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From: Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: First National Education Association spelling bee (29-6-1908)
Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2024 16:48:48 +0100
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On 2024-07-02, Ross Clark wrote:

> The Spelling Bee -- unique to the English-speaking world*, a ritual 
> celebration of the intransigent irrationality of English orthography.
> Noah Webster made his fortune with a "speller". He actually introduced 
> some very sensible reforms, a few of which have survived in USEng.
>
> *Crystal says the Dutch have spelling bees. Is this true?
>
> The present series of "Nationals" began in 1925. I really enjoyed the 
> documentary "Spellbound", about the 1999 competition, profiling a 
> selection of the contestants from quite varied backgrounds. Fell in love 
> with Nupur Lala, who was the winner; 25 years later she's doing fine, 
> thankfully not as a professional speller.
>
> https://www.instagram.com/scrippsnationalspellingbee/p/C3ArBC0MutN/
>
> But even then there were some contestants being turned into little 
> spell-bots by their ambitious parents. Stuffed with words like foie gras 
> geese. This year I heard a short clip in which one of them spelled a 
> whole lot of words I didn't know at incredible speed. That's 
> pathological. But then, Americans take a similar approach to eating.
>
> Further linguistic point: There used to be other kinds of "bees" -- 
> sociable community gatherings to do some kind of work (quilting, 
> husking...). OED from 1769, etymology obscure.

Interesting. I have vaguely heard of "quilting bee" but I didn't know
it was older than "spelling bee".

There is currently a British TV show called "The Great British Sewing
Bee".

<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03myqj2>



-- 
Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT.
                              (Cave Johnson)