« Local Celebrities | Main | AIDS 25 Years »
June 2, 2006
Bee Smart
I caught the last hour of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ABC last night. I thought it was the best "reality tv" I've seen in a long time! The winner was Katherine Close, from New Jersey. She was the first female champion since 1999.
One of the things I enjoyed about last night's program was the before and after interviews with the contestants. They are intelligent, interesting and well-rounded people. What do these remarkable young men and women have in common? They have all learned how to stay calm under pressure. all are involved in a number of activities -- not just spelling. And, I guess they have to learn how to handle failure. Some of them learned it better than others. Some of them seemed absolutely wrecked. I found it interesting to see how their parents reacted and how they greeted their children as they came off the stage. I was surprised to see one couple shake hands with their child, while some just gave comforting pats on the back or knee -- it was only a few that gave hearty hugs. I told my daughter that if she ever fails a spelling bee, I'll be sure to give her a great big hug!
One of the things I happen to be good at is spelling -- and that was even before spellcheck! For me, spelling is almost instinctive -- I just know when a word is misspelled. What I learned last night, though is that it is truly a science. When the contestants asked for the definition, etymology, language of origin or part of speech, they were gleaning information about the word that I didn't think possible. For example, if the language of origin was Hawaiian, it is known to be a phonetic spelling. If it's a French word that ends in the sound "et," it is known that it would be spelled, "ette."
It's not just common sense, or knowledge of the language of origin, however, a lot of just plain hard work went into preparing for the bee. Katherine and the first runner-up, Fenola Hackett (who, incidentally, is Canadian -- how did a Canadian get into a "national" spelling bee?") studied between 98 and 100% of the dictionary! Imagine how well they would do on that portion of the SATs!! It was said that the dictionary of choice is the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. I use it online all the time. Because of the spelling bee, m-w has lots of interesting articles: The Story of Phat (or how a word gets into the dictionary), winning words from previous years, and more.
Enjoy your weekend -- that's W-E-E-K-E-N-D, weekend!
Posted by Michele at June 2, 2006 3:11 PM