A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

MORE THAN WORDS IS ALL THEY HAVE TO SPELL: For those of us without ESPN360, it looks like the best coverage is the Bee's Twitter feed, which is giving us word-by-word action. Words thus far in the first oral round include:

• Dee-FUHRD: What I was from Rice University when I applied there.
• RAN-sid: What a bachelor's refrigerator smells like.
• FEZ-ant: Bird for hunting.
• LAH-vuhn-duhr: Purplish color.
• HYOO-muhr-us: What we try to be around here.

It's a pretty easy round thus far it seems, but I'm sure the difficulty will ramp up.

e.t.a. You can also follow on the Bee's own website, though things look a bit confused there at the moment. huh-RIFF-ihk, even. (Adam)

9:20a: According to the website (Twitter is now lagging), the dih-SIGH-puhlz of Kayva Shivashankar should be pleased, as well as those with a PREH-fuhr-ehns for Kennyi Aouad. And Nana Adjoa Baiden-Amissah -- Ghana's representative -- should be happy that FLUHK-tyoo-ate was her first word, given that her counterpart last year was asked to spell the name of the Passover ritual meal, and it's hard to find good matzoh in Accra. (Adam)

9:50a: Midway through round one, and 129/145 have spelled correctly so far, an 89% pass rate. We're all curious as to whether this afternoon's round is going to be less of a gimme for the kids, given today's weight in determining who makes it to ESPN tomorrow. Bee Website results now fixed, and we can see how an Idaho speller had great difficulty with a pah-lee-suh-LAB-ik adjective. Group two, per @yesiamawordnerd, starts at 10:30am.