The National Spelling Bee was held in the US last week, and in a change that has shaken up the sport, contest hopefuls had to know definitions as well as spellings.
Why is English so difficult that simply spelling its words is a challenge? And can you be an orthographic prodigy?
Linguist Daniel Midgley spells it out on this episode of Talk the Talk.
Listen to this episode
You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.
http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xmlI’ve never told this to anyone, but at one point in my young life when I fancied myself a bit of a speller, I had this fantasy of competing in the National Spelling Bee in Washington DC. Maybe my imagination was fueled by that Charlie Brown special.
Anyway, the Bee never happened for me — lack of corporate sponsorship — but I was able to parley my interest in language into a podcast and an empire, so it wasn’t a total loss. And anyway, I think my chances would have been miniscule against these kids.
I don’t do much spelling in this episode, but I do get to torment Ben, which is lots of fun. And here’s a test for you: Can you spot the three mispellings I’ve made in this post?
Show notes
About the Bee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/30/scripps-spelling-bee-vocabulary-tests
Arvind Mahankali won it all this year
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9327203/arvind-mahankali-wins-scripps-national-spelling-bee
The winning word was ‘knaidel’
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/nyregion/queens-boy-13-wins-scripps-spelling-bee-with-knaidel.html?_r=0
Watch the win
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2013/05/31/2374867/
Spelling bee champion goes NUTS after winning (GIF)
http://imgur.com/gallery/vIf0lAD
How would you do in the National Spelling Bee? Take the challenge!
http://www.spellingbee.com/sample-test
Why is it a ‘bee’?
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bee
Bone up with this word list, complied from previous years
http://www.project-read.com/give-2/spelling-bee/consolidated-word-lists/
Or take it slow by starting with the top 100 misspelled words
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/spelling-and-word-lists/misspelled.html
Tricky spellings that trip people up
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/29/six-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-scripps-national-spelling-bee/
This year, definitions were a part of the contest.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/entertainment/17382608/u-s-spelling-bee-starts-with-a-new-challenge-definitions/
Not everyone is happy about this.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2013/04/national_spelling_bee_definitions_it_s_indefensible_to_force_top_spellers.html
AMAZING video about the Great English Vowel Shift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyhZ8NQOZeo
or just read the Wikipedia page, which is very good too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
