Wednesday, June 1, 2011

ROUND THREE: We're up and running with Round 3 of the Bee. Only 24 hours until the Canadian bloodbath!

10:34/1:34: Laura Newcombe is two-for-two in the oral rounds, with the relatively easy "efficacy." But how would she have done with her predecessor's name, "Anoufrieva"? (Isaac)

11:00/2:00: Poor Skye Merriam. The unbearable pressure of that last name. I would have checked in under a pseudonym, like Christopher Combee. (Isaac)

11:25/2:25: It is possible to misspell lagniappe by more letters than what a speller just did, but you'd have to get the l-a wrong too. I'm not watching the video feed right now, but that just hurt to read, and makes me sad. (Adam)



11:28/2:28: I have to say, it still just looks weird when Olathe, Kansas spells a word incorrectly. (Isaac)

12:18/3:18: I feel terribly for the kids who've erred twice before the microphone. It's a new form of embarrassment which didn't exist before this iteration of the Bee format. I think I'd rather they have a longer written exam, one guaranteed preliminary round before the microphone in the morning, and then start the next round after lunch with the top hundred spellers. Hmm. (Adam)



1:02/4:02: Ah, "kuru" makes an appearance, knocking "sabermetric" out of first on my list of my favorite Bee words of all time. Neither is difficult to spell, and I love my baseball statistics, but the Madagascan spongiform encephalopic disease that became Mad Cow to the rest of us has a special place in my heart. (Isaac)

1:51/4:51: And on the day of ALOTT5MA Fave Shaquille O'Neal's retirement announcement, someone with the first name of "O'Neal" gets braggadocio wrong. We live in an ironic and unkind universe. (Adam)

1:58/4:58: Saboteur, ipecac, pantomime, all in a row. Has Dr. Jacque Bailly gone soft? (Adam)

53 comments:

  1. isaac_spaceman1:28 PM

    Manticore -- that's the falcon from Joe Schmo, right?  Damned bird.  Incidentally, 2/3 of the words in this round belong in a game of Legal Brief or Decemberists Lyric. 

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  2. ALOTT5MA Glossary: the "Canadian Bloodbath" refers to round 5 of the 2008 competition, in which six NttN fell in a row (back when Canada sent more spellers.) 

    We described it as: <span>"The worst Canadian disaster since Glass Tiger broke up," "the worst Canadian disaster since Thicke of the Night," "must be like what it was like when the Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets left the country," "like when Neil Young moved to Topanga Canyon," "like when Vince Carter started mailing it in so that he could get traded to New Jersey" and "like Eric Lindros insisting to the Nordiques that he wanted to play for the Flyers," "the worst day for ONttN this year, even more so than Steven Page's leaving Barenaked Ladies."</span>
    <span>
    Wrote Shonda: "The Canadians fall, the Canadians fall, the Canadians fall like trees. It's a Spelling Bee Battle Field -- these poor Canadians rushing to the microphone only to be beaten back with a horrifying ding. Were they not prepared for the rigors of TV? The joy of ESPN? Because these words did not seem particularly hard to me. But just like that, we have lost SIX CANADIANS IN A ROW. ALL THE CANADIANS ARE GONE. It's tragic. Oh, Canada..."</span>

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  3. isaac_spaceman1:39 PM

    Why aren't there more Canadians?  Or Canadiens?  Or maybe that's the answer right there.

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  4. Adam C.1:55 PM

    [NEIGHHHHH!!]

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  5. isaac_spaceman2:00 PM

    The Floridians have rolled by, and not a Christopher Combee among them.  Christopher Combee, lurking in the shadows, coiled, ready to strike.  Christopher Combee, phantom Floridian, stalking the convoy from behind. 

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  6. lisased2:01 PM

    I did that too. My officemates think I am mad.

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  7. lisased2:02 PM

    There is a certain generation that will never forget how to spell "detente".

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  8. Oh, sad: the same kid who erred on ibuprofen also misspelled detente.  

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  9. BeeFan2:04 PM

    Stop horsing around!

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  10. lisased2:12 PM

    Ovaltine?

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  11. I don't know how many kids have misspelled both their words, but it seems that's happening with a few.

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  12. or perestroika.<span> </span>

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  13. BeeFan2:15 PM

    "Poor Skye Merriam. The unbearable pressure of that last name. I would have checked in under a pseudonym, like Christopher Combee"

    You couldn't tell from the name, but I remember in 2002 or 2003 Katie Kerwin McCrimmon mentioned that Catherine Miller was related to Noah Webster.

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  14. BeeFan2:29 PM

    Uitlander?

    A little heavy on the Afrikaans this year.  Vootrekker, roodebok, apartheid, any others?

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  15. BeeFan2:42 PM

    Keeshond and mynheer, too, I think.

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  16. Adam C.2:45 PM

    And now two consecutive Dutch-derived Afrikaans animal names....

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  17. Sarah2:45 PM

    "Epopt" Catherine Miller?

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  18. isaac_spaceman2:46 PM

    I ain't gonna play Sun City!

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  19. BeeFan2:52 PM

    Bobbejaan and hartebeest!  Did the wordlisters think these words are that hard?  I think only voortrekker has been missed.

    If they're looking for missable words, they should have stuck to Yiddish.  Schnecke was missed, after all.

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  20. BeeFan2:54 PM

    That's her!

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  21. isaac_spaceman3:03 PM

    As Marsha often points out, the Yiddish words are really unfair, because they're inexact transliterations.  There are often multiple acceptable spellings of them, and it's weird for the Bee to pick one to the exclusion of others. 

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  22. And the fabled (at least here) Saryn Hooks "hechsher" controversy.

    I've never felt as bad for a speller as the entrant from Ghana a few years ago who got "seder". 

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  23. isaac_spaceman3:04 PM

    A cataclysmic error on cataclysmic.  Grant Pace, may you be granted pace

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  24. isaac_spaceman3:21 PM

    Is this an afternoon break?  I'm only reading the web site, not watching, so I can't see what's going on in the room.

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  25. correct. They break halfway through each round and shuffle the rest of the kids on-stage.<span> </span>

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  26. isaac_spaceman3:24 PM

    God, how awful for Grant Pace, "cataclysmatic" lingering in the room throughout the changeover like a breach of etiquette. 

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  27. lisased3:38 PM

    Repeat offender!

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  28. Devin McCullen3:44 PM

    Couldn't they at least have put "issei" and "nisei" in different rounds? 

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  29. Uncle Spike3:44 PM

    Hey y'all...just joined. So they do not ring the bell during the first two oral rounds! Interesting. Kinda anticlimactic, if you ask me.
    Incidentally...SO excited. I'm here in DC, and will be at the bee tomorrow in person for the first time in 15 years! Gonna be a great time. And also for the first time in 15 years, I'll have to maintain a poker face instead of expressing all the emotions that everyone is feeling but keeping inside.

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  30. Is it fair to have issei and nisei in the same round?

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  31. BeeFan3:47 PM

    Kibei too.   Are they picking out entire families of words?  Japanese immigrants, Afrikaans fauna ...

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  32. lisased3:48 PM

    My daughter's second grade teacher insisted "hyperbole" should be pronounced "hyper bowl". I really hope she's watching.

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  33. Eric J.3:48 PM

    Divya Tewari is clearly the greatest speller of all time!

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  34. BeeFan3:53 PM

    Hyper Bowl sounds like the follow-on to the Super Bowl.

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  35. isaac_spaceman3:54 PM

    They have to put them in the same round so that nobody gets an advantage by looking up "yonsei" between rounds.

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  36. isaac_spaceman3:54 PM

    Winner of HyperBowl MMXI

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  37. Eric J.3:57 PM

    There's only on proper response to the "hechsher" controversy: "Feh!"

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  38. isaac_spaceman4:01 PM

    You know, there are a lot of places that check in on the Bee or mention it from time to time, and I'm sure there are Bee-centric sites out there, but I have to believe in my heart of hearts that we are the only general interest blog in the world where people can be like "remember the Canadian Bloodbath of 2008" or "you mean epopt Catherine Miller?" or "Tia was my favorite, but I loved Samir" or "why do they keep trotting out pappardelle" or "that's just like the Saryn Hooks 'hechscher' debacle" or "that word is so hard, it's like 'seder' to a Ghanaian," and everybody else is just like "oh, ho, ho, I see what you did there, well played." 

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  39. lisased4:11 PM

    And this is why I am doing strictly admin work today, all the better to stream, listen, and wince.

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  40. David4:23 PM

    I think they do 2 rounds with all 275 kids because when they only did 1 "guaranteed" round in the past, Paige got complaints from parents that they traveled all that far too see their kid only spell on stage in one round.

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  41. Adam C.4:38 PM

    By the by, PA spellers were again perfect this round.

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  42. Uncle Spike4:51 PM

    Colorado was also 100% across the board! Go Colorado!

    Also, I watched Joanna Ye, and my eyes are on her. She's got that self-assured confidence that, to me, sets champion-caliber spellers apart from the rest. (Incidentally, were she to win, she would become the first non-Indian Asian to win the bee, I believe.)

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  43. I didn't know this was legal, but apparently Canada has taken custody of the Atlanta speller.

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  44. Charles4:57 PM

    I think that title might belong to Stephanie Petit from 1987.

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  45. Uncle Spike5:03 PM

    Oops. I think you're right! Sorry, Stephanie, if you're reading this. (And I was there, too...embarassing!)

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  46. Marsha5:10 PM

    My law school classmate daughter's Rose Sloan was felled by "shaytl" (or however they chose to spell it) to place 4th two years ago. There is NO universally accepted spelling of that word. None. Ask ten people who actually know what it is, and you'll get at least twelve spellings.

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  47. Marsha5:12 PM

    Amen, sister. Alas, I was in meetings most of the day and am just now settling down to the admin work.

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  48. Marsha5:14 PM

    I think Justin Yum is going to pass out.

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  49. Marsha5:16 PM

    Ah-pur-AH-chik? Doesn't that show up annually?

    Ethan Ruggeri is a beast, by the way. So adorable, so hard core.

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  50. Devin McCullen5:29 PM

    I can't help but wonder if Christopher Combee's word was inspired by the acerbity of Isaac's previous post.

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  51. Heather P5:31 PM

    I love you guys so much. I haven't gotten to listen to a minute of the Bee so far because of meetings, and yet you keep me informed. Also, hi to Samir, Nupur, Tia and anyone else I've missed from an elderly 1983 Bee participant. Cannot WAIT for tomorrow.

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  52. Dan F7:41 PM

    That was Montecore - named after the tiger that mauled Roy.

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