"Incorrect"

Tonight I served as a judge for the school Spelling Bee, think Spellbound. Because students can compete only until they are in 8th grade, the participants were all Middle School students. I wasn't the announcer so I didn't have to give the language or origin or have to provide the definition. I was the judge who, after the participant finished spelling the word and then said the word as an indication that he or she is done, said "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT".

My biggest fear was that there would be some controversy that I, and another teacher, would have to make a decision that someone would be unhappy with. A couple of near misses did come up. The first was when a girl spelled "CATHEDRAL" but her letter H was preceded by a very long sound that wasn't much like H but quickly became H. We gave it to her. The second occurred when the announcer mispronounced the word "SCOURGE". The boy spelled it incorrectly, but we gave him a second word, which he spelled correctly. In both of these cases the student was ultimately not one of the top three spellers in the competition.

The 3rd place boy went out on "TERCENTENARY" which means the 300th anniversary or its celebration.

The final two girls misspelled "EPISTEMOLOGY", "CENTAUROMACHIA" (a specific Greek battle) and "EREMITIC" (characterized by a ascetic solitude in life). The 2nd place speller missed "TROIKA". The winner correctly spelled it and then won by correctly spelling "AYATOLLAH".

You would not believe the seriousness with which the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes itself. There is an official booklet with 500 official 2006 School Spelling Bee words in 7 different categories. Every word has a pronuciation guide, language of origin, definition and a sentence using the word.

Some of the words on the list were new ones to me. Anyone know the definition of "DELTIOLOGY" off the top of their heads? Email me if you are lazy and won't look up the answer. The definition of the word is not one anyone of us would ever have thought of in a million years.

INCORRECT!!