I'm watching the Scripps Spelling Bee right now while trying to set up my weekend photo essays. These kids impress the hell out of me and if we were ever involved in a spell off, I would cheat. Ruthlessly.
It reminds me of the one time I was in a spelling bee in grade school. I had no idea there was one even happening that day and the entire literate population of the school gathered in the cafeteria for a school spelling bee. I was in 5th grade. I even remember that I was wearing a yellow shirt that day.
The words were easy at first.
"Spell CAT." Pfff. They must be kidding.
"Spell POOL." All right, weeding out the first graders.
"Spell SPANISH." The words became a little more difficult and more and more kids sat down. It was down to 2 students, me and a 4th grader. I was knocking the words out right and left, but so was he.
Then, they gave me the word CONCH.
Wha?
I'd never heard of that word before! "Can I have the definition?"
"A conch is the shell of a gastropod." (Yeah, that helped. I didn't even know what a gastropod was, but I could sound it out!)
"C-O-N-K. Conch."
The buzzer sounded. The fourth grader won. His next word would have been atmosphere. He didn't know how to spell it. I did.
I found out later that day that a Conch is also a nickname for Key West residents and I haven't liked Key West since.
When my son was in third grade, he was in a spelling bee. He was poised to kick ass and take names, but got tripped up by the word eleven. His mouth moved faster than his brain and he spelled it e-l-v-e-n.
Retribution was his, though, in the fourth grade history challenge when he single-handedly carried his team to victory and made the losing team cry.
Posted by: Trish | May 30, 2008 at 09:46 PM