Posted on 06/02/2023 10:15:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Fifteen months ago, Dev Shah spent a miserable five hours spelling outdoors in chilly, windy, damp conditions at a supersize regional competition in Orlando, Florida, only to fall short of his dream of returning to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
“Despondent is the right word,” Dev said. “I just didn’t know if I wanted to keep continuing.”
Look at him now.
Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev asked precise questions about obscure Greek roots, rushed through his second-to-last word and rolled to the National Spelling Bee title Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, first competed at the national bee in 2019, then had his spelling career interrupted. The 2020 bee was canceled because of COVID-19, and in the mostly virtual 2021 bee, he didn’t make it to the in-person finals.
He flexed his knowledge in Wednesday’s early rounds by asking questions that proved he knew every relevant detail the bee’s pronouncers and judges had on their computer screens. And when it was all over, he held the trophy over his head as confetti fell.
Dev’s winning word was “psammophile,” a layup for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo meaning sand, Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, Greek?”
Dev soaked up the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he described a day earlier as a stalling tactic. Then he put his hands over his face as he was declared the winner.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Face it, Asians and a lot of Jews are better parents. There is nothing they do that our grandparents did different.
Runner-up Charlotte Walsh gave Dev a congratulatory hug.
Earlier that night, 11 finalists took the stage in National Harbor, Maryland, for the final rounds of the 2023 bee. All had made it unscathed through eight rounds (five of spelling, three of vocabulary.)
Two spellers were eliminated in Round 9, when 11-year-old Sarah Fernandes from Nebraska was marked incorrect on “leguleian” and Pranav Anandh from Pennsylvania on “querken.”
In Round 10, which is a word-meaning round, Tarini Nandakumar from Texas was out on “chthonic.”
Arth Dalsania from California was eliminated on “katuka,” Dhruv Subramanian from California on “crenel,” Vikrant Chintanaboina from California on “pataca,” and Aryan Khedkar from Michigan on “pharetrone.”
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Folks, do you notice anything while looking at the names of most of the finalists?
Go to any High School commencement and look at the names of who the top students are.
Haha. There’s a Far Side for just about everything.
Not taking away from the champ....just sayin....
The spelling bees are dominated by Asians and Indians.........Good for them
While all the others are trying to figure out what gender they are.
European origin Americans can tell you their preferred their pronouns!
Sounds like someone with lots of cases of ammo to me.
Interesting fact: “katuka” is a Sanskrit word.
Pselling bees.
Word is, it’s a big bizzness, but only for the most industrious.
It would be interesting to follow up on the careers of the spelling bee champions of the last 20-30 years.
Also, many of the champions are of Indian descent (India the country), so, why isn’t there a call for those kids and parents to stop studying harder than other kids and making those other kids feel less valuable, especially black and Hispanics?
Congrats to him. If a white student had one it they would have declared spelling bees to be racist and a threat to woke values of inclusion and diversity.
They probably all come from India’s Brahmin, or similar, cast, who have a vey high average IQ.
Gawd...with so many things to learn....why would I spend so much time on learning to spell words that I will never use.
Those commumities do not have societal pressure and guilt shaming forces on them to marry outside their their peoples.
The more homogenous you are the more you can keep your societal norms intact and from being demanded to be dismantled from others.
This is why we as a nation, one of many reasons, are going down the tubes.
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