March 16 Winners

Congratulations to:

1st place: Jake Cremins
2nd place: Chris Antionacci
3rd place: Wilson Southerland

All three qualify for the June 22nd season finals! Come on out to our next bee on March 30th to try your hand at orthographical competition.

March 2 Winners

Congratulations to:

1st place: Wilson Southerland
2nd place: Paulina Szyrmer
Tie for 3rd: Trent Williams and Sandy Bell

All four winners qualify for the June 22nd season finals!

Come on out to our next bee on March 16th!

Feb 16th winners

Congratulations to:

1st place: Jonathan Lill
Tie for 2nd: James Kibler and Marc Palatucci

All three winners qualify for the June 22nd season finals!

Come on out to our next bee on March 2nd!

Season Nine Is Proceeding Apace

The bee began its new season on February 2nd! We cut off signups at 25 people, leaving a few souls vowing to come earlier next time.

The winners were:

1st Place - Tamara Glenny
2nd Place - Lauren Gilbert
3rd Place - Jonathan Lill

These three contestants are qualified to compete in the F-I-N-A-L-S on June 22nd. (They also received a $25 bar tab, a $15 bar tab, and a free sandwich, respectively).

The next bee is this Monday, February 16th! Signup begins at 7pm.

Congratulations to Season 8 Winner Robert Moy

Congratulations to Season Winner Robert Moy!


Read the Gothamist coverage here. Photo by Billy Parker of Gothamist.

Robert Moy, who teaches gifted kids at P.S. 334, will be receiving a 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary! (Courtesy of, of course, the Oxford English Dictionary). The graphic below is in celebration of the OED's 80th birthday -- or, as we like to say at the bee, octentennial.*


Moy also took home $150 cash from Pete's, as well as a trophy, free drinks, and some cupcakes. 2nd place Jonathan Lill and 3rd place Carolyn D'Aquila also took home beaucoup prizes, including Concise Oxford English Dictionaries, subscriptions to the Visual Thesaurus, and more.


Click here for Flickr gallery from the Finals.

* I made that up.

Online Spelling Bee Practice

Want to practice your spelling online? Try the Visual Thesaurus Spelling Bee. The first word I got when playing was "host." But by the third word, I was asked to spell "unpropitiously."

After skating through "manumit" and "cinnabar," I got stumped on "reseau" (a grid of fine lines in lacemaking or celestial measurement), then nailed glaucous, jeroboam, and cislunar before striking out on "ecdysis" ( a shedding of the cuticle in arthropods) and "naumachia" (a naval spectacle or mock sea battle put on by the ancient Romans). So, um, it gets hard!

Here's a blog post explaining how Visual Thesaurus "uses the latest computational tools to shed new light on the inner workings of the English language." Complete with graphs!

Enjoy!

A Few Updates

Our bee is currently featured on Brooklyn Based!

There are two more bees left in the current season -- Nov 10 and Nov 24 -- before our December 8th Finals. After that, the bee will go on holiday hiatus and return in February 2009.

Last night's bee was intense! We had a full roster of 18 spellers, and a few groups sadly turned away. Next time, arrive early (and often!)

Here's me and bobby at the Manhattan bee we recently hosted at Housing Works:

When spelling goes wrong

if only your kitties were so brilliant

more cat pictures

and afterwards, they can all go see a movie for 15% off...

Here is a CBS article on senior spelling bees.

Long is a finalist of the AARP National Senior Spelling Bee just about every year. But it seems every time he's about to claim the top prize, he's thrown one of those dreaded culinary terms....

After misspelling "cappelletti" in 2005, he ate the hat-shaped pasta for a week. When he missed "caiparina" - a Brazilian cocktail - it drove him to drink.

New Season Schedule

Step up to the mic and rule at Pete’s Candy Store’s
WILLIAMSBURG SPELLING BEE
with BOBBYBLUE & JENISFAMOUS
Every Other MONDAY
No cover, open to all
Signup at 7pm, Bee at 7:30

Season 8:
July 21
August 4 & 18
Sept 1 - NO BEE FOR LABOR DAY
Sept 15 & 29
Oct 13 & 27
Nov 10 & 24
Dec 8 FINALS

Quick Hits

The new season of spelling began this Monday, July 21st. One speller sent me an email afterwards thanking us for the sprachgefühl, an exciting word* you might enjoy deploying in the future.

July 21st winner Jonathan Lill emailed to bring this shirt, which I thought you might also enjoy, to my attention:



And finally, you might enjoy this post on my regular blog: “Perpetrating” the Lyrics: A Critical Exegesis of the 1989 Young MC Hit “Bust a Move”.

*New! From the same people who brought you "schadenfreude" and "weltzschmertz," enjoy sprachgefühl!