(Originally posted June 3, 2011.)
Now THAT is how a national bee should go! Easily the best bee I have ever
seen - a far cry from last year's debacle (and for that matter, a far cry from
the bees from the '80s and '90s). And I was lucky and blessed enough to see it
in person. Man, was I blessed. Best seats in the ballroom, no less: front and
center, right behind the judges!
Imagine hearing about a bee where the five top spellers ran through four consecutive rounds without missing a word. You'd think that maybe they all just lucked out on some easy words, right? Well, this year, this could not have been any further from the truth. Seriously, do any of these words strike you as easy? Uayeb. (No, that's not me writing backwards or in code. That's a real word. Mayan, even.) Zortzico. (From the Basque, which is universally acknowledged as the most difficult language.) Sarangousty. (Persian, this one.) Huipil. Puszta. Zwischenspiel. Abhinaya. Preux. (One of the most inscrutable words given; this one is roughly pronounced "pruh.") And all of them spelled correctly. That gives you an idea of the caliber of spellers that were up there. This was not a bee where luck came into play. It may have been the fairest bee I've yet seen. No speller breezed through on some word where others were pulverized by some skullbuster or other. These kids all went through a terrible crucible, and for four rounds, survived flawlessly. ("Easiest" words: solferino, pelerine, opodeldoc, capoeira, haori.)
As you know, Sukanya Roy won. I had the pleasure of meeting her and her parents tonight. She is but a wisp of a girl, shy and timid, but friendly and smiling, and when she speaks, it seems her voice trembles, regardless of whether it's on stage or with friends. But despite her appearance, I suspect that there's a very strong moral compass in her, along with a developing backbone. (She wants to dedicate her life to eradicating poverty worldwide.) Her parents were also very friendly and appreciative. And despite the fact that the title could have easily - and deservedly - gone to any of the top five finishers, Sukanya earned that title as well as anyone I have yet seen. (Here, runner-up and Canadian Laura Newcombe and third-place finisher Joanna Ye both deserve standing ovations for their efforts, poise, and intact senses of humor throughout the finals.)
And I am tickled to say it was the Denver representative, Dhivya Murugan, who captured the hearts of the audience during the finals. Seriously - cute as a button. She was the youngest finalist, a fifth-grader (!) and she soared through words like "helichrysum" and "crevecoeur," only to bow out with a smile on "ephelides," a word that Dr. Bailly defined simply as "freckles." She tied for sixth in the nation. And I got to meet her and her parents as well. Absolutely sweet and wonderful, all of 'em.
On the other side of the coin, the bee showed one of its cruelest sides for the very first time this year. Hanif Brown, Jr., the representative from the ever-competitive Jamaica, got the word "nataka," a style of drama prevalent in Indian theater. (I heard it, and thought that Dr. Bailly really should have pointed out a homonym with the clothing line Nautica.) Hanif, a deliberate speller, seemed even more deliberate than usual. After awhile, the head judge asked Hanif if he noticed the clock. He, uh, kinda acknowledged it.
But the time ran short, and he showed absolutely no sign of starting to spell. It felt like all the air was being sucked out of the ballroom. My jaw began to drop. Hanif was absolutely unresponsive! I saw the clock...0:03...0:02...0:01...The time ran out. And the judges gave what I felt was a good five second grace period.
DING!
But then, Hanif began to spell. After the fact. And he spelled the damned word right - ten seconds too late. And he was out. We were all in shock, and so sorry for Hanif. (It's kind of ironic, knowing that a fellow Jamaican speller probably instigated the time limit at nationals years ago with a notorious eight-minute stall before misspelling "aplustre.")
Interestingly, both this year's bee and last year's were pretty comparable in terms of the caliber of spellers. But 2010 was not only a premature bloodbath that led into one of the most controversial bees in history, it was not fun to watch, and a perfect example of how badly spelling bees can conform to a primetime format, replete with commercial breaks. (Example: forcing a prolonged commercial break between the penultimate word and the winning word is a travesty.) This year demonstrated the same difficulty with primetime, but for the opposite reason: two hours into the finals, there were still eight spellers onstage, and ESPN had not allotted more air time to the bee. (And this was after a semifinal that went 95 minutes longer than anticipated!) But whereas last year's bee felt like a desiccated bone in terms of palatability, this year's was a veritable feast of competition, and anyone who tuned in got to see the bee at its very best.
Other highlights:
Imagine hearing about a bee where the five top spellers ran through four consecutive rounds without missing a word. You'd think that maybe they all just lucked out on some easy words, right? Well, this year, this could not have been any further from the truth. Seriously, do any of these words strike you as easy? Uayeb. (No, that's not me writing backwards or in code. That's a real word. Mayan, even.) Zortzico. (From the Basque, which is universally acknowledged as the most difficult language.) Sarangousty. (Persian, this one.) Huipil. Puszta. Zwischenspiel. Abhinaya. Preux. (One of the most inscrutable words given; this one is roughly pronounced "pruh.") And all of them spelled correctly. That gives you an idea of the caliber of spellers that were up there. This was not a bee where luck came into play. It may have been the fairest bee I've yet seen. No speller breezed through on some word where others were pulverized by some skullbuster or other. These kids all went through a terrible crucible, and for four rounds, survived flawlessly. ("Easiest" words: solferino, pelerine, opodeldoc, capoeira, haori.)
As you know, Sukanya Roy won. I had the pleasure of meeting her and her parents tonight. She is but a wisp of a girl, shy and timid, but friendly and smiling, and when she speaks, it seems her voice trembles, regardless of whether it's on stage or with friends. But despite her appearance, I suspect that there's a very strong moral compass in her, along with a developing backbone. (She wants to dedicate her life to eradicating poverty worldwide.) Her parents were also very friendly and appreciative. And despite the fact that the title could have easily - and deservedly - gone to any of the top five finishers, Sukanya earned that title as well as anyone I have yet seen. (Here, runner-up and Canadian Laura Newcombe and third-place finisher Joanna Ye both deserve standing ovations for their efforts, poise, and intact senses of humor throughout the finals.)
And I am tickled to say it was the Denver representative, Dhivya Murugan, who captured the hearts of the audience during the finals. Seriously - cute as a button. She was the youngest finalist, a fifth-grader (!) and she soared through words like "helichrysum" and "crevecoeur," only to bow out with a smile on "ephelides," a word that Dr. Bailly defined simply as "freckles." She tied for sixth in the nation. And I got to meet her and her parents as well. Absolutely sweet and wonderful, all of 'em.
On the other side of the coin, the bee showed one of its cruelest sides for the very first time this year. Hanif Brown, Jr., the representative from the ever-competitive Jamaica, got the word "nataka," a style of drama prevalent in Indian theater. (I heard it, and thought that Dr. Bailly really should have pointed out a homonym with the clothing line Nautica.) Hanif, a deliberate speller, seemed even more deliberate than usual. After awhile, the head judge asked Hanif if he noticed the clock. He, uh, kinda acknowledged it.
But the time ran short, and he showed absolutely no sign of starting to spell. It felt like all the air was being sucked out of the ballroom. My jaw began to drop. Hanif was absolutely unresponsive! I saw the clock...0:03...0:02...0:01...The time ran out. And the judges gave what I felt was a good five second grace period.
DING!
But then, Hanif began to spell. After the fact. And he spelled the damned word right - ten seconds too late. And he was out. We were all in shock, and so sorry for Hanif. (It's kind of ironic, knowing that a fellow Jamaican speller probably instigated the time limit at nationals years ago with a notorious eight-minute stall before misspelling "aplustre.")
Interestingly, both this year's bee and last year's were pretty comparable in terms of the caliber of spellers. But 2010 was not only a premature bloodbath that led into one of the most controversial bees in history, it was not fun to watch, and a perfect example of how badly spelling bees can conform to a primetime format, replete with commercial breaks. (Example: forcing a prolonged commercial break between the penultimate word and the winning word is a travesty.) This year demonstrated the same difficulty with primetime, but for the opposite reason: two hours into the finals, there were still eight spellers onstage, and ESPN had not allotted more air time to the bee. (And this was after a semifinal that went 95 minutes longer than anticipated!) But whereas last year's bee felt like a desiccated bone in terms of palatability, this year's was a veritable feast of competition, and anyone who tuned in got to see the bee at its very best.
Other highlights:
- Fifth-placer Dakota Jones's adorable, winning smile.
- Fourth-placer Arvind Mahankali's uproarious response to receiving "Jugendstil": "You can steal?"
- Mashad Arora's (seriously) movie star-caliber eyes. (But don't quote me. Quote Shonda!)
- Prakash Mishra's modesty and - again - winning smile.
- Surjo Bandyopadhyay's hilarious demeanor onstage. ("Fail," he blurted, after missing "nachschlag.")
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