Talk:Scripps National Spelling Bee

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[edit] 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 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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. — Webdinger BLAH | SZ 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)

[edit] 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! — † Webdinger BLAH | SZ 19:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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:

  • WP:SOAPBOX - advertising their services, self-promotion
  • WP:NOT#LINK - 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.

I originally deleted the information, but reinstated it so it could be put up for discussion. Lauracs (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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)


[edit] Perpetuation of a poor spelling system

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". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.193.144.79 (talk) 05:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)