Did you catch the National Spelling Bee last night? Guest blogger Kim Paras did! Here is her take on The Bee.
Not only would I not want to face any of the Scripps National Spelling Bee finalists in spelling, I would not want to play them in poker either.
Watching the bee from the comfort of my sofa (from the Arabic suffah, meaning "long bench") last night, I would find myself convinced that a young competitor did not know a word. There would be the furrowed brow, the look of being lost and confused, the placement of finger to chin as if to say, "Hmm, I don't know this one, this is it for me." But then--but then!--the competitor would ask the judges those polite but direct questions.
"Could you give the derivation, please?"
"Could you give the definition, please?"
"Are there any other pronunciations?"
"Could you use it in a sentence, please?"
And then the poker face (poker from the French poque, a card game dating to at least the 18th century) would fade and the super-smart teen would spell words I'd never heard of. Among last night's mind-benders (they bent my mind, at least) were bouquiniste, isagoge, phoresy, fackeltanz, jacqueminot, and ecossaise.
Kavya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kan., won the 82nd annual National Spelling Bee with Laodicean--of the ancient city Laodicea in Asia Minor, and meaning lukewarm or indifferent in politics or religion.
Kavya, who likes to ride her bike and play the violin--and let's not leave out that she wants to be a neurosurgeon when she grows up--would first use her finger to write the words in the palm of her hand. Many of the competitors did that, and others closed their eyes when they spelled the words or reviewed the spelling in their minds before spelling them for the judges. When their eyes were shut, I wondered if the letters mystically (mystic from the Middle English to Latin to the Greek mystikos) came together in their minds as they did for Eliza in the novel Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.
On second thought--mysticism? Nah (American variation of no, meaning "no"). What these kids have is great discipline and determination, excellent study habits, and supportive families. (Cue Kavya's bespectacled little sister jumping up and down when her sister won. I love that kid!)
The friend who watched the bee with me first balked at the idea of watching kids spell on TV for two hours. But soon he was like me--spellbound.
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