Spelling Stories
Today we are proud in West Lafayette because a local eighth grader, Sameer Mishra, won the National Spelling Bee. He had to spell the following words in order to win:
sudation demitass quadrat diener hyssop macedoine basenji numnah chorion nacarat sinicize hyphaeresis taleggio esclandre guerdon
(The words are in the story in the Lafayette Journal and Courier. I hardly know any of them, but I think they probably meant to write "demitasse." The writers at the J & C are not known to be good spellers).
I was a pretty good speller in elementary school, but I remember one embarrassing story about spelling. In third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Noble, wanted to know how to spell "sundae", the ice cream treat. She asked the class if anyone knew how to spell it. Since I always pronounced it "sunda" with a short "a" at the end, I raised my hand and said "s u n d a". She didn't tell me that I was wrong, so to this day I wonder if she has been spelling it wrong based on my answer. By the time I knew the correct spelling, I wasn't in her class any more, so I couldn't help her.
In fourth grade, we had class spelling bees, where a team, not an individual, was the winner. My friend Jane and I were both good spellers, so the teacher would always put us on opposite teams. That gave the teams both good chances, but meant that we could never both be on the winning team. Recently I reminded Jane of this, and she wrote to me:
"I forgot we were the good spellers. When I was in 6th grade in NYC, I won the school and the district spelling bee, but misspelled annihilate in the City-wide bee. I had a booklet of "hard" words to study. It's a strange concept to have spelling contests, but it's fun if you're good at it."
I recommend the movie "Akeelah and the Bee", which is not a "real story", but is a good fictional movie about a girl who goes to the spelling bee.
I hope I spelled all the words in this posting correctly.
sudation demitass quadrat diener hyssop macedoine basenji numnah chorion nacarat sinicize hyphaeresis taleggio esclandre guerdon
(The words are in the story in the Lafayette Journal and Courier. I hardly know any of them, but I think they probably meant to write "demitasse." The writers at the J & C are not known to be good spellers).
I was a pretty good speller in elementary school, but I remember one embarrassing story about spelling. In third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Noble, wanted to know how to spell "sundae", the ice cream treat. She asked the class if anyone knew how to spell it. Since I always pronounced it "sunda" with a short "a" at the end, I raised my hand and said "s u n d a". She didn't tell me that I was wrong, so to this day I wonder if she has been spelling it wrong based on my answer. By the time I knew the correct spelling, I wasn't in her class any more, so I couldn't help her.
In fourth grade, we had class spelling bees, where a team, not an individual, was the winner. My friend Jane and I were both good spellers, so the teacher would always put us on opposite teams. That gave the teams both good chances, but meant that we could never both be on the winning team. Recently I reminded Jane of this, and she wrote to me:
"I forgot we were the good spellers. When I was in 6th grade in NYC, I won the school and the district spelling bee, but misspelled annihilate in the City-wide bee. I had a booklet of "hard" words to study. It's a strange concept to have spelling contests, but it's fun if you're good at it."
I recommend the movie "Akeelah and the Bee", which is not a "real story", but is a good fictional movie about a girl who goes to the spelling bee.
I hope I spelled all the words in this posting correctly.
posted by Story Time at 12:27 PM
