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Other Stuff!
SPELLING BEE = B-O-R-I-N-G!
Hey, Gordon Peterson here, making one of my “Pursuit of the Trivial” posts!
I was flipping through the channels last night when I stumbled across the Scripps National Spelling Bee Championship coverage.
I thought to myself, “Wow, ESPN2 has really hit rock bottom.” Then I realized this exciting spelling action wasn’t on my
basic cable channels, in fact, it was on ABC! I then thought to myself, “Wow, ABC has really hit rock bottom.”
And yet, there I sat, watching children spell words most of us have never even heard of. Probably because none of the
words given to these children were part of the English language. The National Spelling Bee’s purpose is to “help students improve
their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their
lives.” So naturally nearly every word given to these youngsters weren’t even words of English, instead it seemed that most
of the words were French, Persian, and even German.
It figures that the Spelling Bee special actually got respectable ratings for the "alphabet network," but two hours just seems
a bit too much to listen to adolescents ask for a word’s “definition,” “alternative pronunciations,” or “etymology,” a word,
in itself, that most of us probably can’t spell.
Now I don’t want to rag on these poor children, God knows they probably get made fun of enough as it is, but the 13 finalists
in last night’s program might be some of the most boring children I’ve ever seen. Maybe they were all just wearing their
“game face,” or maybe when all you do is memorize the dictionary and, like Michael Christie here, count badminton and rock
collecting as your primary hobbies, it could be that you’re just not the most outgoing personality in your school.
Michael Christie: School of Rock.
Many of the contestants in the Bee had previous experience in the competition, which gives them a bit of an edge. However,
one contestant in particular seems to really have an advantage over the rest of the kids --->
He has to spell this name for the rest of his life:
Nidharshan Subra Anandasivam.
All in all, I still have a great deal of respect for these kids. They are dedicated to their education and expanding their
vocabulary, even if they will never find an instance to use words such as “heiligenschein” or “kundalini” in any normal
conversation.
I just think the competition could be more exciting if they plan to continue airing it on network television. Maybe they
can make it like “Extreme Bee!” and when they are trying to spell the word people just start shouting out different letters
while they are trying to concentrate on the proper spelling. Or maybe while the clock is ticking down, they show the child’s
family pet being dangled over a hungry lion, and it slowly gets lowered the longer it takes the kid to spell the word. I
dunno, I’m just spit-balling ideas here, but you get the idea.
Can You Spell "Mauled?"
Anyway, I’m the hell out of here. I’ve got to go memorize the TV Guide.
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