Congratulations to Season Winner Tamara Glenny!

Tamara Glenny (center) came in victorious in our June 23rd finals, spelling "aesculapian" correctly (among many other words), and taking home a $200 grand prize, as well as a "Spelling Bee Winner" tote bag and gift certificate from sponsor Neighborhoodies, and other fun prizes.


Kudos also go out to 2nd place winner Jonathan Lill (top left) and 3rd place winner Jonathan Proctor (bottom left).

"The Impotence of Proofreading"

deliciously ironic newspaper correction

From the Washington Post:

A May 31 Metro article about the Scripps National Spelling Bee misspelled last year's winning word. The correct spelling is serrefine.

spelling news

Did you know that the National Spelling Bee has protestors?

I was already well-aware of the "spelling reform" movement, but this article in the WSJ does add one hilarious fact about the movement of which I was unaware:

The movement reached its apogee on Aug. 20, 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt, a terrible speller, officially changed the spelling of 300 English words.

What seemed like a good idea -- changing "through" to "thru," and so on -- turned into a humiliating disaster. Newspapers mocked him as "Rozevult." Congress voted 142-24 to overturn the order.

Also in spelling news, spelling bee "icon" Samir Patel is finished at 14 and moves on with his life as a teen genius. (Samir, you are welcome in Williamsburg when you turn 21!)

Spelling Bee on Vanity Fair's blog

The spelling bee is on Vanity Fair's blog! Thanks to Amy Boyle for the delightfully smart reporting.

Bee News

The next spelling bee is Monday, April 28th!

7:30pm
Open to first 20 signups (arrive before 7:30 to sign up)
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer in Williamsburg (L to Lorimer)
Free

And if you're looking for something to do in the great isle of Manhattan, check out our new project ... The New York City Spelling Bee.

we're in a cool multimedia news article

Check out Nerdy Games Rock Bars on NYC24.com.

March 31st update

Congratulations to this week's winners:

1st - Suzun Tansil
2nd - Melissa Bourgeois
3rd - Paul Vernisi

Also, check out our TV spot on WNBC's "1st Look"! (This is from two bees ago, when I was on tour in LA, so bobbyblue and his friend Laverne were hosting).

Next bee: April 14th!

February 18th bee recap

Last night's bee was one of our largest ever! We cut off registration around 7:15pm and had to start turning people away.

In a competition that went from boisterous and friendly to suspenseful and competitive at the end, contestant Tamara won first place, spelling 11 words correctly over the course of the bee and thereby winning a $25 bar tab and a Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, while Jonathan Lill and David Dickerson tied for second place, each winning a $15 bar tab. All three winners qualified for the season finals, to take place June 23rd, featuring a cash prize and a complete Oxford English Dictionary for the season winner.

Exciting words from this bee included "tyrannis," "kleptocracy," "acetylcholine," "vigentennial," "homonculus," and "eprouvette."

Next bee: March 3rd!

grammar humor

A t-shirt design I thought you all might enjoy:

Spelling Bee Theme Song Video

This video features the original Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song, sung by bobby and me. Some years ago, I wrote the words and bobby wrote the music, although I think since then we've changed it around in various collaborative ways. Also, there was that one spelling bee in which we replaced the song with my parody of "SexyBack" ("We're bringing spelling back/The bee'll kill you for the words you lack"), but we clearly needed a lot more practice before pulling off a Timberlake/Timbaland.

Jen

New season of spelling begins!

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee
Monday, January 7th
7:30pm (signup begins at 7pm)
Free, open to all (21+)
Pete's Candy Store

The new season begins January 7th with our first bee of '08! It's anyone's game! Winners get bar tab, everyone parties like a Mensan.*


*Way better, actually. For real.

our article in Continental's in-flight magazine

Click to enlarge

Far Side nostalgia

Dec 10th winners!

Congratulations to season winners Amy Goldstein (1st, pictured), Wilson Southerland (2nd, pictured), and Claudia Weinstock (3rd, was off celebrating by the time this photo was taken).

Amy took home the $200 grand prize, as well as prizes from Vinnie Vella's Pizza, Cheeks Bakery, Neighborhoodies and more. Also thanks to Starbucks, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Buffalo Exchange!

The Finals!

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee FINALS
Monday, December 10th
7:00 pm (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE - we are beginning one half-hour earlier to allow time for all the extra bells and whistles involved in the Finals)
Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St.

IF YOU ARE A LUCKY WINNER FROM THIS SEASON'S BEES: Square off for big prizes in our twice-yearly Finals!

IF NOT, WE HAVE PLANNED ADDITIONAL NERDALICIOUS FUN: In between the rounds of our suspense-filled Finals, we will have fun mini-contests (some of them spelling-related, some of them trivia or math-related) open to all. Oh, and co-host bobbyblue and I will perform the Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song.

Jen

p.s. - The new season will begin Monday, January 7th. Mark your calendars!

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee: Nov. 27th, 2007

A new video from the last spelling bee. The Finals are coming up this December 10th!

Don't be a cunctator; come to the spelling bee

At a recent spelling bee, contestants were asked to spell words from Butt Rot and Bottom Gas: A Glossary of Tragically Misunderstood Words.




From the cover:

The English language is full of words that sound obscene but aren't. Terms like arsole (an organic chemical compound) and crack spread (a calculation showing theoretical market values of petroleum). Words like cunctator (a person who procrastinates, delays, or wastes time) and spotted dick (a traditional English dessert made with hot, thick custard).

Seventh-grade language arts teacher Eric Groves Sr. has spent years listening to his students giggle after he used words like thespian, coccyx, and masticate. Now he has compiled hundreds of these foul-sounding terms into a delightfully innocent dictionary, complete with illustrated definitions of their true meanings. From air cock (a valve on a boiler) and bushmaster (a large venomous snake) to cummingtonite (a mineral) and beyond, Butt Rot and Bottom Gas is a wonderful reference for word lovers and the snickering seventh grader in all of us.

I did, in fact, ask someone at the bee to spell cummingtonite. And she got it right! The "adult spelling bee" is finally ... "adult."

photos from October 1st bee, by Kimi Milo

the long, obnoxious saga of Blogger making us sad

This blog, since 2005, has been located at spellingblog.blogspot.com and updated infrequently by me. A couple weeks ago, I go to post something and notice that the spelling blog is gone, and in its place is a one-post "blog" in Vietnamese.

I log into Blogger and am told that Blogger marked our blog as a "spam blog" and, what's more, suspected that I was not a real person. (Do scroll down over the original contents of this blog and see if it all looks like a veiled entreaty for you to purchase creams or potions for the enlargement of your member or mammaries).

I followed Blogger's process for launching an "investigation." Two weeks later, with no notice or explanation, our blog went back up at a new address, spellingblog4.blogspot.com

To prevent further automated hijackings, I have now purchased www.williamsburgspellingbee.com, the new home for all future linguaphilic blogging.

Blogger may perform an obscene sex act upon the orifice or protuberance of a person of woeful spelling.

model spelling bee?

spelling funny

Props to Tony Carrillo of F Minus:

if we were in China, it would be a dictionary bee

Thanks to (season finalist) Claudia for alerting me to this Slate article about spelling bees around the world.

Next Up: August 6th and 20th

I (Jen) will be on tour for the next three weeks, but the bee goes on without me. Popular entertainer Laverne, who guest-hosted last time I was on tour, will return.



Monday, August 6th and 20th
7:30pm (arrive by 7:15 to sign up)
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg (L train to Lorimer)
Free, open to all (21+)

Incidentally, I will be in Iraq, entertaining the troops. Don't these guys look ready to laugh?



Um ... perhaps I will tell my ANGRY JOKES.

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee is FAMOUS IN JAPAN

Click to enlarge
Tokyo Shimbun (which has a New York bureau) sent a reporter to see us about a month ago, and I conducted an interview with a Japanese reporter in the hall outside the bee.

And now, here we are ... famous in Japan! I am extending my arm in ... glory!

Spelling Dates

May 14th and May 28th are the last two spelling bees (and thus the last two chances to qualify for the finals) before the finals take place on June 11th.

All spelling bees start at 7:30 on alternate Mondays; arrive 10-20 minutes early to sign up. The bee is free and open to everyone (21+).

After the June 11th finals, a new season will begin in July. Here are the dates for the rest of 2007:

July 9, 23
August 6, 20
Sept 3, 17
Oct 1, 15, 29
Nov 12, 26
Dec 10 FINALS

My Brooklyn is Better Than Yours

We're in the April 2007 issue of Budget Travel magazine, which is much sexier than it sounds.




Update: Come to the Williamsburg Spelling Bee on April 2, 16th, or 30th. Signup at 7, bee at 7:30. Free and open to all.

spell "letters of marque and reprisal" lest we put ye in the stocks!

I thought you might enjoy this snippet from a comedy interview I did in my hometown of Virginia Beach. The writer asked me about the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, and I felt the need to explain the difference between Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, Virginia:

Q . The Williamsburg Spelling Bee - how did you come up with that?

A . Ah, the spelling bee! Everyone loves the spelling bee! First off, I feel I should explain that "Williamsburg" is the area of Brooklyn where everyone is 25 and moved there after college to express themselves and has an expensive rock-star haircut although they are squatting in an abandoned sugar factory and believe paying rent is a form of capitalist oppression. Are we clear on that? There are no cornered hats whatsoever, or cannons or glass-blowing.

No offense intended to anyone with an awesome haircut and a marginal living situation ;)

(Incidentally, I was really confused when I was first moving to New York and found a bunch of Craigslist apartment ads for places in "Williamsburg," although, in true colonial style, many of those apartments do in fact lack modern fixtures and plumbing).

And, the update: come to the Williamsburg Spelling Bee on April 2, 16th, or 30th. Signup at 7, bee at 7:30. Free and open to all.

Review on NewYorkCool

Here is a review of our last spelling bee in NewYorkCool.com, by John Proctor.


I especially like that the hijinks of our drunkest patrons are recorded for posterity. I also enjoyed this:

Bobbyblue is a musician who, with his sweater vest, brakeman’s cap, work boots, metallic silver belt, and black Hulk Hogan moustache, looks like a combination of David from the Village People and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick ... Throughout the contest, Bobbyblue and Jenisfamous showed both a love of words and a sweetly sardonic chemistry with each other and the audience, truly the perfect fit for a drinking spelling bee.

Aww...

UrbanDictionary

Check out the definition for "The Bee"!

p.s. - The next bee is Monday, February 5th! Signup 7pm, bee at 7:30, as always. Open to all.

TimeOut NY piece on the bee

From TimeOut cable on-demand.

January 8th Season Opener for Leukemia Research

The 2008 season opener of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee will, for the first time, be conducted as a fundraiser for leukemia research.

Leukemia fundraiser Jennifer Smalheiser, working with Pete's Candy Store and spelling bee organizers bobbyblue and Jennifer Dziura, will be collecting a minimum donation of $20 for the Leukemia Bee from all participants and spectators. For each $20 donation, one raffle ticket will be given out. All donations are 100% tax deductible and will be donated directly to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS).

Many sponsors have stepped in with prizes to support the event. Winners of the spelling bee will receive Broadway tickets to LesMiserables, Phantom of the Opera and A Chorus Line. Anyone who donates -- regardless of spelling prowess -- will be eligible for raffle prizes including a membership to New York Sports Club, gift baskets and gift certificates from local stores, and a bar tab from Pete's Candy Store.

Each year, more than 110,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with some form of blood cancer. Over the years, leukemia research has proven to be a window for hope for children - raising the child survival rate for leukemia from 4% in 1960 to over 85% today.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education, and patient services. The Society's mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, while improving the quality of life of patients and their families.

Announcing our winners!

Congratulations to our season winners, who took home a plethora of amazing prizes!

1st - Joseph Gallucci
2nd - Jonathan Lill
3rd - Claudia Carrera

Come back on January 8th for our season-opening bee (which will be a fundraiser for leukemia research), or January 22nd for our next regular season bee.

Contestants announced for the finals!

Here are your orthographers for the November 27th finals, in alphabetical order, of course:

TOM BENDER is producing a documentary about a Witch School in rural Illinois.

WARREN BLOOM, 33, is the music teacher at PS/MS 27 in Red Hook, went to Burning Man twice, and sings and beatboxes by night.

MARTHA BURZYNSKI is a freelance writer and was referred to as the closest thing to Holly Golightly, without the whoring, in print recently.

KIERA BUTLER works at a magazine and enjoys the family drama Seventh Heaven.

MATT CARMAN's last name is frequently misspelled.

GRANT CAPTANIAN, 30, an Armenian line-dance expert, enjoys daydreaming and public tranportation.

CLAUDIA CARRERA, 22, is an aspiring musicologist who lives in Williamsburg and works for an East Harlem non-profit.

JOSEPH GALLUCCI is 22, works at his school's library, and is fond of disco, brightly-colored socks and movie musicals.

ACACIA GRADDY-GAMEL, 25, works as an editorial associate at a non-profit when she's not busy freelancing in film post-production.

CARA KINSEY, 26, is an otaku by mid-morning and a mild mannered librarian by tea time, with hopes of becoming a trophy wife by night.

JONATHAN LILL is an archivist in an art museum and just slightly less obsessive about spelling than he is about crosswords.

BRAD RAPPAPORT, 30, currently living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and raised in Long Island, New York, worked until recently as an evaluator of foreign academic credentials, and retains an interest in Frankfurt school critical theory that he developed in college and graduate school.

DIVIYA SHARMA, 29, is an eSwaps mistress and freelance pirate.

CLAUDIA WEINSTOCK just graduated from college and spends her days trying to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

VICKY WONG is a fine-art shipper by trade and a glutton-extraordinaire by nature.

How exactly does one spell "It's already been broughten?"

Finally...

We're bringing spelling back.

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee Finals will be held on:

Monday, November 27
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer (Frost/Richardson)
Williamsburg
FREE
7 pm sign-up, 7:30 pm start

bobbyblue will perform the Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song, co-written by Jen and bobby.

Top three winners from the past season's twice-monthly bees are eligible to compete. In between the rounds, short audience-participation contests (such as spelling backwards, speed-spelling, etc.) will be open to anyone.


We're bringing spelling back.
The bee will kill you for the words you lack.
Most other people just don't have the knack.
But here in Brooklyn we pick up the slack.

p-r-e-s-s

The spelling bee is on the Mental Floss blog!

The bee is also on MySpace. Feel free to befriend us/it.

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee

Time Out photos

Here are more photos of the bee, taken by Shannon Taggart for Time Out New York (the one that made it into the article is in the post below).

the bee in Time Out

The spelling bee is in the Time Out "New Dork City" issue, on stands now!

Read the complete article here

"Mind Games"

We're in the Village Voice (July 25th, 2006 issue!)

Here's the text:

The Latin root word for supercilious is supercilium, which means eyebrow. What, you might ask, does that have to do with arrogance and haughtiness? When next you look down your nose, suggests Jennifer Dziura, try raising an eyebrow just to drive the point home. Now consider the Latin root word of eminence: eminere, meaning to stand out. This is probably what Eminem was thinking when he chose the name, don't you think? "After all, Eminem is a pretty smart guy," concludes Dziura, comedienne, writer, teacher, sarcastic sex-toy blogger, and co-host of the ever edifying Williamsburg Spelling Bee held at Pete's Candy Store.

Offering less spectacle and spume than Monday night bingo but more opportunity for individual disgrace and grammatical tirades (last week, it was the flagrant misuse of the subjunctive), the Williamsburg Spelling Bee was created by Brooklyn singer-songwriter bobbyblue soon after he watched the orthographic thriller Spellbound. Since then, the Williamsburg Spelling Bee has been syndicated (fans are rumored to have started similar bees in Seattle and London), sponsored by a major Broadway musical (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), and featured in The New York Times and on NPR, making it the bar game of choice for self-proclaimed geeks and well-groomed lovers of logorrhea. However, in the cozy Pullman-car atmosphere of Pete's back room, intellectual acumen does not trump kindness.

Unlike traditional spelling bees, contestants are permitted three misspelled words before they are knocked out of the game, and during the opening interview round, when they are asked personal questions like "If you suddenly found yourself pregnant with devil spawn, what would you do," no competitor is eliminated, even if they should misspell frittata. And after the competition heats up with words like toponymy, somnifacient, hesperidium, commissariat, and thalassocracy, the casualties of cacography are still excused with great sympathy and loud applause.

"You know, I'm up here telling jokes about words," says Dziura after a particularly funny riff about the reconstitution of chicken meat and Scarlatina, a Latino drag queen named after a disease. "At a spelling bee. For adults. In a bar. In Williamsburg. Just so we keep it all in perspective."

"The paper plates help," says Felix Aronoff, a 24-year-old bio major, chuckling at the contestant's number hanging around his best friend's neck. "A great ego leveler."

Here's the link.

um, no, Frosted Mini-Losers

From June 26th winner Warren Bloom:

Here's an entry in my LiveJournal regarding a horrifying commerical for Frosted Mini-Wheats that totally misrepresents the rules of spelling bees.