It's a Tie! National Spelling Bee: Rare Co-Champions, And A Star Online

NPR ^ | 05/30/2014 | Bill Chappell

[SeekAndFind]

For the first time in 52 years, the Scripps National Spelling Bee crowned two winners last night, after the final two competitors exhausted the word list. The winners were Sriram Hathwar, an eighth-grader from Painted Post, N.Y., and Ansun Sujoe, a seventh-grader from Fort Worth, Texas.

"I like sharing the victory with someone else," Ansun said. "It's been quite shocking and quite interesting, too. It's very rare."

Here are the words that brought Thursday night's competition to a close, from the Scripps Spelling Bee site (we're including the definitions just in case you've forgotten them):

"Sriram's championship word was 'stichomythia,' which means dialogue especially of altercation or dispute delivered in alternating lines (as in classical Greek drama).

"Ansun's was 'feuilleton,' a part of a European newspaper or magazine devoted to material designed to entertain the general reader, or a feature section."

"We both know the competition is against the dictionary, not against each other," Sriram said. "I'm happy to share the trophy with him."

It was the second consecutive year in the finals for Sriram, who said he staged a "furious comeback" after a heartbreaking loss in 2013.

The joint title was made possible after both competitors slipped up in the same round, with Ansun stumbling over "antigropelos" and Sriram getting "corpsbruder" wrong. If either had made those mistakes in a different round, the 2014 Bee would have had only one winner. But now there are two, after the boys spelled their way to glory.

You could say there was a third winner this year, as well: Jacob Williamson, who won a devoted fanbase online with the infectious excitement he let loose at every turn, smiling and cheering on a national stage that has hosted its share of awkwardly painful moments over the years.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: They could have spelled “Mister Mxyzptlk” backwards.

Will they VANISH after that? :)

[IYAS9YAS]

I could see in the Idiocracy future the winning word being something like “apple.”

More likely the title of the movie that was playing...

[dfwgator]

LOL.

[tayper]

I heard they are home schooled also.

[SeekAndFind]

A HUGE number of spelling bee finalists are home schooled.

SEE HERE:

Home Schoolers Lead Spelling Bee

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130988

[Resolute Conservative]

Cannot have an outright winner. That might hurt someone’s feelings.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They usually do. But once the list is exhausted what are you going to do. Have them spell C-A-T?

(That was sarcasm BTW only the words on the list can be used.)

[dfwgator]

You mean to tell me, they couldn’t improvise, get a dictionary and find some other words?

[driftless2]

In line with the black winning team of this year’s college debate champions, the contestants (if they’re black) should be able to substitute their own words and spellings completely disregarding the words presented to them by the contest organizers. To recite the words given to them by the white, racist, oppressive contest officials will not do. (snicker)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

You mean to tell me, they couldn’t improvise, get a dictionary and find some other words?

Unless they have changed the rules in the past few years, no.

The list of words is decided on before the Bee begins by a committee. There are a whole bunch of criteria that the words must meet to be included.

The list is quite long and is kept secret. Usually they do not run out of words, this time was an exception.

Now if it becomes the norm then they are going to have to start adding a few thousand more.