Spelling Bee (5/12/05)

[liotte]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:11pm

Saw Spelling Bee tonight- I have a question though--

*possible spoiler depending on how much you know about the show*




The spellers from the audience that come on stage- The first 3 got out pretty easily. The 4th man, "Buckeye", was a fantastic speller and got words that I have never heard of and were impossibly long, foreign, and just insane. The vice-principal/judge, by the time he got to the 3rd word, just kept him on stage up front, and had him spell word after word. Finally on the last one, Buckeye asked for a definition and the judge said "There isn't one", and so he asked to have the word used in a sentence, and the VP said "Spell this word wrong". The guy did get it wrong, but I was wondering- does this always happen? I was under the impression that the audience members got out pretty quick!

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:14pm

It depends on the day. Jay Reiss has an arsenal of 5 truly nasty words (though I know I can spell one of them) he uses for special occassions.

[crazy smiles]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:16pm

When I saw the show, this girl got some british slang word right by guessing and then they made her go again and spell something she couldn't even pernouce. I remember on the Today they said that they even had a Spelling Bee champ that was picked and they seriously had to make him stop spelling cause he was getting them right. I'm guessing if you spell a word right up to a certain part of the show they will make you spell until you get out, or make you spell wrong.

[liotte]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:18pm

Yeah, I read about that arsenal, the one everyone knows about Hakapoo or something like that, got a guy out pretty early. The rest of the words were crazy. He kept going, wow, that's correct. Unbelievable, that's correct. He'd wave his hand (like a sigh kinda), roll his eyes, and say correct with an air of "how the hell did you get that right?". Finally he started his whole Get this wrong, no definition, no origin, etc.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:21pm

Here's a great article from the Times about the audience members used as spellers in the show and the tactics they have to use when they get a "ringer":
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/11/theater/newsandfeatures/11audi.html?

[apdarcey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:36pm

i saw it on tuesday (won the lottery, so excited!!!), and they used hackapoo... the audience was eating their "get a man out" strategies... also, sarah saltzburg had me in tears... i loved her so much, and i thought i was going to dislike her the most going in, because of everything i had heard!

[TheGaIsSilent]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:42pm

I think that the tolerance for the last speller just depends on the night. On Sunday, they had one kid go on for awhile spelling made-up words however the hell she wanted to, and he kept saying 'that's correct'. VERY funny.