Spelling Bees

Are you a good speller?  Could you spell words like 'fibbertigibbet' (a silly person)?  Ever enter a spelling competition? If you think you are a good speller, take this test to see if you are Spelling Bee eligible.  http://spellingbee.com/sample-test When I was a primary school student the teachers frequently had "spelling bee" competitions among the class. We had no geniuses who could spell the obscure words , but we had fun. I don't think kids have spelling bees in school as much as they used to because all they seem to know how to spell is lol and the other texting foolishness they embrace. Maybe someone should have an acronym identification contest fort the kids today.  It's b/c (because) txt (text) 411 (information) is NP (no problem) for them. How do kids who can barely spell 'cat' remember all of that chat acronym vocabulary?

Anyway, there are some nerd kids left who are amazing spellers, mostly the ones who read those...what did they used to call them...oh, 'books'...instead of poking an electronic keyboard device all day with a finger. The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the old line and official spelling bee contest that defines U.S. kid spellers (more accurately, it's 285 spellers from the 50 U.S. states, and from American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe and some from  the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea). The spellers range in age from 9 to 15 years old, but more than 80% are between the ages of 12 and 14 and are selected after winning local spelling bee competitions. And this year there was a a tie between two contestants.

There are about the same number of boys as girls and an oddity for that contest is that  math is most frequently cited as a favorite subject. So much for the myth that one is either math or language oriented. Indian Americans are the best spellers. They have dominated the Scripps Bee for many years.  The theory is that it is a cultural thing, and that Indian Americans study and prepare best for the contest. Only one of those Indian Americans ever won the contest on his or her first try. The rest of them tried multiple times before winning. You can't be lazy and be a spelling champ. Anyway, the success of Indian spellers more than makes up for the lack of Indian Americans (the two who tied  as winners this year are both Indian Americans) who are sports or music champs.

So in this age of spell check where one really need not be a great speller, what is the value in  having spelling contests? Why not forget spelling and just let the geeks rule spelling? It's because words are the building blocks of language and we need to know how to spell them quickly in order to use the language well. When we spell well we use more and more sophisticated words. Spelling  also connects us to history and culture, to science, poetry, and mathematics.

Spelling helps us perfect our use of language, However, I confess that I will use spell check before sending this. I do not need bad spelling to be another affirmation of my stupidity.