Posted on 06/01/2018 7:03:51 AM PDT by BBell
OXON HILL, Md. – The end of the biggest Scripps National Spelling Bee in history came abruptly, and it wasn't the conclusion that many expected. Naysa Modi, a poised and charismatic four-time participant whose long spelling career seemed to be building toward triumph, sat next to a newcomer whom she had already beaten this year — at the county level.
But 12-year-old Naysa blinked immediately, mixing up the single and double "s'' in the German-derived word "Bewusstseinslage" — a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory components — and 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani seized an opportunity that he wouldn't have had before this year.
"I didn't really think I'd be able to do it," the soft-spoken winner said. "I had confidence that I could do it, but I honestly didn't realistically think it could happen."
Karthik's victory Thursday night put the spotlight back onto the story of this bee week — the new wild-card program that Scripps launched to give a chance to spellers like him, who have to compete against some of the nation's best spellers at the local level. The field was expanded to 515 spellers to accommodate the wild cards — there had never been more than 300 competitors previously — and four of the 16 prime-time finalists got in through the new program, known as "RSVBee."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I saw a “Where are they now” type news thing of past winners of this spelling bee.
You would think, all these kids would go to Ivy League schools and end up doctors ect., but it was all over the map.
One of them was a zookeeper.
How many of those kids are homeschooled? ...go to private schools? ...go to public schools?
And the winning word was Greek.
Seems like cheating to me on the part of Scripps.
Cobbled?
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll
I say “cobbled” and you post the Nicoll quote about a “cribhouse whore.” Same/same, n’est-ce pas??? LOL!!
I think I saw the ID bug underneath both the winner and the girl who lost shows they attend public middle schools in one of the Dallas metroplex suburbs.
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