Annual spelling competition changes its rules.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: No one is entirely certain of the origin of the words “Spelling Bee” – the annual spelling competition held in Washington, DC where Indian Americans are undisputed world champions for the last three years running, and winners in 10 of the past 14 editions.
Possibilities abound of the origin of “Bee” when coupled with Spelling. Scholars have rejected the word referring to the industrious honey-making insect. Some say it comes from the Middle English word bene, which means “a prayer” or “a favor.” In England, a dialect form of this word, been or bean, referred to “voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task.”
The term Spelling Bee is apparently an American term, having first appeared in print in 1875, to mean a community social gathering, though more popular variants like spinning bee (in 1769), husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836), predated it.
So why the fuss about the meaning of two innocuous words of a competition that place emphasis on spelling, not its meaning? Plenty! From this year onwards in the 87-year-old competition, the meaning of words, apart from the spelling, will decide the finalists, announced the organizers.
“What we know with the championship-level spellers is that they think of their achievement in terms of spelling and vocabulary being two sides of the same coin,” Executive Director Paige Kimble of the Scripps national Spelling Bee, said in a statement, for the May 28-30 meet this year.
Though the 12 finalists on stage won’t have to define the words – and as a rule the meaning of each word is given out by the judge as contestants try to crunch it mentally – they would have to get past multiple-choice vocabulary tests on computer from the quarter-finals onwards, with 50 percent emphasis on vocabulary.
A sample question provided by the Spelling Bee organizers poses: “Something described as refulgent is: a) tending to move toward one point, b) demanding immediate action, c) rising from an inferior state, d) giving out a bright light.”
Though the organizers say that the changes were driven by the desire to encourage students to improve their spelling and broaden their knowledge of the language, the purpose of it may be lost as most finalists get to be where they are by knowing the root meaning of words. Thus, for the word refulgent, the meaning according to Merriam-Webster dictionary is ‘shining brightly’ and the correct answer is d.
Perhaps, organizers want to counter the amount of guessing that students do on stage to crunch words, and their obvious sigh of relief when they get it correctly without the elimination bell going off. However, with the finals to be telecast live – watched by more than a million viewers last year – and students likely to go about guessing some words on stage, the element of luck cannot be done away with, as it should not be anyway, and which ultimately makes it that much more suspenseful and compelling to watch.
Well, finalists this year can hope that two words they don’t get to crunch and define in the multiple choice questions is: Spelling Bee.
To contact the editor, e-mail: sujeetrajan@americanbazaaronline.com