Though the Spanish language, among others, has its quirks and foreignisms, the English language really can’t be touched when it comes to complicated and irregular spelling. Thus, spelling bees are primarily an English-language phenomenon. Grant mentions a few “where are they now?” stories about past Scripps Bee winners. The common thread? If these kids had the discipline to compete in such a high-pressure event, they tend to carry those traits beyond the spelling arena and into their successes later in life. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Spelling Bees”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
One of the fun things about English, and fun is in air quotes there, one of the fun things about English is that the spelling is so odd. And that’s the reason that we can have spelling bees, right? Because there’s 19 different ways to spell something. It means it’s a little bit of a challenge to get spelling right, as we all know.
Yeah, you’re not saying that spelling bees are fun.
Oh, spelling bees are fun. I mean, if you’re not in them, they’re fun to watch. If you’re not traumatized by them. Somebody else is a disaster, frankly, right?
That’s true.
How do you spell schadenfreude? They have spelling bees in Spanish, too, even though its spelling is more regular because they have a lot of foreignisms, for example. They have a few words with silent P’s at the beginning. Borrowed words like whiskey, you know, the W. Stuff that kind of throw a kid.
They had a spelling bee earlier this year in New Mexico. A kid won. It was pretty interesting and fun. But it occurs to me this is primarily an English-speaking phenomenon because our language is so messed up. And so these young people work their tails off. Like the story of the spelling bee winner almost always begins, I get up every morning at 5 and study for three hours before I go to school. And then I study three more hours at night before going to bed. And they memorize these words.
But the thing is, there was a great series in Time Magazine in 2007 where they tracked down some of the former winners. There was a really nice quote from a winner named John Pennington. He won in 1986, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. And they asked him, they said, well, what’s the deal with former spelling bee winners? And he said, there aren’t any living under bridges or cracking under the pressure, which is, right, to be expected. These people go on to be lawyers and doctors and inventors and professionals. They are highly skilled adults the same way that they were highly disciplined children.
And it’s interesting to me that this quirk of English, that it’s kind of messed up because of all these historical accidents. We’ve borrowed all these words from all these places and all these points in history, creates this batch of kids who show off this prowess that gives an indicator to how well they’ll do for the rest of their lives. Right? If you are a spelling bee champ, there’s a really great chance that you’re going to be professionally successful for the rest of your life. And it’s not so much the words and letters themselves. I think it’s the discipline.
Yeah, the discipline. I can’t help but feeling that they brought some natural intelligence and memory to the party. But the practice required day in and day out to study this was something that also added to their skill set later in life. They brought the raw materials and then practicing for this spelling bee refined them.
Anyway, we’ll link to all those articles about spelling bees and spelling bee champions. And you know what, Martha? I’d love to hear some stories from people about when they were in a spelling bee. What was the word that you went out on?
No, don’t bring it up.
Me, fourth grade, kindergarten. I spelled it wrong.
I love that.
Grant misspells kindergarten.
I misspelled city. I saw the letters. I spelled it S-I-T-Y and was flabbergasted when they told me to sit down.
Oh!
When they told me to C-I-T down. What’s the story about your experience in a spelling bee? Send it in email to words@waywordradio.org or make a phone call 877-929-9673.
