Re: National Spelling Bee - national shame?

Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> scripsit:

The two-hour final was broadcast last night. Junior high school (age
10-14) students compete in spelling difficult words.

I wonder whether people in the US realize how strange, comic, or tragicomic the spelling bees look to many people elsewhere, quite independently of some special incidents like those you mentioned (which are undoubtedly interesting as such and might add to the feeling of absurdity). We mostly know them from movies and TV series, but in this case, the picture is not very far from the reality.

All written languages have difficult words, of course, but I don't think it's common in most countries to make them a big issue, organize contests and even national events around them. The ability to spell difficult words correctly is surely often used as a measure of one's educational level, but seldom as a goal in itself.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

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