Tuesday, May 4, 2010

MY "JOURNEY" ... UM ... LANGUAGE OF ORIGIN, PLEASE? This year's ABC primetime coverage of the National Spelling Bee finals will be hosted by Chris Harrison of "The Bachelor". Breaking from tradition, the Bee will be Thursday-Friday this year instead of Wednesday-Thursday.

I will begin our annual coverage with news to delight even the hardest-hearted of our readers: this year's youngest competitor will be eight-year-old Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, younger sister of 2009 winner (and longtime ALOTT5MA Fave) Kavya Shivashankar, of whom Shonda wrote in 2008: "Here come the supercute ESPN montaged Behind the Speller segments. Make it stop. Make it stop. I mean, I agree that 5 year old Vanya Shivashankar is freaking adorable. We all do. But she is not in the Bee. She is stealing her big sister Kavya's thunder! Thunder Stealer!"

The final two words in the Thunder Stealer's Olathe final: uh-RON-duh-smuhnt -- a French administrative region -- and ah-puh-RAH(t)-chick, the thing this blog needs more of.
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9 comments:

  1. Marsha8:48 PM

    What was with the phantom Spelling Bee tweets on the Scripps official account today? Very odd.

    But yay for starting Bee coverage!

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  2. noweasels9:06 PM

    I LOVE the Bee!!  YAY!

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  3. D'Arcy9:23 PM

    I got arrondissement, but I can't figure out the other one.  Clearly I need to watch more Bee.  Can I watch it here in Canada?

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  4. Deanna10:29 PM

    It's "apparatchik" (it's in the second link).

    While it would be a pain to type in the characters, I'm a fan of the International Phonetic Alphabet. I once taught with a terrible Spanish curriculum that used Webster-esque phonetics. OH-lah, COH-moh ess-TAHS. Ugh.

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  5. HeatherP11:01 PM

    Oh, I cannot wait. CANNOT WAIT.

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  6. Adam C.11:28 PM

    Oh, the Vanya news is going to go over well with my kids.  Just the other day, we were talking about the Bee, and Kavya in particular, and the 6-y.o. quoted Vanya's classic scene stealer from said Behind the Speller segment: "Peace out, dudes of America!"

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  7. Adam9:00 AM

    Alternate tite:

    I HAVE SEVEN BEAUTIFUL SPELLERS BEFORE ME, BUT I ONLY HAVE SIX WORDS:

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  8. The Pathetic Earthling9:28 AM

    <span>Maybe there will be a romantic alpha-bits ceremony for the final two spellers.</span>

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  9. Joseph J. Finn10:43 AM

    I had a glorious few moments of thinking that Chris Hanson was going to be the host.  "Why don't you have a seat right over there and spell this for me."

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