When half the nation is watching IPL, I’m
watching..........Guess what??
Scripps National spelling BEE!!! (BAH!! Can’t care much for cricket anyways,
let alone IPL, however much glamour attached to it.)
And lo! Half the
contestants in the competition are Indians. And apparently its always bin that
way. And Oh boy, aren’t these kids SMART!!!
I can understand if a 10 year old can ask for the
definition, etymology, part of speech, alternative pronunciations, and guess
the spelling of a word. I have seen
enough spelling bee contests to digest THAT fact. If you have learnt enough
French, German, Italian, Greek and Latin ( thats too many languages already for
a 10 year old) you can break down the roots and guess the spelling of a hell
lot of words in English.
But words that originate from Papuan, Aramaic, Hebrew,
Mayan, Finnish???
These words that don’t even exist in normal dictionaries???
And you see 12, 13, 14 year olds spelling Words like Huipil, puszta, zwischenspiel, preux, jugendstil….
Yeah!! What the ****! My reaction exactly! I can’t even
spell 'bourgeoisie' sometimes
without referring.
And here are some of these spellers’ favorite words: cwm and humuhumunukunukuapuaa. ( I dont wanna even comment on that!!)
Do you want to be astonished every single moment as the
young BEES spell a word right and feel the same pressure every time they're a
given a new word. Do you want feel joy, disappointment, confusion, and
nail-biting excitement without the ruckus of pointless commercials in between?
 |
| Sukanya with her trophy |
And do you want to feel pride every time an Indian wins? (Like
I felt last night when 14 yr Sukanya Roy from Pennsylvania walked away the
champion after the spelling ‘cymotrichous’),
then may be you should watch Spelling Bee, especially if you're a Logophile like
me.
P.S : 2012’s Spelling Bee is going to be telecast on ESPN this May
30 and 31.Please don’t mind if I aint blogging much, ‘cause I’m busy watching
BEE!! J
