Veronica Penny wants this too much. Maybe she spent too much time studying, worrying, stressing out about the Bee? I want her to go away and discover art and literature, nature and music. Or at least Beiber or Bella and Edward. Anything as long as she learns to relax before college.
11:10 am/2:10 pm: The spellers have been on stage for over 4 hours. Do they not get a bathroom break? Just curious...
Joining David Phan who went out on ocypode, Grace Remmer falls down on casquetel (a light open helmet without beaver or visor). I like how, once she hears the ding, she says brightly, “Thank you everybody!” She’ll be back next year, I’m sure.
Lily Jordan is back up. Her brothers are holding hands, dying with tension. They hug and pump their fists like this is a football game when their big sister spells dolichopodous.
Dakota, Nabeel and Siram sail through by easily spelling tough words. Arvind spells epigonism at lightning speed and then rushes back to his seat.
I think we might be about to lose Nicholas Rushlow on caffeol…
AND WE DO! WE DO! HE IS GONE!!! SHOCKING!
It was just stated that for every speller from here on out, if they spell their word correctly, they are automatically in the tonight’s finals. Here we go:
Joanna Ye gets into the finals hyoptrichosis (a congenital deficiency of hair). My money is still on her.
We lose Anahita on boudin. She was guessing and her disappointment is all over her face. I'm not sure I like the lady in the kiss 'n cry area who takes their hands and rubs their backs as if she knows them. The kids stare at her, wondering why this stranger is acting like their moms and when they can get away from her. It's awkward.
Sukanya sails through to the finals on thalassocracy. Narahari struggles with ceratorhine and is out!
Mashad has movie star eyes. I want him to star in his own kiddie action movies. He’s the Brad Pitt of spelling. And…wait. The judges stop everything to discuss the word: melittologist (an entomologist specializing in the study of bees). Maybe they too were mesmerized by his eyes. And he spells it correctly and is in the finals!
Last speller in the round is Samuel Estep. I love that he looks exactly like a young BBC Bailly. Certiorari (a write issuing out of a superior court to call up the records of an inferior court or a body acting in a quasi judicial capacity) is his word. And he is in the finals!
We have 13 finalists! Laura Newcombe, Veronica Penny, Dhivya Murugan, Lily Jordan, Dakota jones, Nabeel Rahman, Sriram Hathwar, Arvnd Mahankali, Prakash Mishra, Joanna Ye, Sukaya Roy, Mashad Arora, and Samuel Estep.
I like this Bee. This Bee that takes place exclusively on ESPN. No controversy, no stopping a round to deal with the demands of prime time network TV. Just spelling. Pure and simple. Okay, nobody fainted this year. But we still have the finals...
Both Canadian ladies advance. Damn, Newcombe is badass at this.
ReplyDeleteGrimthorpe and Valentine?
ReplyDeleteBoo to whoever put up the graphic on Veronica Penny's time to answer. She has her method, it works for her.
ReplyDeletePenny makes me so nervous to watch. I am never sure what she is going to do.
ReplyDeleteOof. I think David may have overthought that one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shonda. Veronica Penny needs to relax and enjoy her youth!
ReplyDeleteAww, man. Sorry to see Grace go. Classy exit.
ReplyDeleteAw I love Grace Remmer. So adorable.
ReplyDeleteOh no!! I am out of the pool. Still love Grace though.
ReplyDeleteWhen the numbers get small enough that you realize there's just a handful of spellers left in the competition, you feel an electric thrill knowing that the new champion is on that stage, that there are just a few hours to go until that person is revealed, and that you could be it! Of course, that thrill comes with a large dose of nerves and fear, but it's exciting just the same.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to the bathroom break question, I think they're allowed to leave the stage to go if they want to (I think David Phan might have earlier), although I think I would be too nervous. Also there is the occasional commercial break when they might be able to leave the stage.
ReplyDeleteThese kids are amazing spellers this year.
ReplyDeleteRushlow knows: anybody can strut when they win. A winner struts even when he loses.
ReplyDeleteThey just confirmed on the broadcast: this will be the last round for the afternoon.
ReplyDeleteThis is the last round for now - everyone who survives this round is going to the finals tonight.
ReplyDeleteRemember last year's "gnocchi" controversy? To me, "boudin" is just as easy.
ReplyDeleteexcept it wasn't.
ReplyDeleteSamir- isn't this the first time they've used boudin since you got it?.
ReplyDelete...and I am out of the pool. I was so hoping that Anahita would make it to prime time.
ReplyDeleteIf you live in San Francisco, there's a Boudin Bakery at every mall or tourist trap. Not appropriate for Round 7 of the Spelling Bee.
ReplyDeleteThe average number of Google hits last round was around 6 million, this round it's around 600,000 (as of thalassocracy) - and that's being pulled up by the Boudin bakery.
ReplyDeleteit was round 11 when samir got it in 2003 i think
ReplyDeleteSad to see David and Nicholas spell out. Two great spellers. Is it just me, or does this round seem easier than the last?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to compare round v round when you're looking at Bees before the introduction of the written test or with a different numerical cutoff. (What year was that, anyway?) In effect, you've got 6-7 difficult words being judged as part of "round one" now.
ReplyDeleteGreat poise under pressure.
ReplyDeleteCERTIORARI!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd the winner from my year (1983), Blake Giddens, makes a cameo appearance as the judges confer! He is SO NICE.
ReplyDeleteWill this cert. be granted or denied?
ReplyDeletelove this word! i got it back in the day :)
ReplyDeleteCERT GRANTED!
ReplyDeletecert. granted. Easy word for lawyers.
ReplyDelete13 remain for tonight.
{boudin - 4,320,000 (But the bakery throws this off)}
ReplyDeletecertiorari - 2,830,000
kagura - 2,740,000
{casquetel - 911,000 }
farrago - 654,000
melittologist - 652,000
hypotrichosis 156,000
talmouse - 129,000
grimthorpe - 83,300
epigonism 76,400
{ ocypode - 70,500 }
thalassocracy - 51,300
phreatophyte 42,500
{ caffeol - 27,000 }
choralcelo - 14,400
calabrasella - 12,500
{ceratorhine - 4,960}
dolichopodous - 4,810
Round 6 average Google hit score - 6.5M
Round 7 average Google hit score - 710,000
Crowdsource request: can folks compile (or self-report) who has both entrants left in the Pool? (I do: Newcombe/Hathwar.)
ReplyDeleteUgh. I thought about selecting either Joanna or Mashad as my "speller who is not Laura Newcombe." But I went with the Oregonian who writes fiction. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteLaura Newcombe and Joanna Ye remain! Go Girls!
ReplyDeleteTrue. 2003 did have a written round (I think it started in 2001 or 2002?) but with the threshold of 90 cutoff for round 3. still though, you can compare in the sense that round 11 in 2003 knocked the field from 5 to 2, whereas this round 7 was 18 to 13.
ReplyDeleteCertiorari! My bar exam studying self loves that this word is considered difficult. I am a legal wizard and I will pass the bar! /mantra
ReplyDeleteComing soon: more updates on life-after-Bee compiled by JJ Goldstein.
ReplyDeleteAnd we'll be back at 8:15p or so for the liveblog of tonight's proceedings. (The broadcast starts at 8:30p.)
I do too (Roy/Newcombe). My count (but someone should check me) is 10 pool entrants with both spellers left:
ReplyDeleteBonin (Newcombe/Hathwar)
Me (Roy/Newcombe)
Beefan (Newcombe/Penny)
kt (Newcombe/Ye)
Jay (Ye/Mishra)
StvMg (Newcombe/Mahankali)
Roger (Penny/Jones)
Maddy (Jones/Newcombe)
Nupur (Roy/Ye)
Dave S (Roy/Jordan)
Not me - Grace Remmer will tie for 14th. But I'm still rooting for Laura "Badass" Newcombe!
ReplyDeleteBummed that Remmer and Rushlow are both out but super excited by the spellers who remain. Can't wait to watch the coverage tonight!
ReplyDelete<span>This was a very pleasant bee to watch. The kids looked like they were having a great time. I still think that Hanif's time-out was heartbreaking even if rules are rules. Surjo BandopadhYAY had the best reaction to the word that outed him of any speller I've seen, describing "nachschlag" as the equivalent of being vomited upon. Awesome. I was rooting hard for Nicholas Rushlow after "drusy" so I'm sad that he received caffeol, a word that is all sorts of awful. He'll be back and looks like a real contender for next year as well as Stuti from FL. I'm a Mashad fan girl now. What a cutie.
ReplyDeleteThe overall difficulty distribution was very even per round except for "farrago" in round 7 and uh, everything Veronica Penny received. Not her fault at all but some people are having lucky days, including my pool picks Joanna and Sukanya (who are in tonight's finals). I've watched this bee for too long if I was surprised on spellers going down on weltschmerz, scopolamine, ceratorhine and boudin. Also, I see the increasing presence of words with an origin including "International Scientific Dictionary." Can we stick to actual languages here before the bee preparation really dives into the realm of the arbitrary-words-just-to-win-the-spelling-bee? I'd rather a bee go longer than having to make this more of a useless memorization exercise.</span>
Ugh. I thought about selecting either Joanna or Mashad as my "speller who is not Laura Newcombe." But I went with the Oregonian who writes fiction. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWell, quite an afternoon. And both my spellers (the Canadians) are still in it, which leads me to ...
ReplyDeleteRooting for Veronica Penny is emotionally exhausting!! But not as emotionally exhausting as *being* Veronica Penny, I presume. Sigh.
Laura Newcombe. Chlorthalomine was starting to look like deja vu, or rather confiserie, all over again. Thank God. I think the acoustics at this new venue are much better.
Speaking of deja vu - weltschmerz? boudin? And new ways to miss them! I was half-expecting euonym.
Hanif. Oh my. I know Rev. Archer is supposed to be a great coach, but he needs to put the stopwatch on his spellers. It wasn't just Trudy. Wasn't Stacey Pearson the first speller to be subjected to Abbreviated Regular Time under the original time limits?
I could still do without the jokey sentences.
The TV coverage is much much better. It's about spelling again, not about flash and glitter and random garbage. Hope tonight continues that way.
I may have to take back my "not yet his time" comment on an earlier thread about Sriram. He looks solid. Like Gibraltar or something. But then they all do, don't they? Not the raft of five- and four-timers we've had in past bees, but none of these kids look like newbies, do they?
Folks who are looking DAYUUUM good for tonight: Joanna Ye (great spellers get lucky sometimes), Laura Newcombe, Sriram Hathwar, Dakota Jones, Mashad Arora, Nabeel Rahman. Veronica Penny wins for intensity but her words have been too canonical for me to tell much about how she deals with really challenging words. Mashad's words were also less challenging for the same reason as Veronica's but he handled "melittologist" with such flair and poise that I think he could do very, very well tonight.
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge fatigue factor that sets in after figuring out a word that you did not know. The psychologist in me would love to see if there's a correlation between speller placement and how many words they had to figure out without prior exposure in the championship semifinals. My guess is that it would be an inverse correlation but who knows? That's why I felt so bad for Nicholas Rushlow, who received "drusy" and "caffeol" back to back. It's hard to be the speller who is hit with the ridiculous word each round and it takes a lot out of you. So I'd say that the person who looks likeliest to win is not the best speller (Laura) or the calmest speller (Sriram) but the one who stays calm enough, knows enough and is lucky enough. It lopks like those factors are working in the favor of Joanna, Mashad or Nabeel tonight.
I'm still not sure why Dr. B. made it sound as if there were a schwa between the "chlor-" and "-thalidone." Girlfriend killed it though-and looked cute while doing it. You're absolutely right in that I think only one first-timer (Dhivya) made it to the championship rounds. It seems as if four- or five-year repeater status is a meaningful predictor of future performance only if the speller has steadily climbed rank each year or consistently done well. Anyone else want to weigh in here?
ReplyDeleteEvery day, in every way, you are becoming a better lieutenant, junior grade?
ReplyDeleteI am so quoting you on this one. Should I attribute it to Isaac Spaceman? :)
ReplyDeleteJJ, I was thinking it was 2003 that started the written round -- I remember being less than thrilled about it with the theory being if I was given just one word, I had only one word to mess up, instead of 25 haha :)
ReplyDeleteGiven how awkwardly it's phrased, I'd prefer you didn't.
ReplyDeleteI think so. I haven't been following closely but it definitely wasn't there in 04-07... Wasn't '03 the first time it was asked? Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't CWL at the time.
ReplyDeleteMy spellers are both out too. =(
ReplyDeleteNot just you, Nupur. Even when I got it wrong in '03, boudin was relatively easy, even though it wasn't CWL. Being French, it's pretty straightforward -- 'buh' = b, 'oo' = ou, 'duh' = d, 'an' = in. However, I didn't know all that at the time. French wasn't my specialty [but I did keep getting all the French words].
ReplyDeleteA lot of it depends. I would have been a 'championship finalist' my first and third years, but not the other three. Sooo. I think four and five year repeaters generally do pretty well. But then again, there are people who come several times from not-so-competitive regional bees. My good friend Austin Hoke came at least three times, I think, but I don't recall him ever making it past the written round.
ReplyDeleteThis is late, but Nicholas Rushlow is a great role model to me. When he got "devant" last year, I had a bad feeling that he would miss the word, and he did. When he received "devoir" this year, I had a good feeling he would spell it correctly, and he did! Is it just me, or has he always received a French word in Round 4 since 2009? (2009 was "noisette"). I hope Nicholas wins next year!
ReplyDelete