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

NPR ^ | 05/30/2014 | Bill Chappell

[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.