The Daily Growler staff all watched the National Spelling Bee on ABC-TV last eve and we were astonished at how entertaining it was, even though, as thegrowlingwolf kept commenting, "Don't you just despise little smart-ass bastards like these twerps?" Later, after a few priming-the-pump slugs of Hennesey 5 Star, he drunkenly admitted he'd once himself been a finalist in a spelling bee and on television, too. "I lost out to a chick; a chick I knew, from my own damn school, Mary, I'll never forget her name. We were the last two standing on the Webster Webfoot television spelling bee finals on KRLD in Big D Little A double el A SS way back when I was a bright little smart-ass of a boy. She got the word 'ornyx' and Holy Jesus I knew that, she zipped right through it, you bet she did, smart-ass girl, without even asking for a definition. I stepped up. 'The word is "kuomintang," Mr. Wolfie Boy.' 'Thank you, sir, judge and that's an easy one for me, that'd'ud be "K-W-O-M-I-N-T-A-N-G"--aha, I'm cham-peen! The BELL? Whaaaa!!! 'K-U-O...' but, I'm not Chinese, Commie or Taiwanese, com'on give me a break....' So, I lost to a girl...but, dammit, I was at one time an 'almost champion' speller."
These kids last night on the stage in D.C. made the Wolfman look like the stupidist of Eastern Kaintucky hillbillies just learning to read much less spell at 50 years of age. "Hell, I knew 'vituline,'" he trumpets from a rear someplace--the winner was cool. He deserved it. And the runner-up, a Canuck kid, deserved it, too; they were all brilliant kids; dworky looking as hell, but like the Wolfman says, so were most of us when we were 13 and 14 and raising our hands in class yawking like idiots trying to get attention to the answers we swore we knew.
It made for good teevee, though, and that's what amazed us Growlers. We Growlers got excited and watched all the way from Round 4 to the end, Round 10--the Wolfman whooping it up for Isabel Jacobson, a 14-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin, but she bailed out on "cyanophycean." Wolfie was hollering foul, "She got the 'cyano' part--that's enough--give it to her, dammit!" But alas, Isabel bit the dust so the Wolf Man slunked (ah come on, give us one or two words or our own making) off into the sunset--that's spelled "O'Somebody's Bar and Grill."
the staff
for The Daily Growler
A Little Googling Fun
From tribe.tribes.net
The world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.
It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.
Ilunga means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time".
It seems straightforward enough, but the 1,000 language experts identified it as the hardest word to translate.
In second place was shlimazl which is Yiddish for "a chronically unlucky person".
Third was Naa, used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasise statements.
And, yes there were quite a few Indian (as in "In-jah")-American kids in the National Spelling Bee finals last eve. Here's a comment by an Indian-American dude as to why Indian-American kids are such good spellers.
Spellbound
INDU BALACHANDRAN
| It is nerve-wracking to follow an extreme sport like the Spelling Bee contest. |
IN an age of sms wrds and ez splngs (some schools I hear are even teaching short text words in their curriculum), who on earth would be interested in a reality TV show called the Spelling Bee?
I was. Sitting up late night tuned in to in ESPN, with the same nail-chewing suspense of watching a Zidane or a Klose. Only I was watching a Close this time: Katherine Close — an incredible 13 year old from New Jersey — who effortlessly spelt "urspache" before a live world audience in the 2006 Spelling Championship of the United States. And won.
Richer by a few words
You probably won't even find this word in your dictionary at home, but I can now proudly say I know the definition of "urspache" — it means "a parent language" — though I have no idea how to use it in a sentence and stun people with my brilliance.
And I can also tell you the spelling and meaning of "appoggiatura" — it means a melodic tune — for, this was the winning word last year. And won by the predictable Indian kid growing up in the U.S.
That's why I say, so what if Indians are nowhere in World Cup football — we are out there dominating the field of words, skilfully tackling and scoring in this extreme sport. And as proof of world dominance by Indians, here was young Samir Patel, three years in the finals, and last year's runner up, effortlessly getting past "thymiaterion" to deafening applause.
What is it about young Indian kids growing up in the U.S. that makes them so good at spelling words, I wondered. Well for many South Indians in the finals, it is probably the ease of spelling their own complicated surnames like Ananthapadhmanababalasubramaniam right from nursery school that gives them some early training.
We lost the stream on this site but, it's fun anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment