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!

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!)