Wednesday and Thursday this week, the semifinals and finals of the Scripps national spelling bee will be simulcast on ION, LAFF, and BOUNCE from 8-10PM eastern time. Thursday's finals will have an immediate encore from 10-12, but there will be no encore of Wednesday's semifinals. Not a typical sport, but this has aired on ESPN other years.

I have been a critic of this contest for years. Basically for two reasons, and especially the first.

1. The words are very obscure, and words not commonly used in the English language. Here is the list of the winning words going all the way back.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Scripps_winning_words

These are the list of winning words since 2021.


2001: succedaneum
2002: prospicience
2003: pococurante
2004: autochthonous
2005: appoggiatura
2006: Ursprache
2007: serrefine
2008: guerdon
2009: Laodicean
2010: stromuhr
2011: cymotrichous
2012: guetapens
2013: knaidel
2014: stichomythia / feuilleton
2015: scherenschnitte / nunatak
2016: Feldenkrais / gesellschaft
2017: marocain
2018: koinonia
2019: auslaut / erysipelas / bougainvillea [4] / aiguillette / pendeloque / palama / cernuous / odylic
2021: Murraya
2022: moorhen

Do you know any of these words? Any of them? Just saying but I bet someone with a Masters in English from Harvard would only know maybe one or two. I take it most of these are scientific or technical terms. What is the point of knowing how to spell them?

2. English is not a phonetic language. English is a language which has borrowed from many other languages and adopted unique spellings.

I don’t know how kids study for this. Study an obscure word dictionary?

This really is a sport, it ran over by 7 minutes ending at 10:07. :lol: The immediate encore started in full and wasn't joined in progress, so that part will be 10:07PM-12:14AM.

I think the only word from the list Yong Fang posted that I know is from 2018, "koinonia," meaning a group of religious believers in common or fellowship. The reason I recognize it is because it's a Greek word, κοινωνία, and in common use by Orthodox clergy.

The 2002 word, "prospicience" I've checked on - meaning foresight - so I had some recognition of that one, I thought it did have to do with mental ability.

I don't think an advanced English education is needed to recognize a couple of the words, especially if you know a foreign language or two. And I believe the majority are not science or tech words. For example, 2013's "knaidel" is a dumpling...!!

I have never figured out why the Scripps National Spelling Bee even exists or how students even prepare for it and why it's even shown on TV in the first place. Because the way I see it I can't figure out how they pick spelling words that many people have never even heard of and how the students win with these words. Because if you have seen the Scripps National Spelling Bee on TV at least once it reminds you of how contestants on Wheel Of Fortune compete in the bonus round of Wheel Of Fortune and most of the students do get some of the words correctly but I think this spelling bee was really made was to give school students college scholarships and college credits and savings bonds. When I was in school I dreaded spelling tests because some words were impossible for me to spell and I rarely spelled words right but my grades in spelling were okay in school on my report cards. If you can watch the movie Akeelah And The Bee and you can see why Akeelah wanted to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee even though she knew it would be tough. But they should improve it a lot more