Spelling Bee

The National Spelling Bee is on ESPN this morning and then ABC for the final rounds tonight.  I'm Tivoing it because I won't be home, which is probably really dorky.  There's an online test on the website, which is pretty fun.   (I scored a 23.)

I've blogged about this before, but I may as well again.  In fifth grade I qualified for the district spelling bee, but was knocked out on the word halibut, which I thought was kind of unfair for a 5th grader, since it's not like I was in the habit of purchasing fish on my own.  I spelled it halibit.  Because that's how the judges pronounced it.  Because they were evil.  And, from how my family tells it, I was quite inconsolable afterwards.  The winning word in that bee was refrigerator.  Which was a very, very, very easy word in comparison, I thought at the time.  I have eaten halibut only once since then, and only because it was at a wedding and there was no alternative choice.  Well, okay, I guess I had a choice not to eat it.  But I ate it.  And it ruined my ability to honestly say I've never eaten halibut since spelling it wrong in the spelling bee.  And so I wish I hadn't eaten it.  Even though the taste was unobjectionable, if I'm being completely honest.

UPDATE 11:55AM -- after watching the first hour of coverage on ESPN, I'll call my pick for the winner -- Easun Arunachalam.  Seemed the most confident so far.  He's one of the youngest but seems to have skipped a grade or two (an 11 year old 7th grader).

Comments

[Emily]

Oh, that's easy. Just say you've never bought halibut, which sounds the same anyway.

P.S. How's Grandma doing?

[PG]

23 here as well. Did you miss pinyin, miscible, eidetic, cacoëthes and galimatias? Except perhaps for miscible in a science textbook (and it's been a *long* time since I read one of those), and maybe eidetic, I'd never heard of the words I missed. This is quite good for vocabulary building; I should try to incorporate these new words in my writing like they had us do in elementary school.

[Matt Astle]

When I was in sixth grade, I came in second place to a fifth grader. A FIFTH GRADER! My losing word was "nemesis," which I spelled "nemisis." I can truly say I've never eaten a nemesis since then, but the word has always been my nemesis. (Well, not really - I've never spelled it wrong since.)