SHIVASHANKAR + LAODICEAN = CHAMPION

Yes, I had to look up all but one word of the headline.  Kavya Shivashankar  of Kansas took home the $30k and gigantic trophy last night in a nail-biter in the 16th round of semifinalist play.  The other two remaining spellers made errors in round 15, causing a round 16 that required Kavya to spell her word correctly to end the competition (pursuant to the now-famous Rule 12 of the bee).  As a side note, the statistics about the entrants are pretty interesting (three nine-year-olds competed!).  ‘A list of things thrown five minutes agohas a great blog from the whole contest.  Now I feel intellectually inferior and am ordering the biggest, baddest dictionary available from Amazon.com.

And then there were eleven…

..spellers to enter the championship rounds tonight at 8pm. Tough day for the Canadians (none left), and the finalists represent California, Florida, Illinois (2), Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, and Virginia. It seems that CALICHE, NISUS, CLOTRIMAZOLE, and PIQUEUR spelled doom for the remaining kids from Hawaii, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and another boy from Ohio. 8pm tonight – ABC for the championship.

50 Semifinalists at Spelling Bee

Well, it’s down to 41 spellers at this year’s bee.  It’s on ESPN this morning 10am to 1pm (simulcast on ESPN360.com).  If you have a moustache, should you be eligible for the bee (there’s no minimum age, max age is 15, 8th grade)? The finalists spell tonight on ABC at 8pm! Unfortunately, the extremely annoying Tom Bergeron will host on TV.

2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee – LIVE!

You can watch these bright youngsters on ESPN60.com live, during the preliminary rounds.  You can also take in all the action via ‘A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago‘.  You could also see the Scripp’s official site.  The secret to the Bee is not to over-think the words.  In Round 2, a Massachusetts boy spelled ‘tarmac’: ptarmic. 

Fifty semifinalists go at it again tomorrow (Thursday) between 10am and 1pm on ESPN.  The finalists duke it out at 8:00pm on ABC.  Brush up on your understanding of ‘Rule 12: End of Bee Procedure’:

If all spellers in a round misspell: If none of the spellers remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, all remain in the competition and a new round begins.

 If a speller misspells the anticipated winning word in a one-word round:
A new round begins with all the spellers who spelled (correctly and incorrectly) in the previous round. These spellers spell in their original order.

If only one speller in a round spells correctly: If only one speller spells correctly in a round, a new one-word round begins and the speller is given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list (anticipated winning word). If the speller succeeds in correctly spelling the anticipated winning word in this one-word round, the speller is declared the champion.