The 89th Scripps National Spelling Bee is airing on ESPN-2 right now, until 2 PM EST. The finals will be broadcast tonight (Thursday) at 8 PM EST.
One thing I've noticed is how "frisky" the judges have gotten when a contestant asks, "Could you use it in a sentence, please?" One of the words was "tibourbou" and the sentence the judge used was, "When a tibourbou falls in the forest, no one hears it, unless the NSA is listening -- and the NSA is always listening."
(For those curious, tibourbou is a tree native to Brazil and Costa Rica, and is an alternative fiber crop to make paper.)
Another word was "salele," (sah-lay-lee) and when asked for a sentence, the contestant got back, "Jake told Caroline all about the salele he caught on his fishing trip to Oahu -- and Caroline told Jake that he needed to get more interesting stories."
(It's a small dusky silver or silvery bronze percoid fish from tropical Indo-Pacific area, when you next bring it up.)
Then there was "tyee." Another fish, as it turns out -- a large kind of salmon. The sentence given was, "There were times when the tyee thought this whole 'swimming upstream' thing didn't make much sense."
By the way, as I was typing this, one of the words presented was "colporteur." My eyes were focused on the computer, so I only heard it spoken, and didn't see the word spelled on the screen. My immediate thought was..."Cole Porter??? Cool, I got one. But...really??" Obviously, no. Oddly, the definition is sort of literary, as well. It's a peddler of books, newspapers, and similar literature. (The secondary description is "someone employed by a religious society to distribute Bibles and other religious tracts.").
Yes, Cole Porter would have been an unlikely word. But this is the National Spelling Bee, so Anything Goes...
One thing I've noticed is how "frisky" the judges have gotten when a contestant asks, "Could you use it in a sentence, please?" One of the words was "tibourbou" and the sentence the judge used was, "When a tibourbou falls in the forest, no one hears it, unless the NSA is listening -- and the NSA is always listening."
(For those curious, tibourbou is a tree native to Brazil and Costa Rica, and is an alternative fiber crop to make paper.)
Another word was "salele," (sah-lay-lee) and when asked for a sentence, the contestant got back, "Jake told Caroline all about the salele he caught on his fishing trip to Oahu -- and Caroline told Jake that he needed to get more interesting stories."
(It's a small dusky silver or silvery bronze percoid fish from tropical Indo-Pacific area, when you next bring it up.)
Then there was "tyee." Another fish, as it turns out -- a large kind of salmon. The sentence given was, "There were times when the tyee thought this whole 'swimming upstream' thing didn't make much sense."
By the way, as I was typing this, one of the words presented was "colporteur." My eyes were focused on the computer, so I only heard it spoken, and didn't see the word spelled on the screen. My immediate thought was..."Cole Porter??? Cool, I got one. But...really??" Obviously, no. Oddly, the definition is sort of literary, as well. It's a peddler of books, newspapers, and similar literature. (The secondary description is "someone employed by a religious society to distribute Bibles and other religious tracts.").
Yes, Cole Porter would have been an unlikely word. But this is the National Spelling Bee, so Anything Goes...
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