If you could spell serrefine, coryza, and fauchard, and are aged 13, then maybe you too could have won America’s national spelling bee championship.
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He certainly deserves credit. Those are rather obscure words. I can’t help wondering though how much parental pressure is applied to these kids and whether it constitutes a mild form of child abuse. Are they the sociopaths or recluses of tomorrow ? Then again, we are generally accepting of sporting pressure and perhaps this is no different to waking kids at 5 am every day to do laps in the pool.
I can still remember when I was competing for the title of top speller in my grade 4 class. I and the other contender (later to achieve infamy as the head of the jury in the trial of a former Qld Premier, I believe) would compare notes after every spelling test to see who’d won. There was thus no external recognition or pressure. All year we were neck and neck, on 100%. Then I spelled ‘necessary’ ‘nessessary’. He got it right. I was devastated.
I suppose most people will have seen it, but I loved the documentary Spellbound http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/reviews/review.php?id=263
anyone who hasn’t seen it would be surprised that a movie about a spelling competition could be so rivetting (or riveting)