National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 7

National coverage begins with another ski word: avalement. How does Ramya Auroprem handle it? In a word: swoosh!

Next up: Serena "Ms. Effervescent" Laine-Lobsinger. She gets a word I know—omphaloskepsis—and nails it on the button.

A commentator [Paul Loeffler of ESPN] names Sidharth Chand and Kavya Shivashankar as the favorites.

Here comes Kyle Mou, who ices pogonip.

Dr. Jill Biden (Mrs. VP) is in the audience.

Aishwarya Patapur dispatches deipnosophist.

Please keep track of things here, but don't fail to check out the live chat at A List of Things Thrown Away Five Minutes Ago!

Kennyi "Mr. Jollity" Aouad gets the fairly common scilicet, scilicet namely.

Kavya Shavishankar shows her mettle on hydrargyrum.

Sidharth Chand—a chess player—checkmates Reykjavik (where Bobby Fischer faced Boris Spassky).

Tussah Heera is here—and she seems nervous. She has herniorrhaphy—and I think it's going to be tough for her. Ding—after a significant pause, she left out the second r.

New York's Neetu Chandak gets ophelimity and streaks through it to her great satisfaction!

We now pause for an interview with Kennyi, who really has a great sense of humor.

Anamika Veeramani gets Anasazi and spells it with native intelligence (if you pardon the expression).

Tim Ruiter flies with psittacosis.

It's down to ten, with considerably tougher words probably lurking around the corner.

National Spelling Bee 2009: Finalists

Here they are—seven female, four male!

Californian Ramya Auroprem is a teacher of Tamil.

Returnee Serena Laine-Lobsinger of Florida says her favorite author is Jane Austen.

Third-time returnee Kyle Mou, of Illinois, tied for tenth place last year; he's blogged about his involvement this year.

Third-time returnee Aishwarya Pastapur, also of Illinois, is a math whiz.

Third-time returnee Kennyi Aouad of Indiana is a crowd favorite who describes himself as "jolly."

Fourth-time returnee Kavya Shivashankar of Kansas has finished 10th, 8th, and 4th in the years leading up to this year's contest.

Returnee Sidharth Chand of Michigan finished second last year.

Tussah Heera of Nevada is an outstanding pianist who blogs and tweets.

Third-time returnee Neetu Chandak of New York speaks Hindi and wears charms.

Anamika Veeramani of Ohio hopes to become a heart surgeon.

Tim Ruiter of Virginia is said to do a killer Gollum impression.

National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 6

Yes, there is a Round 6 this afternoon. So far Illinois retains its twosome.

UPDATE Serena Laine-Lobsinger remained a leader with imprimis.

And third-time returnee Neetu Chandak of Seneca Falls has emerged as New York's last hope in this race, persevering with dauerlauf.

UPDATE Ohio lost a speller, ceding the game of the states to Illinois.

UPDATE Among those still in the bee are Kennyi "Mr. Joviality" Aouad (who could not be replaced by austausch), Kavya Shivashankar (surely no stranger to escritoire), and Sidharth "Mr. Busy Bee" Chand (who rocked unakite).

UPDATE Four down in Round 6 leaves 11 finalists. I must've made a math mistake earlier when coming up with my totals. But 11 it is for tonight's climax. [Ah—there were actually five down in Round 6. Aditya Chemudupaty's mispelling of grenache seems to have been omitted from the web page showing the results.]

UPDATE Here's to Neetu Chandak!

National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 5 Massacre!

Sigh. Tough times. Once again, the Canadians didn't make it past Round 5.

I am, however, hopeful for the Florida delegation.

UPDATE Flashback to last year's Round 5

UPDATE Serena Laine-Lobsinger kept this a contest and extended the Florida delegation's stay with the fabulous hircocervus.

UPDATE Kennyi "Mr. Joviality" Aouad found the key to voussoir, Kavya Shivashankar got comfortable with kurta, and Sidharth "Mr. Busy Bee" Chand muscled his way through machtpolitik, but Zachary Zagorski got carried away by strepitoso.

UPDATE It's now past 1:00 pm, beyond the scheduled end time.

UPDATE Round 5 is over. 20 down, 16 remain. In the game of the states, Illinois and Ohio are the only ones with more than one speller. (Each has two.)

National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 4

So far the spellers in this round are doing very well. Oceanside's Zachary Zagorski fabricated another win with toile while Kavya Shavishankar and Sidharth "Mr. Busy Bee" Chand pulled themselves together to spell ergasia and sobornost, respectively. And Kennyi "Mr. Joviality" Aouad continued to charm even as he refused to be bloodied by thyrocervical.

But Michael Sun of Paramus mispelled coaming—which means he's going. And youngest speller Sriram Hathwar didn't dig himself out of the hole that fodient put him in. He should have more chances in the years to coam.

UPDATE There were only five eliminations in Round 4, leaving 36 for Round 5. Let's see if the Canadians can make it to Round 6 this year!

National Spelling Bee 2009: Semifinalists

Only 41 spellers survived the first three rounds to duke it out on Thursday.

Neither of the Big Apple spellers made it, but Zachary Zagorski of Oceanside is in, as is Michael Sun of Paramus.

Their formidable opponents include Kavya Shivashankar and Sidharth Chand as well as Kennyi "The Giggler" Aouad, Keiko Bridwell, Neetu Chandak, third-grader Sriram Hathwar, Josephine Kao, Kyle Mou, Mouctika Paluri, Aishwarya Pastapur, Avvinash Radakrishnan, and Vaibhav Vavilala.

Here's Kennyi from 2007.



Source (4:07)

National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 3

The difficulty level went up noticeably in this round, which can be viewed as the filter that separates the studiers from the others.

Locally, Thomas Harkins chalked up another win with misogynist but Talia Weisberg was nipped in the bud by glomerulate. Zachary Zagorski did fantastically by urisk while Joshua Casquejo took Pelham for a rebound from his Round 2 setback.

Kavya Shivanshankar continued to show her growth with mesophilic. And Sidharth Chand enjoyed a sweet victory with springerle.

Delegation-wise, the Florida spellers seem pretty strong....

For more coverage, check out A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.

National Spelling Bee 2009: Round 2

Our local talent did pretty well in Round 2, which is still ongoing.

Thomas Harkins vulcanized illogical, Talia Weisberg built up prefabricate, and Zachary Zagorski dug indignant. But Joshua Casquejo was floored by parquet, so he could be in trouble.

Also of note in this round: Multiple returnee Kavya Shivashankar retained her following with disciples and returnee Sidharth Chand took control of chaotic.

For more commentary, there's always A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.

SPELLING BEE VIDEO CAVALCADE!

Just to review: Here is champion Sameer Mishra's "numbnut" moment. Stay tuned for the post-numbnut/numb nut/numnah interview!



Source (3:55)


For old time's sake, here's Rebecca Sealfon's E-U-O-N-Y-M moment from 1997.



Source (00:38)


And here's a performance from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee—with special guest speller Al Sharpton. Enjoy!



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Scroll down for more National Spelling Bee 2008 coverage!

NATIONAL SPELLING BEE 2008 CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND


Scroll down in this post for video of numb nuts/numbnuts/numnah—plus a link to video of EUONYM. Congrats, Sameer—and all the rest of you spellers!


Tia Thomas walked off with oxylophytic. (People are criticizing her, but she's well-prepared...and she's also dealing with having the number 13. So cut her some slack.)

Sameer Mishra sailed through sinicize.

Sidharth Chand spat out aptyalism.

* * *

Tia Thomas flubbed opificer. Trouble for Tia!

Sameer Mishra spells blood. He's got hyphaeresis. Tia's out!

First-timer Sidharth Chand gets Kulturkampf. This could be a big break for the Chandster. It is!

* * *

Sameer Mishra has a cheesy word: taleggio. Mmmmm...risotto in the sentence! He gets it!

Sidharth Chand gets introuvable—and finds his way through it!

* * *

Round 15

Sameer (we're on a first-name basis now) gets esclandre and SCORES!

Sidharth fails to find his way through prosopopoeia.

So this could be it for Sameer, who gets guerdon—and carries the burden. He's the winner on his fourth attempt! Way to go, Sameer—who scored the top prize despite his Round Two mispelling of sudation. Crazy!!

* * *

Here's Sameer's "numb nuts" moment, destined to compete with EUONYM in its virality.



Source (1:36)

NATIONAL SPELLING BEE 2008 ROUND 11

Samia Nawaz tripped up on huapango. She's out.

Tia Thomas totally triumphed with rhyton.

Rose Sloan might've confused sheitel with shtetl. My Mom thinks Bailly misprounced sheitel. Anyway, this Rose is plucked.

Sameer Mishra showed his true colors with nacarat.

Kavya Shivashankar was crushed by écrasé. Dang! Gonna miss ya, Kavya!

Four.

Sidharth Chand didn't blow posaune—a word I know very well!

Scott Remer thimply thcrewed up thymele.

Three remain. And things are looking good for Tia Thomas.

NATIONAL SPELLING BEE 2008 ROUND TEN

Samia Nawaz cooked on escabeche.

Tia Thomas went right through propylaeum.

Justin Song shattered like glass when contemplating satyagraha. Bailly had real trouble pronouncing it, too! Doesn't look like a challenge opportunity.

And then there were ten. And one Californian.

And then Kyle Mou didn't get into the groove on lapies.

Nine.

Rose Sloan had the cure for fumagillin.

Sameer Mishra avoided the agony of da fetus with chorion.

Kavya Shivashankar didn't get strung out on martellato.

Sidharth Chand enshrined ziarat.

Catherine (Cat) Cojocaru made a heroic effort only to be defeated by bogatyr.

Eight.

Scott Remer totally nailed lemel.

Jahnavi Iyer was skinned alive by parfleche.

And now there are seven.

NATIONAL SPELLING BEE 2008 ROUND 9

Will Ferrell + Steve Carell = Funny!

Samia Nawaz had one shot at monogoneutic...and made the most of it!

Tia Thomas, five-time returnee, didn't need to leave after getting monster word brankursine.

Justin Song left no room for interpretation when it came to spelling Rorschach, which

Kyle Mou flew through trochiline—impressive!

Rose Sloan used hyperventilation technique to bottle up alcarraza and make it into the next round.

INSTANT CLASSIC!!!! Sameer Mishra got the word numnah. Heh. Hey, Beavis—Bailly said numnah. Sameer spelled it right. And understood why everyone was laughing.

(I think this will go straight to host Tom Bergeron's show.)

Kavya Shivashankar qualified for the academic pantheon with epideictic.

Sidharth Chand saw his way through ommateal.

Catherine (Cat) Cojocaru really cooked on boulangére (without specifying the accent).

Scott Remer didn't have to leave after spelling his way through ranunculaceous.

Jahnavi Iyer spake and thrusted her way through the consonant cluster in Nietzschean.

Everyone makes it into the next round!