Talk:Scripps National Spelling Bee

Misc
Its been clearly stated on ESPN and ABC that any contestant the exceeds the 30 second Finish Time time limit, is eliminated from the bee. Here is what someone posted in the article:

judges will not consider any letters given by the speller after the end of Finish Time.

Whoever put that, didn't read what he/she was writing. If you are still spelling when Finish Time ends, and the judges will not acknowledge any more letters after Finish Time, then the speller is eliminated cause the spelling of the word will be deamed incorrect.

A speller is not "not necessarily eliminated" if they exaust Finish Time, the speller is eliminated.

Dickclarkfan1 14:41, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah? What if a speller gives a sequence of letters corresponding to the word's correct spelling, Finish Time elapses at that moment, and the speller continues with a silent E or something else that he had planned to add at the end? If he'd started earlier and finished before the end of Finish Time, he would have been eliminated, but because the judges don't consider letters given after Finish Time, he gets "saved by the bell"!

And what if a speller exhausts Finish Time but each other speller in that round either misspells or likewise exhausts Finish Time? They're all back in, unless "disqualified" as used in the at-the-microphone context means something different from "eliminated".

So "not necessarily eliminated" is true, at least in theory and possibly for more than one reason.

165.176.7.3 (talk) 16:13, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear. Looks like I misspelled 'consolidated' the first time around. That's embarrassing. Quadell 12:56, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Because this is a spelling bee page or an eleven year old knew how to spell that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.94.145 (talk) 23:47, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice to have the spelled word besides the name of the winner. -- Eleassar777 my talk 19:43, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How many can find the horribly misspelled word in this Misc section, above? David Spector (talk) 22:45, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Linking spellers
I removed the links to individual winning spellers here earlier, and I see someone has put them back. I don't think there's good reason to do this. Will they ever have articles that go beyond "Mary Smith won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2007"? For most of these people, this is the only information that could possibly belong in an encyclopedia article about them. Most of the national bee contestants are preteen kids without fascinating biographies who just happen to spell really well (OK, some of them place nationally in other academic contests as well), and all of the relevant information is already included in this article. They then mostly go on to be above-average but still unencyclopedic adults. (Yes, I know a few of the people on this list, and I like them, but that's not grounds for an article. :-)) Redirects I'd go for, but I don't see the need for redlinks. The only exceptions I'd say are Rebecca Sealfon, whose eccentricities gave her some more time in the popular culture spotlight, and Nupur Lala, who played a prominent role in Spellbound. I don't see any reason to encourage the creation of articles for the others; I'm going to go ahead and make the redlinks into redirects here. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:38, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why no list of all winners?
Shouldn't a list of every winner be included? It is a matter of consistency; a list with only the recent winners followed by a list of all the words does not make sense. In the process, Eleassar's long-standing request for a combination of both lists could be fulfilled. If no one offers any thoughts, I will go ahead and combine the lists while adding the rest of the past spellers. &mdash; Webdinger BLAH 02:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

How can the bee happen in late May and/or early June? Should this be late May or early June?


 * It's possible for the bee dates to fall on May 31 and June 1. --HansTAR 00:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As it has this year. David Spector (talk) 22:53, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Missing Movie Reference
The made for TV film, The Girl Who Spelled Freedom, could probably use a mention alongside the other films discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.244.210 (talk) 06:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Removed cleanup tag
After much editing and formatting, I think we can remove the cleanup tag from this article. Please discuss if there are specific cleanup issues that need to be addressed. Vernon 19:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the article is good now. Thanks for working so hard on it! &mdash; † Webdinger BLAH 19:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that was fast.
Isn't this time-delayed? Hasn't been a minute since she spelled it! :) 70.178.93.149 02:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC) Impressive speed.  Beat all the major news networks... including ABC, the broadcaster

Elizabeth Rice
I noticed "Elizabeth Rice" redirects to this page, when I tried clicking on her name in an article about Odd Girl Out. I see that an Elizabeth Ann Rice won the spelling bee in 1939, but I'm pretty sure that's not the teenaged actress from the 2005 TV movie, so... the redirect doesn't make much sense. Teknomage 19:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I nominated the redirect Elizabeth Rice for deletion. --Rob 23:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

RE: Confusing argument in the "Criticism" section
Could someone please rewrite the paragraph that begins "Defenders of the current bee format..." without the "ex post"s and "ex ante"s? Alphabetagamma 03:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

and/or
In the History section there exists the sentence, "The bee is held in late May and/or early June..." Using the "and/or" is possibly confusing as "and" is inclusive and could be read as "in late May and early June" suggesting it is sometimes held in such a manner. I have a feeling this isn't what's meant by this, though I'm not a bee expert (and thus I changed my mind in correcting it myself). I suggest the sentence being rephrased to something less confusing. Fieryrogue 20:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Something along the lines of "Memorial Day Week" would work best for this, if I'm not mistaken? Technically, since it is a two-day competition, it could be held in both May and June. Bee Week itself begins the day before Memorial Day and continues to the Friday after the competition.
 * "Memorial week" is less accessible to a non-US audience, thus it is better to give dates. Explaining why the competition is on those dates can include a reference to Memorial Day, but dates should be given greater prominence within the article. Suggested wording would be: "The bee is held in late May and/or early June during Memorial Day Week..." -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 00:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Homeschoolers
The article says O'Dorney is the third homeschooler to win.

I count four: Sealfon, Thampy, Conley, O'Dorney.

Am I wrong about any one of these?
 * I believe that the year Conley won, he attended a private school. The year before that, when he came in second, he was a homeschooler.  Here's a homeschooling article that mentions it: http://www.homeschoolzone.com/faces/spelling.htm  Lauracs 17:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Speller nation
Is the Speller Nation paragraph in this article appropriate? It doesn't seem particularly notable. It's nice that one of the winners came from this group, but since it's not directly connected with the Scripps Bee, I don't think it belongs here. I see that, looking through the history, that the paragraph has already been shortened significantly. Lauracs 18:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Two winners come from this group (Anurag and Kerry).

Partially correct, but not totally. Anurag Kashyap was an active Speller Nation member when he won. Katharine Close had been a member of Speller Nation until 2006, the year she won. so basically, yes, she received Speller Nation training, but no, she was not a 'Speller Nation Winner.' Samir Patel 15:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph may be important if it is mentioned that "American Bee" mentions Speller Nation several times, and profiles some members of the group.

Hexco information
User:Hexcoinc has added information about the Hexco study products to this page as well as the Spelling bee page. I feel this information violates the following Wikipedia policies: I originally deleted the information, but reinstated it so it could be put up for discussion. Lauracs (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:SOAPBOX - advertising their services, self-promotion
 * WP:NOT - too many links to personal website
 * WP:SELFPUB - although this refers to biographies, the Hexco information appears to have been written by someone associated with the company itself, and not by a third party.

Paragraph needs rewriting
Under criticisms, this paragraph appears in the article:

"Unfair Element of Chance"

"A critic may argue that the contest's format does not guarantee that the speller with the greatest vocabulary (of correctly spelled words) will win due to the element of chance involved in the competition. The word list for the competition is chosen in advance and spellers may deem some words less challenging than others. This leaves open the possibility that the speller with the greatest vocabulary could lose to a competitor with a smaller, but different vocabulary."

This is a good subject to include, but I find this paragraph to be rather opaque. Among other things, it seems to imply "vocabulary" means the words one knows how to spell.

I hope it is rewritten.Daqu (talk) 18:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Disagree with this argument. Imagine all the other elements of chance! Did their plane arrive late? What did they have for breakfast? .... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.193.144.79 (talk) 10:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Perpetuation of a poor spelling system
You can start here!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform

This contest and other spelling tests reinforce and reward awkward historical spellings, which often have very little connection with actual pronunciation. In phonetic spelling (e.g. "fonetik speling"), words are spelled similar to the way they sound. Current 'proper' spelling is based mostly on memorization, which consumes a lot of learning hours and brain space. Phonetic spelling has been advocated by many as a superior system. For example, many teachers cannot really explain to students why the word "tough" should not be spelled "tuf".Ykral (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Some simple proposed starting changes:

a. eliminate double letters and silent letters - example:  'grammar' becomes 'gramr'

b. eliminate odd sound spellings - examples:  'tough' becomes 'tuf', 'cat' becomes 'kat'

c. begin accepting improper spellings as long as the intended word is clear

With all due regard for etymology, most current spellings are already far removed from the original ('toh' became 'tough'). To suggest that spelling preserves history ignores this fact. It means little that a certain word originated in Greek or Latin. That is a matter for academic scholars, not 4th graders. Finally, the value of 'root word' spelling allowing someone to figure out a word's meaning will be no problem, since the root will now have a new spelling too.

A lot of student time and anxiety is wasted on this illogical spelling system. They would be better off considering math, history, social studies and other matters. That raises a question: has anyone ever followed up on the lives of the winners? One might think they all go on to become English teachers.

The Movie Akeelah And The Bee Is About The National Spelling Bee! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.26.8.253 (talk) 17:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

When does "The Bee" take place?
It would be nice to see mentioned the month this competition takes place.24.62.113.87 (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, where are the criticisms of this event?
They should be mentioned here, not swept away by "English language freaks". There are other pages re spelling reform and the Simplified Spelling Society that protests this event, which should clearly be referenced in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.14.106 (talk) 11:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Prizes - Incorrect Information
Under Prizes, the statement "They also recieve a $250-$500 watch by Omega or Rolex" was recently added, but this information is incorrect. The current list of national spelling bee prizes can be found on the Prizes page at the SNSB website.

I have a COI with the organization, so I would rather not edit the page myself. Could another editor verify the list of prizes above and make the correction? Mhick (talk) 12:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Individual articles on competitions
There are a bunch of articles on individual competitions at Category:Scripps National Spelling Bee, and I started to try to tidy some of them up (example: 4th Scripps National Spelling Bee). However, some of the statements (i.e., location and sponsorship) in the individual articles seem to contradict the statements in the main article, and, I then noticed that the individual articles use this main article as a citation, which they should not. I am not going to touch any more of those until we can get some clarity. Does anyone have any comments or insights on this? KConWiki (talk) 11:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Filling in the article gap
I am linking spelling bees 1-34 (1925-1961), which already have articles, to the list of champions page as well as creating some articles to fill in the 35-77 (1962-2004) gap. An article for bee 62 (1989) has already been created. Hopefully the articles for 1-34 will be "beefed up" over time. I previously made the article for bee 82 (2009) immediately at the conclusion of that spelling bee. If the early and recent bees deserve articles, all 87 do. 1779Days (talk) 06:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've done some work on these from time to time, and created a few more. There is always enough coverage for a comprehensive article if you spent some time on it, just did 68th Scripps National Spelling Bee, for example.--Milowent • hasspoken  14:53, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also created this navigation template for the bottom of the yearly articles, just like we have for other sporting events. I've haven't had a chance to put on every year article yet.  It also highlights which articles are yet to be created, as the remaining yeas are easily sourceable ones.

--Milowent • hasspoken 22:24, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Who hosted the bee from 1926-40
Source after source say that The Courier-Journal organized the National Spelling Bee and hosted it the first year (1925), and that Scripps Howard took over in 1941. Does this mean The Courier Journal hosted the bee from 1926-40? All the individual bee articles for these years don't make this clear. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 00:25, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Sean Conley (physician) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:50, 2 May 2018 (UTC)