Spelling Bees Much Different From 50 Years Ago

COMMENTARY | I have to say that stunned was the word that came to mind when watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night. The participants, usually 12 to 14 years old, were so well-versed and mature I couldn't believe the difference from when I was in the competition 50 years ago. The Associated Press reports the ultimate winner was Sukanya Roy, 14, who won on the word "cymotrichous," which I didn't even recognize -- not that I knew that many anyway.

The crowd loved Sukanya but "Miss Personality" goes to runner-up Laura Newcombe, who was representing Canada and who often kidded with the judges such as asking, "Tired yet?"

In the past while watching spelling bees on television, I admittedly have been bored out of my mind. Not so last night. These kids weren't "nerds" whose only life was the dictionary. They had a collective sense of humor, and when you got the stereotypical short biography they had many loves, not just vocabulary.

Of course, I couldn't help but go back to my years as a top speller. This was confined in my years in grade school, first through sixth. I came close to winning the school championship the last three years but never worked any harder than in fourth grade, thus never improving in fifth or sixth.

While Sukanya had to spell "cymotrichous," I remember three words we were dealt -- you'll probably laugh.

The first word was "write." Write is such a simple word, yet contestants were often knocked out on this word. In last night's competition, contestants asked for the word to be used in a sentence and they asked for the language of origin, among other things. Also, when the contestants spelled the word, they often would "write" it on their hand to keep from misspelling it by saying extra letters.

This was not so when I was in competition. Again, going back to "write," we thought we had lucked-out and gotten "right," and would blurt it out "r-i-g-h-t" without asking for a definition. Down we went.

Another word that was terrible was "constant." It was so difficult to remember whether or not it was "c-o-n-s-t-e-n-t" or "c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t."

Finally, "prejudicial" was the type of word that brought the "sh" sound without using either "s" or "h."

Of interesting note is that for four years running the national champion has been an Indian-American. Perhaps that should say something to the rest of America.

Often Indian-Americans must learn English as a second language. They must learn all of its idiosyncrasies and they apparently find it interesting.

Should we all take a second look?

Reference:

Salon.com Website, Joseph White, "Scripps spelling bee's final word: "Cymotrichous"