COULD YOU USE THAT IN A SENTENCE, PLEASE? Welcome to Round 3, each speller's second guaranteed chance before the microphones. Last year it was at the same level of difficulty as Round 2, so we'll see.
After this round, we'll find out who the up-to-fifty spellers are who'll proceed to tomorrow morning's semifinals. (Up to 25 points from yesterday's computerized round, +3 for each of today's words.)
1:53 pm: 37/41 correct so far; one of the errors was on a word I've used in Words With Friends, and which a member of this community doubted was real. Heh. And, Marsha? They just used lahk-shuhn.
1:58 pm: Happy birthday, Philemon from Ghana! Now spell dynamogenesis! (He did.)
2:07 pm: Early nominee for the annual Dominic Errazo Award for the easiest path to Thursday: Simon Ricci has had fuh-SEE-shuss and mo-TEEF thus far.
2:21 pm: If it's Wednesday, it means some kid's getting pehr-uh-STROY-kuh. Apartheid is sure to follow.
2:28 pm: Fact! Today's words came from a list of ~1600 words provided to all spellers.
2:29 pm: Paging Trudy McLeary! This year's Jamaican, too, says "Thank you, sir," after Dr. Bailly honors each request. (And, hello Marsha, it's kibitzer time.)
2:41 pm: 90/100 correct thus far, and fans of the Shivashankar clan will be delighted that Vanya's two-for-two.
2:53 pm: Dr. Bailly invokes the honey badger in his sentence about the juhr-BO-uh.
2:56 pm: Just heartbreaking watching this kid who's trying to pronounce, and spell, kih-[throat-clearing-sound]uhl. It did not go well. And then the next speller gets Bolshevik.
3:03 pm: The annual return of oo-blee-eht, and since the speller didn't request a sentence, we don't know if Dr. Bailly was prepared to put the lotion in the basket.
3:12 pm: We're at halftime. The moment of the round was when Michigan's Jack Pasche, having already erred on his first word today, ended up spelling "idiosyncratically" as I-O-Q-R-S-Z-quatro. It was brilliant.
3:31 pm: "Are you ready, Dr. Bailly?" "Well, this time I'm not. I need some words." And we're back.
3:36 pm: Sabermetrics returns! It's from an English-derived acronym. (This, and day-TAHNT, are a bit easier than the rest of the round.)
3:44 pm: It's CHACH-kuh time. Also, some real spelling heroism from Eboseremhen Eigbe on "exophthalmic." Yikes.
3:56 pm: We all remember the first time we were asked to spell MAH-duh-lihn (or MAH-duh-layn).
4:06 pm: Shy Nejat nails schadenfreude, and yes, it's Avenue Q time.
4:33 pm: Philadelphia's Lena Greenberg spells thalian in about five seconds without asking for any clues, then runs back to her chair as though she were being chased by Spelling Dementors.
4:47 pm: Jacob Evers of South Carolina asks, "May I have an easier word?" No, but ophelimity poses no problem. And, as promised, Speller #233 gets apartheid.
5:16 pm: Another of my favorite Bee words returns: voortrekker. And the Estep-Madison crimefighting duo is just around the corner ...
5:23 pm: Samuel Estep, no problem on wedel. Madison, however, misses ingluvies by one letter; it's safe to predict she'll be back in the future.
5:30 pm: The round is over; we'll post the list of semifinalists, and the rules for the pool, as soon as it's available. I'm planning on opening the pool at 8pm.
