Thursday, June 2, 2011

ROUND 6: 26 Spellers remain. 14 boys. 12 girls. Here we go!



We begin with a very uncomfortable interview with heartbroken Jamaican speller Hanif. Shoving a microphone in his face is unkind; he tells us that this is his only time at the Bee because in Jamaica you only get once chance. Poor kid.

Laura Newcombe starts the round off with a very impressive display, spelling chlorthalidone right after muttering “Shoot!” under her breath in a panic.


The kids are very serious this year. Too serious. I am worried that either Veronica Penny or Jenny Solheim might vomit right there on the stage. BBC Bailly would not like that.

Dreikanter. Renminbi. Helychrysum. Liptauer. The words get more difficult and the kids keeps spelling them correctly.


Cutie Claire Zuo goes down on clepsydra. I am saddened to lose the coolest girl in the Bee. But she seems fine, calm and cool. Of course, anyone smart enough to list “sleeping” as one of her favorite activities wins my loyalty.


Stuti Mishra is mowed down by coelurosaur which is some kind of dinosaur. Her parents clutched their younger child, eyes closed. Stressed out. A kind of calm settled over Stuti, that calm that comes when you know you are going to lose and you want it over with. And she’s gone.


German words start coming into play. Surjo Bandyopadhyay looks disgusted and annoyed by his word, also a little disappointed in BBC Bailly. Nachschlag: a musical ornament consisting of one or several short unaccented grace notes attached to and played in the time of the preceding main note or tone. When he gets it wrong he howls, “FAIL!” And when BBC Bailly spells it for him, he laughs and says, “oooookay!” He is gracious and funny and I am sad this is his last year.


We lose Siddharth on semplice. And that is four spellers down out of 10. It’s a blood bath.


10:37 am/1:37 pm: Mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state. That is the definition of Anja Beth Swoap’s word weltschmerz. Another German word. I think I am weltschmerz most of the time. Isn’t everyone?


The children, they fall like dominoes. Conor Gunsbury goes down on pavonazzo. 6 of the last 7 spellers have been eliminated. In an interview, Surjo gleefully declares Round 6 “INSANE” in terms of the difficulty of the words.


Jenny Solheim is put out of her misery by a poisonous alkaloid used chiefly as a sedative in connection with morphine or other analgesics in surgery and obstetrics, in the prevention of motion sickness, and as the truth serum in lie detector tests. The word scopolamine knocks her to the mat and she is finished. I think she is relieved to have it over with. It is hard to tell. She barely blinks. I hope she gets to do something fun now. Like not study spelling words to be like her Bee alumni mother. Who I am sure is a very nice Mom but, dude, that child just did not look happy.


Nevada native, Dakota staunches the blood flow by correctly spelling solenne. He might win the whole thing...


Sweet Nabeel Rahman spells ponceau. 11 year old Sriram Hathwar blows everyone away by spelling degringolade in a relaxed, bored manner. In 2008, he was the youngest competitor every to compete in the Bee. This is old hat for him.


Nicholas Rushlow gets a word that means covered with minute crystals. He gets origin, has it pronounced a bunch then he asks for something else that can help him. BBC Bailly gives him a sentence. Nicholas says, “That didn’t help me.” The audience laughs. Nicholas sighs, defeated, and spells drusy. He nearly explodes with joy when he finds out he spelled it correctly.


Mashad Arora is starting to charm me. I find myself rooting for him. He spells entremets (dishes served in addition to the main course of a meal) correctly and beams with relief. Samuel Estep also correctly spells a French word: malentendu (a misunderstanding).


Last speller in Round 6, Parker is up. He goes down on vitrophyre. Round 6 is over. 8 spellers gone. 18 spellers remain. On to Round 7...

41 comments:

  1. Marsha1:14 PM

    Laura Newcombe. Bad. Ass.

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  2. Christy in Philly1:16 PM

    Checking in on my lunch. Totally insane work day. Glad to see everyone here and so glad that both my spellers are still in! Let's go Grace Remmer and Nicholas Rushrow!

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  3. marnie1:17 PM

    Veronica Penny looked miserable even before her emotional reaction. Hard to watch her...

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  4. Christy in Philly1:21 PM

    Gah! RushLow!

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  5. bristlesage1:24 PM

    Liptauer!  One of my favorite things to buy at Zingerman's when I visit Ann Arbor. 

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  6. <span>Surjo Bandyopadhyay just gave us a moment. You'll be seeing it on YouTube.</span>

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  7. sconstant1:31 PM

    Surjo is angling for a mention on failblog.org.

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  8. bristlesage1:31 PM

    He's been fun the whole time.  Sorry to see him dinged.

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  9. sconstant1:32 PM

    (Just to clarify - not for misspelling, but because after he got the ding, he said "Fail." )

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  10. Eric J.1:32 PM

    "If you eat too much Liptaur, you're going to need Lipitor."

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  11. I think you all were right. 5/6 are down. This round is thinning fast. 

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  12. This will be the last round of the afternoon, clearly.  6 of 11 have survived so far, and 15 left to go.

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  13. Adam C.1:36 PM

    Yep, this is your bloodbath.

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  14. Mary Ann1:37 PM

    This is what Cat refers to as the "lawn mower" round.  Great to see coach Jeff in the audience with David Phan's family.  Jeff is an amazing resource to spelling preparation.

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  15. Ben Wiles1:37 PM

    Poor Surjo. Should have studied his Klingon roots.

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  16. Adam C.1:46 PM

    I think Sriram just might be a cyborg.  That was awesome.

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  17. Eric J.1:47 PM

    I'm following along on the results page - for a word like <span>dégringolade </span>do the spellers have to mention the accent?

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  18. pfrduke1:48 PM

    I am highly entertained by Nicholas Rushlow's strut every time he walks to the mike.

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  19. bristlesage1:48 PM

    Da-ko-ta! Da-ko-ta! 

    And a violist, too--as a violinist who occasionally had to substitute on that instrument, I salute his willingness to play it from the get-go.

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  20. isaac_spaceman1:49 PM

    "Degringolade":  jam made from the skin of Americans. 

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  21. Adam C.1:50 PM

    RUSHLOW!!!!!!

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  22. isaac_spaceman1:51 PM

    Nice little momentary strut there from Rushlow. 

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  23. bristlesage1:51 PM

    Okay, yes, Nicholas, NICE WORK.

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  24. "That doesn't help me" and he STILL gets it right! 

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  25. Mona G.1:52 PM

    The words are so unfairly balanced. Rocaille and rhabdomancer after the other doozies? They've been repeated so many times.

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  26. Adam C.1:52 PM

    He is so Sam Weir.

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  27. isaac_spaceman1:55 PM

    herrenvolk:  and the Bee suddenly turns ominous. 

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  28. pfrduke1:56 PM

    And all of a sudden ten in a row nail their words...

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  29. isaac_spaceman1:56 PM

    As Samir said yesterday, that's what gives it its drama.  Somebody yesterday got to walk to the mic and spell "billion." 

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  30. lisased1:57 PM

    Yes! That's it! How did I not see that before?

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  31. isaac_spaceman1:58 PM

    I know we're not supposed to treat them as cute little kids, but god, that Mashad is a cute little kid.

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  32. lisased1:59 PM

    Go Samuel!

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  33. Adam C.2:01 PM

    A 7th round coming up!

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  34. 18 spellers left.  And they're continuing to round seven.

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  35. Mona G.2:03 PM

    Those kids must be starved. They should have just gone to lunchbreak, and worry about the larger number of kids tonight.

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  36. sconstant2:05 PM

    For round 6 Google shows that you're way more likely to get common words right than uncommon ones.  Likely not shocking, but I was looking them up as they went along, and here are the Google hit numbers, in order, with the misspelled words in curly brackets: 

    verein - 72,900,000
    { semplice - 61,000,000 }
    renminbi - 16,100,000
    solenne - 3,340,000
    watteau - 2,420,000 (But most are for a painter named Antoine Watteau)
    empressement - 2,200,000
    rocaille - 1,860,000
    malentendu - 1,670,000
    { scopolamine - 1,140,000 }
    entremets - 967,000
    helichrysum - 904,000
    chlorthalidone - 786,000
    ponceau - 761,000
    { nachschlag - 731,000 }
    { Weltschmerz - 678,000 }
    drusy - 462,000
    dégringolade - 435,000
    { clepsydra - 400,000 }
    herrenvolk - 171,000
    Liptauer - 111,000
    guttula - 83,200
    dreikanter - 60,900
    { pavonazzo - 23,100 }
    rhabdomancer - 18,100
    { coelurosaur - 17,000 }
    { vitrophyre - 14,700 }

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  37. Starting at 10am is just too late in the day. I assume there's planned afternoon activities for the surviving kids -- meet with (someone in White House), plus downtime, plus dinner?

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  38. isaac_spaceman2:15 PM

    Thus answering the call yesterday for a Sabermetrics of spelling.

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  39. Julen8:36 PM

    Checking in super late, but I just wanted to say something on behalf of Jenny Solheim, whom I don't know, but I feel an affinity for as another person with Norwegian forebears. If she's anything like me, she inherited the Norwegian battleax gene, which basically means that your default expression makes you look like you are unhappy or disapproving. (My smile is achieving a flat line with my upper lip). I'm frequently told to smile or lighten up when I'm perfectly content or happy. On the plus side, if you cross me, I can go straight to gargoyle.

    She may very well be unhappy up there, but there's a chance she's just nervous and stressed and not actually totally miserable.

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