The 82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee is in full swing in Washington, D.C., just a block and a half from Robert’s office. We don’t know whether any Musers are in it, but At least one Muser is competing this year, and there may be more; it’s the kind of place where they hang out (witness emmatheduck and speller73 of yore). So warm wishes to all contestants, and good luck to any orthographoMusers in the pack.
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Round 2 was easy — words like “leopard” and “topaz.” Round 3 was tough (“brodequin”; “tourlourou”). Today the semifinals started with Round 4, which so far has been easy again with only two eliminations out of the 21 contestants who have spelled so far. That means the next couple of rounds will have to be bloodbaths.
You can follow the results at public.spellingbee. com/public/results/2009/round_results . There’s also some entertaining bee blogging going on at www . throwingthings.blogspot .com/
I’m a horrible speller.
“leopard” and “topaz” would probably, as sad as it is to admit it, throw me if I was nervous and had to spell aloud.
Best of luck to everyone involved!
I’ll actually be in DC today too, poking around the art gallery, there’s an exhibit on Frans Hals and a student of his and her husband that sounds interesting, he’s one of my favorites.
Round 5 opens with
sixseven eliminations in the firstseveneight contestants. It’s a slaughterhouse up there!I had the change to be in the state round of the GeoBee back in Middle School, but I refused because I was too shy.
I’m going to watch that! I watch it every year. I hope to be in it next year!!!
The semifinals and finals are being broadcast on ESPN.
Post 0: Andrew said he was going to be in it.
6 (Robert Coontz): Actually, this time they’re showing the finals on ABC, starting at eight.
Right you are, on both counts.
Andrew appears to have made the semi-finals, but gone out in Round 5 with the word “Santeria.” Unless, of course, his first name isn’t actually Andrew. But I’m guessing it is.
SFTDP, but the Finals start in 20 minutes!
Good job Andrew!
A girl from my school made the finals!
Round 9 now. Only the real pros are still standing. The words are killer, but they keep spelling them! It’s exciting.
The sentences this year are very amusing. Anyone know who writes them?
No, but it’s clearly a deliberate policy to liven (or lighten) things up.
Round 10 is over, with seven spellers still standing. No one has been eliminated in three rounds now. It’s all luck of the draw — which one will encounter a word en hasn’t seen before and can’t guess. And they’ve seen a lot of them: xebec, grisaille, Neufchâtel, cretonne…
Round 11 is history. Ramya, Kennyi, and Anamika have fallen; Kyle, Aishwarya, Kavya, and Tim remain. Kavya looks the most self-assured, but any of them could be the winner.
Tim Ruiter looks like he knows what he’s doing, too.
Wow, they’re all really good! I agree, any of them could win at this point.
Ooh, she won! Lookie that. That was really good.
Why is it, that after seeing that, I’m only capable of using words like “good”?
Wow! Hooray, Kavya!
Kavya’s last word wasn’t as hard as the ones that eliminated Aishwarya and Tim, but she’s a worthy champion. Her knowledge of Greek roots carried her through a couple of close ones toward the end.
Horray Kayva!
Err…. HUrray, Kayva
Wasn’t it Kavya?
Actually, that was a different Andrew. I missed the Semis by 2 or 3 points, can’t remember which. I did have the chance to meet Kavya before she won, on Tuesday, and she’s a really nice person. Rather shy, though she’ll have to overcome that with all the media attention. Robert, your prediction was spot-on, Round 5 was the goriest I’ve ever seen.
(24) Welcome back, Andrew!
(22, 23, 23.1) Yes: Kavya Shivashankar. She and the third-place finisher, Aishwarya Pastapur, have been best friends since pre-school, apparently.
Neetu Chandak gets my vote for “speller having the most fun.” Every time she stood behind the microphone, she was obviously enjoying herself so much she almost burst. She reminded me of speller73 last year.
I only got the chance to watch a few of the last rounds, but seriously, SHEESH! How do these kids know these things? Obviously they have to basically read the dictionary and memorize every word in order to spell that stuff! I USED (emphasize USED) to think I was a pretty good speller, but now I feel incredibly dumb. Neither my mom nor I had ever heard of any of the words that we watched. Congrats to any Musers who have ever been in the Bee. You guys are my heroes!
Another spelling bee com and gone… This year I was strangely following it and not following it. The only part I actually watched in real time was the end of the preliminaries. (Curse you school!) I think I drove everyone on my math team crazy as my mom called me with constant spelling bee updates while we were on the bus to a competition. Congrats to all who competed!
13 – I believe the word list panel writes the sentences.
25 – Having fun is a great way to convince yourself that your not nervous.
26 – Unless you are the 2007 winner, it is is impossible to memorize the dictionary. However, many spellers do memorize very long word lists put out by Scripps.