In 2019, a confluence of factors - among them, a wild-card program that allowed multiple spellers from competitive regions to reach nationals - produced an unusually deep field of spellers. The process seemed to go smoothly through the 2010s, even amid a proliferation of so-called “minor league” bees, many catering to offspring of highly educated, first-generation Indian immigrants - a group that has come to dominate the competition.
The panel meets a few times a year, often virtually, to go over words, edit definitions and sentences, and weed out problems. “I have no fear about running out (of words), and I feel good about that.” “They are fun and challenging for me and they make me smile, and I know if I was a speller I would be intimidated by that word,” says the 28-year-old Mishra, who just finished his MBA at Harvard. He gravitates toward “the harder end of the spectrum.” Mishra pulls his submissions from his own list, which he started when he was a 13-year-old speller. Those who submit words, like Trinkle and Mishra, are given assignments throughout the year to come up with a certain number at a certain level of difficulty. Some work to ensure that the definitions, parts of speech and other accompanying information are correct others are tasked with ensuring that words of similar difficulty are asked at the right times in the competition others focus on crafting the bee’s new multiple-choice vocabulary questions.
“The best words kind of happen to you as you’re scrolling around through the dictionary.” If they want to find all the words that entered the language in the 1650s, they can do that, which is sometimes what I do,” Trinkle says. “The dictionary is on the computer and is highly searchable in all kinds of ways - which the spellers know as well. 770-1,110 - those used in the semifinal rounds and beyond - with instructions that those sheets of paper cannot leave the room. They are given printouts including words Nos. The 21 panelists sit around a makeshift, rectangular conference table in a windowless room tucked inside the convention center outside Washington where the bee is staged every year. This year, Scripps - a Cincinnati-based media company - granted The Associated Press exclusive access to the panelists and their pre-bee meeting, with the stipulation that The AP would not reveal words unless they were cut from the list. Each word has been vetted by the panel and slotted into the appropriate round of the nearly century-old annual competition to identify the English language’s best speller.įor decades, the word panel’s work has been a closely guarded secret. No apologies for flubs.īy the time of this gathering, two days before the bee, the word list is all but complete.
Late in the meeting, lead pronouncer Jacques Bailly and his colleagues - so measured in their pacing and meticulous in their enunciation during the bee - rip through that chore as quickly as possible. (AP) - As the final pre-competition meeting of the Scripps National Spelling Bee‘s word selection panel stretches into its seventh hour, the pronouncers no longer seem to care.īefore panelists can debate the words picked for the bee, they need to hear each word and its language of origin, part of speech, definition and exemplary sentence read aloud.
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