The Great American Celebrity Spelling Bee

I've always been a good speller, but I've had bad experiences with spelling bees. In 4th grade, I was tripped up by "tricot" (pronounced /'trE-(")kO/), which I had never seen nor heard, and I don't believe I've seen or heard it since. Now that I think back on it, I'm realizing that our teacher totally mishandled the game: she asked several players in a row to spell "tricot" (none of us got it right), then (after eliminating us) went on to another word ("scary") for the next player. Clearly, if no one got it right, then no one should have been eliminated for it—but also, she shouldn't have given the same word to multiple players. Anyway, in 5th grade, I won the classroom competition and made it to the all-grade contest, where I lost because of "kaleidoscope"; I hadn't yet learned that the "i before e except after c" rule was utterly useless.

So anyway, this morning I watched the two-hour final episode of "The Great American Celebrity Spelling Bee". ( Read more... )

Next Friday on Fox is Test the Nation; I've always been skeptical about IQ tests, but it will still be interesting to watch.