Here's Every Word That Stumped Spellers During the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee

Time ^ | May 31, 2019

[SMGFan]

A record-breaking number of spellers — 562 — competed their hearts and minds out during this week’s 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. And a record-breaking number beat the bee, with eight contestants crowned “co-champions” at the conclusion of Thursday night’s finale.

For the rest though, a word (or words) got the better of them. Whether their elimination was controversial or incontrovertible (both knockout words in round No. 3), whether it left them feeling dubitative, stolid, or even, say, inured (round No. 3 again), these unlucky competitors made a typo, and got dinged for it — literally dinged, that is, thanks to the bee’s iconic bell used to denote a wrong answer.

[SMGFan]

Was actually searching for the list of words the final 8 spelled correctly in the final round ( and maybe the penultimate round as well/s)

[bramps]

'Idiosyncrasy' wun me the eighth grade school spelling be.

'Heinous' wun me the nineth.

[bramps]

Yes. That was on purpose.

[allendale]

Spelling bees are somewhat interesting but of limited value. Far more interesting would be well designed math and physics competitions for teenagers. Now those winners would truly impress people.

[Leaning Right]

Back when I was in high school (late 1960’s) I was in a spelling bee. I got knocked out by the word “covfefe”. I didn’t even think that was a real word. But recent events have proved me wrong.

[Larry Lucido]

Don't forget "quone."

[Redcitizen]

What’s the use of competing if you have 8 co-champions? It should be one winner takes all. Otherwise every contestant should get a participation trophy.

[sheana]

True. They should keep going til there is only 1 left.

[Raebie]

They must have run out of words. /s

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Many of the “hard” words that I looked up aren’t in my dictionary.

[BenLurkin]

Like the All-Star game that was called early because they ran out of pitchers.

[Lisbon1940]

If all you can do is spell and use grammar correctly, you are basically a failure in life.

[tenger]

If all you can do is spell and use grammar correctly, you are basically a failure in life.

That's why I love FreeRepublic. The narrow and ignorant statements made by people who need to feel good about themselves continue to amaze me. Many careers have been made by just those two skills alone. But they're life long failures because, well, because Lisbon says they are.

[trebb]

I always spelt good bud my word usury was knot always wright...

[Ingtar]

There, their, and they’re would have eliminated many of today’s spellers.

[Calvin Locke]

Absolute nonsense.

Like that “tie” MLB All Star game.

[dfwgator]

Would they award The Stanley Cup to both teams, if Game 7 goes to 10 overtimes?

[bgill]

Pull out a Mexican dictionary since that’s the new language they’re going to have to learn.

[chuckb87]

Didn’t take much to trigger tenger the grammer master.

[fini]

"What’s the use of competing if you have 8 co-champions? It should be one winner takes all. Otherwise every contestant should get a participation trophy."

They did announce that they ran out of words.