A Californian eighth grader (age 13) won the 78th annual National Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington, correctly spelling "appoggiatura," meaning "an embellishing musical note." Unfortunately, one of our area contestants lost with the word "retiary," meaning "of or like nets or netmaking." Another local kid lost on the word "acarophobia," meaning "fear of mites, small insects or worms."
Because I occasionally post on OEDILF, I think it interesting that 2 of those 3 words started with "a." However, people have already written limericks on both of them.
Do they have spelling bees in England?
June 04, 2005, 01:10
arnie
Spelling bees aren't a tradition over here in the way that they are in the States.