The final rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee were unusually prolonged and suspenseful.
Thirteen finalists began and were winnowed down to five. And then they went 21 more rounds without any one of the five missing a word.
Finally two were left: 12 year old Laura Newcombe from Toronto and 14 year old Sukanya Roy of Pennsylvania. Sukanya won by correctly spelling "cymotrichous" after Laura was eliminated for flubbing "sorites."
I was humbled to realize that I was completely unfamiliar with a single word that the article mentioned as the crucial ones in the final rounds, including:
Cymotrichous
Sorites
Bondieuserie
Zanja
Jugendstil
Galoubet
Sukanya modestly attributed her success to the fact that she had gone through the entire dictionary a couple of times, and "I guess some of the words really stuck." She says every word she was given, she knew. She didn't have to guess.
Sukanya is the fourth consecutive Indian-American to win and the ninth in the last 13 years.
Impressive !! Something positive in the news.
Ralph
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