out of room.

hope for cinema

Overall, receipts are up over last year. And, according to Noel Murray, major directors are busy, busy, busy.

Meanwhile, those who loved Spellbound or Akeelah and the Bee should check out Barats and Bereta's Just Wonderful, a less preachy take on the the pinnacle of nerditude.

[latter two links via Josh, who has the free time I can only covet]

a spelling bee story for our time

Kunah Sah is bound for Washington, D.C. for a chance to compete in the world's greatest nerd-off. (The National Spelling Bee. I ought to know.) His parents, though, have been deported to India, unable to secure a permanent visa because of this country's unfriendly immigration laws.

Ken and Sarita live in a kind of limbo, moving from the home of one relative to another, unable to start new lives with their son and businesses in America, and hoping against hope that some kind of miracle will lift them from desolation.

"You have millions of [undocumented] people who have broken the law, and no one is forcing them out [of the U.S.]," Ken says. "But I followed the law - and this is my reward for being honest."

They lived here legally for sixteen years. It took the U.S. that long to deny them asylum.

[via Obscure Store. special thanks to commentator Joe.]

spelling bee goes prime time

ABC is going to broadcast the final rounds of the National Spelling Bee this June, only adding to the Bee's recent upsurge in popularity.

On Friday, "Akeelah and the Bee," a movie about a Los Angeles girl who overcomes adversity to win the national spelling bee, opened nationwide, taking eighth place at the weekend box office.

That film follows last year's "Bee Season," about a man focused on his daughter's quest to become a spelling bee champ. It was based on the best-selling novel by Myla Goldberg.

Also last year, the Broadway musical, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," won two Tony awards. And the 2002 documentary "Spellbound" followed eight teenagers during their quest to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee.

Television cameras have been a part of the Bee experience at least since I competed, but movies about the Bee are a tribute to the increasing power geeks hold in society.

I was a spelling bee nerd before it was sexy.

s-t-a-l-k-e-r

Am I ever glad ESPN wasn't broadcasting the National Spelling Bee when I was a contestant.

more spelling bee stories

But not by me.

another spelling bee story

I lost the National Spelling Bee, which puts me in rather distinguished company among America's nerd elite. The year I lost, the girl who won appeared the next day on Good Morning America as I watched in my hotel room. She seemed self-satisfied, smarmy, with an of-course-I-deserved-to-win-it smile. For five minutes, I hated her more than I ever hated anyone in my short life.

But time hides scars, and I soon forgot about her.

Until years later.

Yes, years later, I'm randomly watching Jeopardy, and there she is in the final round, and she's in the lead, and she wins it, and she still has that exact same demeanor, smiling into the camera like it's her lover and confidante, unable to even fake modesty or surprise, and the hate rises in me like acid reflux and I turn to my family and say That's her, that's the one again, again!

The bitterness has long passed. I have seen her name in print on occasion, and she is by all accounts a decent human being. Perhaps her confidence became smugness only in my jealous imagination, her sweetness turned saccharine by resentment. Such is the power of adolescent envy.

spelling bee fainting

The omnipresent cameras. The grimacing parents. The locked knees. The hot television lights. The sycophantic reporters. The thick spectacles. The violent strains of early puberty.

And the words.

The question isn't why some spellers faint, but why most of them don't.

Thirteen-odd years ago, a full-blown geek in brown glasses and a purple and red striped t-shirt, I stormed into D.C. for a chance to win the big one. By taking the Seattle regional, I'd already garnered a set of encyclopedias and a week at the Hilton, with Mom in tow. Among all the touristy events, the National Spelling Bee took up only about half the time--less for me, because I went out in round three.

In the year I went, the Bee took place in the conference room of the downtown Hilton. Contestants sat and sweated on a stage in front of the judge's table, rows of seats for a parent-heavy audience, and a bank of cameras. (I'm not sure, but I don't think ESPN was providing vowel-to-vowel coverage back then.)

Off to the right was an adjoining "Crying Room." When the bell rang at the enunciation of a misplaced letter, the teary contestant would shuffle off the stage and enjoy the consolation of cookies, juice, and parents. Yes, I cried. You would have, too.

Reporters milled around outside the Crying Room, ready to get the human interest angle. A couple from my home state cornered me and sat me down for a televised interview. Mind you, at this point I was beaten down, upset, disappointed, tired; but I grudgingly assented. The questions started off normal, then veered into the inane. My waning patience vanished with the last, delivered cheerily as only a reporter can:

"How did the bell sound?"

A million stupid answers flashed through my mind. Ask not; it tolled for me. It echoed through caverns of loss. It was a funeral peal, a fatal tintinnabulum, a carillon of despair. It sounded the death of my dreams.

Instead, in my moment of glory, I said:

"It went ding."

I haven't been on television since.








[twentieth in a series]

a-l-o-p-e... (fainting spell) ...c-o-i-d

Gotta love the kids who take part in the National Spelling Bee. (Disclaimer: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the free trip to D.C., and lost in the third round. Most fun I had in middle school.)

If you haven't seen Spellbound, see it. Now.

Update: dead link replaced with a fresh one. See also "spelling bee fainting."