Spelling bee

For the episode of Psych, see Spellingg Bee.

A spelling bee at an elementary school, with a speller addressing an audience and a judge, with contestants behind them

A spelling bee (also sometimes a "Spelling B") is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with a varying degree of difficulty. The concept is thought to have originated in the United States, and spelling bee events, along with variants, are now also held in some other countries around the world. The first winner of an official spelling bee was Frank Neuhauser, who won the 1st National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. in 1925 at age eleven.

Etymology

Historically the word bee has been used to describe a get-together where a specific action is being carried out, like a husking bee, a quilting bee, or an apple bee. Its etymology is unclear but possibly derived from the Old English word bēn, meaning prayer.

History

"Cousin Reginald Spells Peloponnesus." (Norman Rockwell, 1918)

The earliest known evidence of the phrase spelling bee in print dates back to 1850, although an earlier name, spelling match, has been traced back to 1808. A key impetus for the contests was Noah Webster's spelling books. First published in 1786 and known colloquially as "The Blue-backed Speller," Webster's spelling books were an essential part of the curriculum of all elementary school children in the United States for five generations. Now the key reference for the contests is the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary.

The United States National Spelling Bee was started in 1925 by The Courier-Journal, the newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1941, the Scripps Howard News Service acquired sponsorship of the program, and the name changed to the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee (later simply "Scripps National Spelling Bee"). Besides competitors from the 50 U.S. states, several come from Canada, the Bahamas, New Zealand and European countries.

In the United States, spelling bees are annually held from local levels up to the level of the Scripps National Spelling Bee which awards a cash prize to the winner. The National Spelling Bee is sponsored by English-language newspapers and educational foundations; it is also broadcast on ESPN. Since 2006, the National Spelling Bee's championship rounds have been broadcast on ABC live. In 2005, contestants came from the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Canada, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and a German military base, as well as the United States. This was the first year that spellers from Canada and New Zealand attended the competition. The final authority for words is the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary, the Webster's Third New International Dictionary. The annual study list is available from Scripps, either online or in print.

The National Senior Spelling Bee started in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1996. Sponsored by the Wyoming AARP, it is open to contestants 50 and older. Maria Dawson is the only contestant to ever win two back-to-back titles at the National Senior Spelling Bee.

The South Asian Spelling Bee is another spelling bee platform in the US. This annual contest takes place across the US each summer in search of the next South Asian-American spelling champ between the ages of 8 and 14 years old. Launched in 2008, the South Asian Spelling Bee will tour 10 US cities in 2011 and is broadcast globally via the satellite channel, Sony Entertainment Television Asia.

Holding spelling bees in English, with its irregular spelling, makes more sense than in languages that have much more regular spelling.

In other regions, countries and communities

Asia

In Asia, a spelling bee is being conducted up to the international level by MaRRS Spelling Bee. The competition involves learning the correct spelling of words, their use in sentences and in multiple contexts. Currently, it is being held in India, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Bahrain, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras-al-Khaima, Sharjah, and Umm-Al-Quwain. Also in Bahrain, an annual spelling bee contest named Spellbound Bahrain is conducted for the school children by KEEN4, an association of Kerala Engineers.

In Malaysia, The annual NST-RHB Spell-it-Right Challenge is open to primary and secondary school students under the Malaysian education syllabus. The competition is carried out in three rounds: the Preliminary Challenge, State Challenge and National Challenge. The preliminary challenge is a written spelling test, from which the top 100 spellers will be chosen to compete in the State Challenge, where the competition is carried out orally. The 1st prize winner from this stage will then represent their states to compete for the title of National Spell-it-Right Champion in the National Challenge.

In Taiwan, the National Spelling Bee Championship is a contest held by Bugstation.tv for young English learners. Thousands of young applicants join this contest each year. Another organisation that promotes the love of the English language is Horizons Unlimited, which in 2011 organized an India Spelling Bee contest for children in the southern state of Kerala in India.

Africa

In Africa, spelling bee is promoted by a company Gift People Limited, which currently organizes the Annual National Spelling Bee contest for children between the age of 7 and 14 in Egypt. This effort commenced in 2008 when the first National finals was held in Cairo. It is popularly referred to as SPELLIT! in Kenya at a school called Rusinga, their annual spelling bee contest is between the team houses. There is one called St. John, St. Luke, St. Mathew and St.Mark.

Australia

In Western Australia, a spelling bee is held by the State Library Foundation of Western Australia, for children in school years 5, 6, 7 and 8. The early stages of the competition are held online, and the final spell-off in front of a live audience. Two major prizes are awarded: one for a Junior Winner (Years 5-6) and the other for a Senior Winner (Years 7-8). Further prizes are given to the teacher and school class of each major prize winner, and to the most improved speller each week.

Bangladesh

From 2012, Bangladesh's most renowned English daily, The Daily Star and e-Learning portal Champs21.com have been organizing a televised spelling bee on Channel i for the students of class six to ten from Bengali and English medium backgrounds, who compete through school round and online system. The spelling bee team visit 7 divisional cities (Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna & Barisal) to test top 1% speller and top 96 speller of the season participate in the television show. The competition is the first such arrangement in rapidly developing Bangladesh. The champion will be rewarded with a trip to Washington DC. The winners of season 2 met the honorable president of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Advocate Abdul Hamid. Now Bangladeshi students are having a spelling revolution. Because of such initiative, the curiosity of learning English has spread out in the whole country.

Canada

The Postmedia Canspell National Spelling Bee is the only Scripps affiliated Canadian spelling bee held annually nationwide in Canada since 2005. The bee is affiliated with the United States-based Scripps National Spelling Bee and uses similar rules and word lists, and competes in all 10 Canadian provinces to provide a Canadian National Champion for the penultimate Scripps competition.

It should not be confused with another organization, calling itself the Spelling Bee of Canada, which started in 1987 in Toronto, Ontario, and is now celebrating its 25th anniversary, and hosting a Canadian Invitational Bee in 2012, as well as organizing Provincial Bees across Canada, and the world.

Kuwait

In the school year 2008-2009, Mrs. Wijdan Alawadhi (senior teacher) and Mrs. Mona Yehia (teacher of English) started the spelling bee contest in Mubarak al-Kabir Educational Area (one of the biggest Kuwaiti Governorates). They started the contest as an experiment contest in their school (Thabet Bin Zaid Primary School for Boys) with the fourth and fifth grades. It was a successful experiment which was faced with a lot of appreciation from Mrs. Aisha AlAwadhi, ELT Senior Supervisor of English Language supervision. Then they decided to hold the competition among the whole educational area (Mubarak Al-Kabeer Educational area). In 2010-2011, the contest was held with 27 schools (12 schools for boys and 15 for girls - around 2700 pupils). Each school nominated a pupil from the fifth grade to participate. In 2012-2013, 30 schools participated. All the 30 pupils participated anxiously to win the competition with 200 words. It becomes officially an authorized contest in Mubarak Al-Kabeer Educational Area (Kuwaiti Spelling Bee) in Kuwait. In the school year 2013-2014 the competition was held in AL-Imam AL-Shafie primary school for boys with 31 schools and the words list contained 260 words. In 2014-2015 with the patronage of Mr. Talaq Al-Hiem the director of Mubarak Al-Kabeer Educational Area the competition held with the participation of 33 schools (16 girls, 15 boys and 2 LD) in Sabah AL-Salem Primary school with the help of its principal Mrs. Amira Baqer. Mrs. Aisha Al-Awadhi and the success of the competition convinced the ELT General supervision to decide the competition as Kuwait National Spelling Bee for the coming year 2015-2016.

Pakistan

In Pakistan, the spelling bee competition is promoted by Dawn, and it happens every year in October. There are three states district, regional and national. National is held in Islamabad.

United Arab Emirates

Sylvan Learning Center, a supplemental education organization from the United States, has organized an annual competition for Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah-area schools. The Sylvan Spelling Challenge is held annually in December and February for students in grades 3-8. The Sylvan competition expects to attract nearly 1,000 participants from 30 schools in its inaugural year.

Abu Dhabi University sponsors the largest Spelling Bee in the United Arab Emirates, attracing students from both public and private institutions for the past three years. The Abu Dhabi University Spelling Bee is heralded as the most challenging and well-known spelling competition in the United Arab Emirates.

United Kingdom

In 1876 there were newspaper reports of spelling bees in a number of towns in the United Kingdom. Since 2009 a spelling bee for schools has been run by The Times newspaper..

US National spelling bee

Main article: Scripps National Spelling Bee

Serious spelling bee competitors in the United States will study affixes and etymologies, and often foreign languages from which English draws, in order to spell challenging words. Several preparatory materials have been published, including some in connection with the Scripps National Spelling Bee and those created by independent organizations not related to Scripps.

For the first several decades of publication, the Scripps annual study booklet was named Words of the Champions, which offered 3,000 words in a list separated into beginning, intermediate & expert groupings. In the mid-1990s the annual study list changed to Paideia (from the Greek word meaning education and culture), which ultimately contained more than 4,100 words, then again in 2006 to the shorter list, entitled Spell It!, the 2009 edition having 1155 words (911 basic words and 244 challenge words).

The Consolidated Word List, also published by Scripps and available on the National Spelling Bee website, consists of all words used in the National Bee as far back as 1950. It is organized into three sections: Words Appearing Infrequently, Words Appearing with Moderate Frequency, and Word Appearing Frequently. Nearly 800 pages and 24,000 words long, the Consolidated Word List is intended for those who have mastered the basics and already gone through Spell It!.

Spelling bee participants in the United States also use other reference books, notably the Hexco Academics series of spelling books, which feature strategies, methods and lists to further develop spelling skills. Tutoring materials are also becoming available on the web.

School spelling bees

US Spelling bee students usually start competition at elementary schools (primary schools) or middle schools. Classes compete against other classes in the same grade, or level, and the winning class is determined by the score of each class. On an individual level, school spelling bees determine which child will represent his or her school at district, state and national competitions.

In popular culture

In television

• A British television show called Spelling Bee, featuring adult contestants and broadcast by the BBC on 31 May 1938, is generally held to have been the world's first television game show.
• The Price Is Right features a pricing game called "Spelling Bee" which is played for a car and the object of the game is to spell "car".
• A game show on the former Black Family Channel cable network, Thousand Dollar Bee engaged children in a spelling bee-like competition.
• The 2004 game show The Great American Celebrity Spelling Bee featured four teams of four celebrities playing for charity. The show was hosted by John O'Hurley, and help for the celebrities was provided by Scripps National Spelling Bee participant Samir Patel.
• Five episodes of the ESPN show Cheap Seats presented and satirized the taped television coverage of the 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 Scripps National Spelling Bees.
• The NBC game show The Singing Bee is like a spelling bee but instead of spelling words, contestants have to identify lyrics to popular songs.
• "Spelling Bee," a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch in which Will Forte's character delivers a 75-letter misspelling of the word "business" that includes 12 consecutive q's
• Spell-Mageddon
• A spelling bee contest was sponsored by Brazilian TV host Luciano Huck, on his weekly show called Caldeirão do Huck, since 2007.
• "The Great Australian Spelling Bee" premiered in August 2015.

Fictional television episodes

• "The One With The Late Thanksgiving", an episode of Friends in which Rachel lies to Ross, saying that she took part in a spelling bee
• "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", an episode of the animated television series The Simpsons
• "Spelling Bee", an episode of The Proud Family
• "Aliens", an episode of Roseanne
• "Spellingg Bee", an episode of Psych
• "Spelling Bee", an episode of the animated television series Hey Arnold!
• "The Professor", an episode of My Name is Earl
• "Hooked on Monkey Fonics", an episode of South Park
• "Spelling Bee", an episode of According to Jim
• "Spellbound", an episode of Full House
• "Arthur's Spelling Trubble", an episode of Arthur (TV series)
• "Sick Days & Spelling Bees", an episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide
• "The Spelling Bee", an episode of Mr. Belvedere
• "Neither a Borrower nor a Speller Bee", an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody
• "Spelling Applebee's", an episode of Drawn Together
• "The Spelling Bee", an episode of the CBC series The Red Green Show
• "War of the Words", an episode of Frasier
• "The Dam", an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
• "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing" and "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", episodes of the animated series Family Guy
• In "The Name of the Game", an episode of the drama Grey's Anatomy, Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Bailey treat a 7th grade regional spelling champion, making him spell words in order to both reduce his anxiety during awake brain surgery and test his cognitive function during the procedure.
• "Chris' Brain Starts Working", an episode of Get a Life
• "The Bee", an episode of The Middle
• In the b-story of "Black Widows", the fifteenth episode of Totally Spies, Sam competes in the Beverly Hills High School spelling bee against Mandy, the archrival of her and her two best friends, Clover and Alex.

In film

• The 1969 animated film A Boy Named Charlie Brown
• The 1986 ABC TV-movie The Girl Who Spelled Freedom, about a Cambodian immigrant girl who competes in spelling bees.
• The 2002 Academy Award-nominated documentary, Spellbound, featured eight competitors in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
• A scene in the 2004 movie Mean Girls shows a girl spelling the word 'xylocarp.'
• The 2001 novel Bee Season and its 2005 film adaptation
• The 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee where a young girl from South Los Angeles tries to make it to the National Spelling Bee.
• The 2013 film Bad Words directed by Jason Bateman.

In theatre

• Eleemosynary, a 1998 play by Lee Blessing, uses the spelling bee as a key story element.
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a 2005 musical by William Finn.

In literature

• A novel Bee Season, in which Eliza Naumann participates in the final of the national Spelling Bee.
• A spelling bee features as pioneer family entertainment in Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in which Pa 'spells down' the whole town.
• The 1878 Bret Harte poem "The Spelling Bee at Angels" describes a spelling contest held at a California gold mining camp.
• A character in The Phantom Tollbooth, a novel by Norton Juster, is named the Spelling Bee.

See also

• Dictation (exercise)
• Chinese Characters Dictation Competition