Showing posts with label spelling bee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spelling bee. Show all posts

6.05.2017

CNN anchor mocks Indian American spelling bee champion

"We're not sure that it's root is in Sanskrit, which is what you're probably, uh, used to using."



Look, this isn't hard. An on-air interview with the winner of the National Spelling Bee. Ask her how she prepared, what it felt like to win, and what she's going to do now. Don't say anything racist.

That seems simple enough, right? Not quite.

Last week, CNN anchors Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo were interviewing 12-year-old Ananya Vinya, the newly crowned Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, when they challenged her to spell "covfefe." Ha ha. The infamously inexplicable word recently tweeted by Donald Trump. Funny... I guess?

But then after going through the motions of this inane bit, Camerota attempts to explain the "origin" of the word to Vinay, telling her "But it is a nonsense word but we're not sure that it's root is in Sanskrit which is what you're probably, uh, used to using."

6.02.2017

12-year-old Ananya Vinay wins National Spelling Bee

The "Indian Super Bowl" crowns a new champion.



M-A-R-O-C-A-I-N. A new spelling champion is crowned! 12-year-old Ananya Vinay of Fresno, California correctly spelled "marocain" Thursday night to win the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Hundreds of badass young spellers from around the country gathered in Washington DC this week for several days of grueling, knock-out, drag-down competition. In the end, one remained standing.

Ananya, a sixth grader at Fugman Elementary School correctly spelled "marocain" (a dress fabric of ribbed crepe, made of silk or wool or both) in Thursday's final round. She takes home a $40,000 cash prize, a $2,500 savings bond, a collection of reference books, a giant trophy, and supreme spelling bragging rights.

5.27.2016

National Spelling Bee ends in tie for third consecutive year

13-year-old Jairam Hathwar and 11-year-old Nihar Janga crowned co-champions.



We have a tie. Again. The Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a tie for the third consecutive year Thursday night, with 13-year-old Jairam Hathwar of Painted Post, New York and 11-year-old Nihar Janga of Austin, Texas emerging as co-champions out of a field of 284 spellers, after 39 epic rounds of competition.

National spelling bee ends in a tie for third consecutive year

It was a dramatic, knock-down drag-out face-off between two spelling bee gangstas. Jairam's final word in the competition was "feldenkrais," a trademark that refers to a system of aided body movements. Nihar stayed in the competition by correctly spelling "gesellschaft," which refers to a type of social relationship.

Twice, it looked like Jairam might be knocked out of the competition, after he misspelled "drahthaar," a breed of dog, and "mischsprache," a language. But Nihar missed his follow-up words, which put Jairam back in contention. Neither speller was going out like that. In the end, the spelling bee ran out of words.

Jairam and Nihar spelled them all.

5.25.2016

Meet the National Spelling Bee's youngest contestant

6-year-old Akash Vukoti steals the show.



Meet Akash Vukoti of San Angelo, Texas. At just six years old, he is the youngest contestant -- and the first first-grader -- among 285 contenders at this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Although he misspelled "bacteriolytic" and was knocked out of the competition in Round 3, young Akash charmed the heck out of the crowd. He received a standing ovation and high fives as he left the stage.

Here's a fun video of Akash talking about how he got started in his spelling bee career. He also offers some helpful spelling bee tips and shares his favorite word, "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon­iosis." (It's a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. I had to look it up.)

5.30.2014

Scripps National Spelling Bee declares two champions

The competition ran out of words. Because Sriram and Ansun spelled them all.



We have a winner! Two winners, actually. Congratulations to Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe, co-champions of the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Both young men were declared winners after -- no joke -- the competition officially ran out of words. That's right. Sriram and Ansun spelled all the words.

How do you spell T-I-E? National Spelling Bee has two winners

The annual spelling showdown ended in a rare tie -- the first in more than 50 years -- after the two finalists correctly spelled and exhausted all the words on competition's list. The spelling bee rules dictate that once three contestants are left, the pronouncer begins using a championship (read: crazy difficult) list of 25 words. If those words run out before a winner emerges, a tie is declared.

6.07.2013

Hari Kondabolu's KondaBulletin: Spelling Bee Edition



As you know, last week, Arvind Mahankali became the latest in a long line of Indian Americans kids to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. That's six in a row! Which is awesome. But of course, this inspired the haters to respond on Twitter, as usual.

On this week's Totally Biased, comedian/writer Hari Kondabolu shows some love for the spelling bee -- aka "The Indian Super Bowl" -- and had choice some words for Arvind's detractors: Hari Kondabolu's KondaBulletin: Spelling Bee Edition.

5.31.2013

Arvind Mahankali wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee



Knaidel. K-N-A-I-D-E-L spells victory. Yesterday, 13-year-old Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, New York correctly spelled "knaidel" -- a word for a small mass of leavened dough -- to win the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee: Arvind Mahankali, 13, of New York, wins the Scripps National Spelling bee.

After finishing in third place in both 2011 and 2012, this time Arvind was out for some spelling redemption -- a German redemption, of sorts. While he had previously been eliminated on German-derived words, this time he had it aced:

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