The National Spelling Bee

I think that the kids oughta be just given the words in the form of a crossword puzzle, where they must know the word and it spelling. THEN, just to make it interesting, we give the kids weapons to fight out any disputes among thmeselves.
That would be entertaining.


OR, they have to spell out the words to the trune of some popular song . "Who wants to be a SPelling Idol"?

Should we blame the parents?

So, what's wrong with a spelling bee? It may seem smalltime and insignificant to us, adults, with our many other concerns but to alot of kids, it's the pinnacle.

Farmerman, good idea. Let's keep it light.

Miller, I'm not looking to blame anyone. I just wonder how this got so all-fired important. And so phenomenally difficult.


For the most part, I have no objection to spelling bees, eoe. in fact, I like them. I think that the national spelling bee has gotten a bit out of hand. I'm sure that some kids are gung-ho. And I wouldn't be surprised if some are pressured to do well, whether they're gung ho or not. This is probably true for any competitive activity. Some kids want it a great deal. Other kids do it because their parents want it.

Maybe I'm just feeling grouchy and negative today. Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last. I'm irritated at the obscurity of the words.

I saw an interview with the youngster, and he said he doesn't really care for spelling. He likes music better, but his passion is math. Even the winner was bored.

That's too bad. And lousy marketing too. Why would they run an interview with a kid who really doesn't care about what he'd just achieved?

Actually, although parents may project their ambitions on the children, it is often the children themselves who are ambitious to perform. I highly recommend Spellbound, a 2002 documentary about children competing in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Of similar interest, and a very entertaining motion picture, is Word Play, which is about Will Shortz, now the puzzle editor at the New York Times. It has several entertaining cameos with Jon Stewart (The Daily Show), Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls--but it centers around the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which Shortz began running in a motel conference room in Stamford, Connecticut in 1978. A lot of the interest in the movie centers on the contestants at the tournament.

I think Raboida would enjoy both of these motion pictures.

Raboida saw one of those pictures (Spellbound), Set, and enjoyed it. Just as you predicted.

I'm all too familiar with Will Shortz of the diabolical mind. Didn't see the movie, but I'll look for it.

eoe, They ran the interview because he was the winner. No escaping it.

I didn't find the bee so much boring as irritating. Like I said, I may be feeling grouchy (well, grouchier than usual).

My feelings may also be colored by a novel I read called Bee Season. A dysfunctional family and obsession about the National Spelling Bee. The speller in the book was caught up in her father's obsession with winning. She was actually victimized by it.

My feelings may further be colored by some things I've been reading and hearing lately about parents' determination to teach their children before they seem ready to learn.

Now I wonder about the winner. If he's not a fan of spelling, what caused him to go through all that study?

Yes - I am a loser - I watched it. I got drunk and watched it.

The kid was saying that spelling is simply memorizing so it isn't as exciting as music or math.

The kid who came in second seemed much more upset than the winner at winning.

There was a recent article (I forget the source) on past spelling bee winners, generally rather able people. I noticed that I had no difficulty with spelling the words that the winners were tasked to spell to win, or, if not no difficulty, I would have guessed correctly. When I read about this recent bee, though, I never heard of ANY of the words mentioned...

I loved the definations of these words - an old dance where the man jumps around and kicks up his heels while the woman does a waltz by herself or the well known... a room in a cathedral where ancient discarded drafts of religous writings or scrolls are kept - like who I say that all the time.

Here's the article on what winners are doing now -

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1624100_1624098,00.html

Theres a national vocabulary championship coming up this November. Spelling a word is not as hard as trying to define one. The links here if you don't believe me, I didn't know they had them.

<a>Win_with_words</a>

Eh, no it isn't. Copy the hyperlink and place it between these symbols:


No spaces allowed except for in the name between the parentheses.

[url="name it here"]http://www.winwithwords.com[/url]
Hope it works, this time...

No, that doesn't work.

http://www.winwithwords.com

This does, though.

http://www.winwithwords.com

It also works just by posting it outright--any string which begins with "http://www" will be automatically presented as a "clickable" link.

Just click and paste

www.winwithwords.com

The Lovely Bride was watching it and I peeked in from time to time. I
didn't see one English word. They were all French or German words for
obscure objects. And I thought the word-sayer had lousy pronunciation.











They should allow the other kids to play defense.

My bad, sorry... lose the parentheses and rearrange it like this. (multitasking)