Spelling Bee Stories

[maleficent]

F-U-R-I-O-U-S over spelling bee ruling

RENO, Nevada (AP) -- She spelled it right. The judge said it was wrong. And she's not getting a second chance.

Reno, Nevada, eighth-grader Sara Beckman spelled "discernible" correctly during a spelling bee Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Reno. But the judge rang the bell anyway.

Her parents are furious, but organizers say they had to protest the call immediately. They say they waited until the bee was over to avoid interrupting.

A school spokesman likens it to a referee's call in an NFL game. The protest has to come before the next play starts.

Sara says she'd just like another chance, since it's her last spelling bee.

Her mother, Cindy, calls herself a "momma bear with her bear claws out" and is ready to go to court.

The school spokesman says he hopes everybody can sit down together and work something out. He says defending a lawsuit over a spelling bee isn't a good way to spend school district money.

The stupidity of this story made me chuckle.. but figure - hey let's talk about your own spelling bee stories... were you the district champ? get blown out in the first round? Do you remember what word you got knocked out on?

Back when I was a youngin' in 8th grade - I made it thru the school spelling bee, then to the county spelling bee... I was in the regional spelling bee... and thinkin' I'm hot shit... It's like the fourth or fifth round and I come up... my word is CAFETERIA... Only the person giving me the word had a pretty thick NJ accent (me being from NJ and all) and she pronounced it CAFERTERIA... And that's what I spelled... And i went down in flames...

[The_Jazz]

I have a similar story to this but it doesn't involve a spelling bee. If anyone wants to hear about high school cross country let me know.

I think the spokesman has it right.

[NCB]

Was Dan Quayle the judge?

[snowy]

I was the spelling bee champion in 4th and 6th grades and placed every year through 8th, the last year I competed. Our school district was too small to do anything more than a school spelling bee, and in 8th grade, when I was in a new district, it was too poorly organized to go further. They ended up inviting me to attend regionals, but I passed as it was too much of a hassle. I also regularly placed in the Geography Bee.

[Rlyss]

I'm the type that holds a grudge.

I'm a bloody excellent speller, if I do say so myself. I remember being in kindergarden and having an argument with another kid about how to spell Europe. I insisted it had an E at the front and he said it didn't. The teacher wouldn't get involved because she didn't want to tell the other kid he was wrong.

I remember when I was in third grade and my family had been out the night before for some reason and we'd stopped by KFC as a treat on the way home as it was late. The sign said 'Drive Thru'. The next day our spelling test had 'through' on it and I thought that 'thru' must have been a different way of spelling it, and even though I knew how to spell it properly, I assumed that this was a different way. It was a sign, and why on earth would they spell it incorrectly? So I wrote 'thru', thinking I was oh so smart, and was told I was wrong I explained to my teacher that I knew how to spell it properly and told him about the sign, and I still remember what he said. He laughed and told me that he had to mark me wrong but that I'd learned a lesson that day. Looking back on it now I guess I have learned a few things about the nature of fast food and consumerism, cutting corners and about believing everything I saw or heard.

I believe spelling has a hell of a lot to do with the amount of reading you do as a kid. I read book after book after book and always asked my parents or consulted a dictionary about every word I didn't quite get.

[stingc]

I ended up placing 4th in California back in 5th or 6th grade. The internet has since removed any spelling ability I used to have...

[la petite moi]

4th-6th grade: I placed either 1st or 2nd in school, 1st or 2nd at district, and moved on to county and got 2nd place once.

I remember I got out on the word "foyer" because I knew how to spell it, spoke too quickly, ended up saying: "F-Y-" and then sighing really loud because I knew I had screwed up.

There were no more spelling bees after that.

[rhaevyn]

I was the county champion in 8th grade. I won on "psychologist," which is one of the words my dad had quizzed me on that morning. That got me a trophy, $200, a $1000 scholarship to Penn State (which I haven't used because I'm not going to Penn State), and my picture in the paper. They wrote an article but the journalist talked to both me and the runner-up, and she got our "quotes" mixed up.

[Lasereth]

I'm a really good speller if I say so myself. And I do! In 8th grade I believe we had the spelling bee. The person said to spell Council, so I said "C-O-U-N-S-E-L." Wrong. I should have asked for a definition. I knew how to spell every word, even the word that won it for the champion (watermelon...watermelon???). That's always bugged me.

[Redjake]

man. the last time I was in a spelling bee I lost on the word "principal." I spelled it "princepal." as soon as I said "E", I smacked myself because I knew I had fucked up. to this day I still have no idea why I said E instead of I.

[albania]

The last word I ever spelled for a spelling bee was the word sandwich in sixth grade, I spelled it correctly; spell-check has really diminished my spelling skills.

[DDDDave]

Originally Posted by Rlyss

I'm the type that holds a grudge.

I'm a bloody excellent speller, if I do say so myself. I remember being in kindergarden ........

From Misspelled.com "kindergarten: a preschool for children age 4 to 6 to prepare them for primary school."

[la petite moi]

Originally Posted by DDDDave

From Misspelled.com "kindergarten: a preschool for children age 4 to 6 to prepare them for primary school."

That's hilarious because I was thinking the exact same thing. I just chose not to start shit. Ha!

[Grasshopper Green]

In fifth grade I did so well in the contest to see which two students would attend the school spelling bee that I had to sit out while the second student was chosen; I ended up freezing on stage during the actual bee and missing my first word, sausage. I forgot the second s. I was so disappointed in myself. In eighth grade, I ended up taking second place in my grade. I also took part in the 7th and 6th grade ones but really don't remember much about them.

[laconic1]

I was the school spelling champ in 8th grade, should have been the champ in 7th grade also. I missed a really easy word in the next to last round when I had a momentary brain fade. Went to the state spelling bee in 8th grade and only got like 22 out of 50 words right on the written test, didn't advance to the verbal test.

[raeanna74]

Never was in any spelling bee except one out teacher set up in class to practice that weeks spelling words. I wasn't even aware of any regional competitions. In fourth grade I sucked at spelling. The teacher would take the words we'd mispelled on last weeks test and retest us on them the next week along with our new list. It was a good idea in theory but I ended having two whole lists of words eventually because I couldn't study the old AND the new well enough to whittle down the number of words that I got wrong.

Then in 7th grade I left public school. Mom signed me up for a medical terminology class. I learned the latin and greek roots to many daily words. After that my spelling improved tremendously.

[ngdawg]

In 8th grade English, every Thursday was a spelling bee and if you won, you got an automatic 100 on Friday's test. I usually won. One of the last bee's I won was with onomatopoeia.
My son loved his V-Tech toy laptop with the spelling games when he was 4, so I encouraged him a bit-taught him that word just for kicks, along with its meaning. By the time he got to first grade (he was already reading and writing in kindergarten), his teacher approached me and said that he would be choosing his own spelling words each week as any kid who can spell onomatopoeia and apartment is way past bat, cat and sat.
Who'da thunk a silly spelling bee word would get so much mileage?

[Trisk]

We didn't have many spelling bees in my schools growing up, but in 5th grade, when I had my last spelling bee, the teacher kicked me out of the competition becuase I didn't capitalize the "B" in "Bible"
I was so angry. I'm pretty sure "Bible" doesn't always need to be capitalized. What about when you write "It was the bible of computer programming" or something along those lines? Still capital? Perhaps someone else knows better than me.
....she was pretty religious though. She was a Jehovah's witness. Maybe she just took things she associated with religion really seriously.

[captobvious]

I won back to back spelling bees in 4th and 5th grade, and my spelling abilities have gradually declined ever since. I might have won in 3rd grade too, but the teacher pronounced "affable" like it only has one "f" in it. It sounded like "a fable" so I spelled it that way.

[Gilda]

There's an excellent documentary, Spellbound, about the Scripps national spelling bee that follows five or six students from their school bee through the end of the national bee. It's not as good as Word Wars, which is about competetive tournament Scrabble, but it's still worth a view.

I'm a pretty good speller, my posts here notwithstanding (although I do have the excuse of having to type with one hand), but I've never been any good at spelling bees because I can't do the visualization thing and get lost spelling words orally when the word is too long. I have to be able to see it to know whether I've misspelled it.

I had a sixth grade girl who went to the state geography bee who had something similar happen to her. Her question was to list the five largest countries in the world by area. She asked for clarification as to whether the surface area of inland lakes and waterways was included, and whether governed territories were included. I was thinking, "Good girl", because we'd gone over this just the week before. Those factors make a difference in the ranking of the US and China. The judge didn't have an answer.

She answered that, if inland lakes, seas, and waterways are included, the answer is Russia, Canada, United States, China (PRC), and Brazil. If only land is included and territories are excluded, or if the territories included in the Republic of China are included in China's total, the answer is Russia, Canada, China, United States, and Brazil.

This is the correct answer. It was counted wrong, because the listed answer had China ahead of the United States, and only the first answer given is accepted regarless of how it's qualified.

I protested at the end of bee and was overruled without comment or review.

Gilda

[Dennis]

I took 4th when I was in 5th gradel I couldn't spell exclamation. I use my limited skills (diminshed thanks to the internet) for the school paper.

[TotalMILF]

I was in the eighth grade spelling bee. I was given the word "enthusiastically," and I totally spelled it correctly, but I spelled it so fast that they thought I only had one "l" instead of two... and I was immediately disqualified. I'm still pissed!! ;-)

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by Gilda

There's an excellent documentary, Spellbound, about the Scripps national spelling bee that follows five or six students from their school bee through the end of the national bee. It's not as good as Word Wars, which is about competetive tournament Scrabble, but it's still worth a view.

I'm a pretty good speller, my posts here notwithstanding (although I do have the excuse of having to type with one hand), but I've never been any good at spelling bees because I can't do the visualization thing and get lost spelling words orally when the word is too long. I have to be able to see it to know whether I've misspelled it.

I had a sixth grade girl who went to the state geography bee who had something similar happen to her. Her question was to list the five largest countries in the world by area. She asked for clarification as to whether the surface area of inland lakes and waterways was included, and whether governed territories were included. I was thinking, "Good girl", because we'd gone over this just the week before. Those factors make a difference in the ranking of the US and China. The judge didn't have an answer.

She answered that, if inland lakes, seas, and waterways are included, the answer is Russia, Canada, United States, China (PRC), and Brazil. If only land is included and territories are excluded, or if the territories included in the Republic of China are included in China's total, the answer is Russia, Canada, China, United States, and Brazil.

This is the correct answer. It was counted wrong, because the listed answer had China ahead of the United States, and only the first answer given is accepted regarless of how it's qualified.

I protested at the end of bee and was overruled without comment or review.

Gilda

Damn, that sucks....stupid judges....

[Cynthetiq]

Originally Posted by maleficent

F-U-R-I-O-U-S over spelling bee ruling

The stupidity of this story made me chuckle.. but figure - hey let's talk about your own spelling bee stories... were you the district champ? get blown out in the first round? Do you remember what word you got knocked out on?

Back when I was a youngin' in 8th grade - I made it thru the school spelling bee, then to the county spelling bee... I was in the regional spelling bee... and thinkin' I'm hot shit... It's like the fourth or fifth round and I come up... my word is CAFETERIA... Only the person giving me the word had a pretty thick NJ accent (me being from NJ and all) and she pronounced it CAFERTERIA... And that's what I spelled... And i went down in flames...

I had the same issue... the word nephew, but the teacher pronounced it neview.

[tspikes51]

I was school spelling bee champ every year we had it, except for one. I got beat by a girl that went on to be the county champ, which was the big deal. I beat her the next year.

In middle school, I was co-captian of our quiz bowl team. The whole year we only had one event: the county tournament. It was a dozen or so teams, and we did a round-robin. We beat every team and doubled the total score of the 2nd place team.

I also had more awards than any other person on my high school academic team, and I was only on it for 3 years. I also faced academic suspension a few times, another best for the team.

[Wyckd]

and she pronounced it CAFERTERIA... And that's what I spelled... And i went down in flames...

HAHAHHAHAHA...



...sorry.

[Gilda]

Just in case anybody is interested, Akeela and the Bee is a very good movie, well worth the time. It even manages to make the final spelling bee dramatic and interesting without being obvious.

Oh, and the kid with the Scrabble games? I'd have kicked his ass.

Gilda