what is your spelling bee flame-out word?

As all nerds (unite!) are aware, Kavya Shivashankar crushed all competitors and won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week. That's our kind of competition. My old friend Nina Shen Rastogi was a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation the other day, talking about her own history with spelling bees, spelling bee rivals, and the "flame-out" words that haunt us to this day: What Word Tripped You Up At Your Spelling Bee?

Nina's word is "echelon." Mine is "choreography." Sixth grade. Representing my elementary school in the district spelling bee. It's not that I didn't know how to spell it. I knew it all too well. But I got cocky, and just rushed in to spell the damn thing. "C-H-O-R-O- No wait... C-H-O-R-E-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y." As every good spelling bee competitor knows, that counts as incorrect. How could I have been so stupid? It still haunts me to this day.