Posted on 05/31/2014 5:27:04 AM PDT by Dave346
Who knew that the Scripps National Spelling Bee could end with the crowning of co-champions?
It’s been 52 years since it happened last, and I, for one was dismayed to learn that the final spell-off between Sriram Hathwar, 14, and Ansun Sujoe, 13, Thursday ended in a tie.
What is this, soccer?
It turns out that when the field of competitors is winnowed to two or three contestants, they move on to “the 25-word championship section of the word list,” according to the official rules posted online. “If a champion does not emerge in the course of administering these final 25 words, the remaining spellers will be declared co-champions.”
Admittedly, the championship list is extremely difficult words. Skandhas, hyblaean, feijoada, augenphilologie, sdrucciola, holluschick, thyemelici and paixtle were among those that the young men nailed before concluding with stichomythia and feuilleton. But there are thousands of exotic, technical, absurdly useless words in the grand lexicon, and no reason to limit the championship section to just 25.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.chicagotribune.com ...
In the past decade or so, it seems like homeshoolers have dominated this. Or at least done extremely well.
I do not know about either of these two winners this year.
“I do not know about either of these two winners this year”
If they were from a public school, the media would be all over it. They must be homeschooled or attend private schools. Obviously they aren’t the products of Common Core.
Spelling bees would be much more interesting with actual bees involved. Lock the two finalists in a transparent box and see how well the spell augenphilologie while being stung. :-)
The young man from Fort Worth attends a private Christian school.
Can you imagine a common core spelling bee? It would go on forever….they’d never tell anyone they were wrong!
Ironically spelling bees seem to be very much about “Augenphilologie.”
I’d suggest a counterpart, a pronunciation bee, stressing Ohrenphilologie. The contestant sees the word spelled out (or if blind, has it spelled out to him). He must say it correctly.
It’s a dull child that can spell a word only one way.
“They’d never tell anyone they were wrong!”
After 25 rounds they all would be declared ‘winners.’
The English language is like a sponge. It hardly cares what it soaks up.
Have them try spelling each other’s names.
I wonder if anyone has done any research on these winners of the national spelling bee years later. I’d be curious to see what they’re doing by the time they reach the age of, say, 30-40.
National Bee contestants can only arise where there is a presence of a Scripps-Howard newspaper. I knew this as a kid who was spelling well enough to have a hope in the Bee many moons ago, but my local city papers weren’t part of that network.
One tie every 52 years doesn’t sound like a crisis to me.
According to these, most of them do quite well, many of them going into the sciences, medicine, engineering and law.
What do spelling-bee winners do when they grow up?
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Past Spelling Bee Champions
FWIW, one of my great nieces got all the way to the state spelling bee finals I think when she was in the 6th grade. And she wasn’t really all that into the whole spelling bee thing, it just came naturally to her. But then this was the kid who was reading at a HS if not college level by the time she was in the 4th grade. She has been a National Honors Society student every year since she was eligible, was awarded two Presidential Academic awards, has made the dean’s list every year since she started college. She’s graduating this fall and plans to get started right away on her masters, she is a history and education major and plans to go into teaching, eventually on the professorship level, but her long term goal is to eventually get a job as a history museum curator. And I have no doubt she will accomplish whatever she sets her sights on.
LOL.
FUHGEDDABOUDIT !!!
Yes, and if there is still a tie at the end, then they do a no holds barred cage match to determine the winner.
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