Having a Spell
I’m watching the National Spelling Bee finals right now and remembering how, when I was a kid, I was convinced that spelling bees were some sort of highly effective torture device. I still have the missed words from my third and fifth-grade spelling bees burned into my brain.
T-O-M-M-O-R-O-W
Oops.
R-E-S-E-N-T
Which would have been fine, except the word was “recent.” I blame the spelling bee prep pamphlet provided by the school for my demise. It contained a warning about common spelling bee errors, including substituting similar-sounding letters. I knew how to spell “recent” and apparently stamped my foot audibly as soon as that fateful “s” came out, causing me to go out first. It was a tearful night.
I won the district bee in 7th grade (winning word? “toboggan”) and then retired from the entire excruciating enterprise with an enormous sigh of relief.
What I suffered through pales in comparison to what these kids are going through though.
Rigory? (rigaree)
Grognar? (grognard)
Helodes? (Score!)
Schuplotler? (schuhplattler)
Opsiel? (Oh man, it’s “abseil”)
Tritacalie? (triticale)
Never before have I realized just how evil schwas and words of unknown etymology are.
And bells. Evil bells.
And French. Evil French.
Good luck to the remaining kids, hope none of you faint!
(And go, Wisconsin girl!)
Chipanglish
CogKnition
Gustatory Circuit
I remember the words I won on: “Chief” and lost: “Ferry” – when they meant “fairy.”
Great post.
“And French. Evil French.”
Heh. Precisely why it’s the one language I refuse to learn. Like literally, refuse. I don’t care if it’s a Romance language, and I already know a Romance language. (I’d sooner learn Portuguese or Romanian, thanks.) I don’t care if it’s an important language in my field because it’s spoken in so much of Africa. (I’d rather learn Swahili or Afrikaans or something actually useful in the field.) And as far as global usefulness goes, I see Arabic or Mandarin as much better potential uses of my remaining brain cells.
But the one thing I have to give the French credit for is that their “spelling bees” are much more interesting (and useful!) than ours. Mostly because spelling is only a tiny part of what’s covered–it mostly tests grammar and dictation. I’m not sure that being able to diagram a sentence or distinguish between the subjunctive imperfect and the subjunctive conditional are ever useful skills to have, but at least you can get some real world use from them. Knowing how to spell serrefine (which, hilariously, my spell checker doesn’t recognize)–not so much.
hey.i think spelling bee is quite an achievement i couldn’t have in my wildest of dreams imagined the spellings of grognard or schuhplattler….although i had read da vinci code and was familiar with the word cilice….when i got it right i considered myself as a champion anyway goodluck to all the spellers