It's Memorial Day which means you're doing things today that you don't do on a typical Monday. That's true for me as I turned the television on, put the channel to ESPN and kicked back on the loveseat for some afternoon sports. I know what you're thinking--that could be a normal Monday! The difference this time was instead of catching a baseball game, I became glued to the National Spelling Bee competition.
Guess there are a few reasons I found myself hooked to the Bee this year. First, the remote control was just out of reach. Just kidding. I actually was interested in watching because I was a former spelling bee participant. I didn't quite make the national event. I fell a bit shy of the state competition as well. But at one time I was a finalist in elementary school. I still recall with bitterness standing before a large crowd of folks and demonstrating an inability to spell the word "plussing" correctly. I can state with confidence that I have yet to use that word in an actual conversation of any sort, other than to flashback to the day when I bowed out of my elementary school event as the 4th place finisher.
My post today is a plea to the organizers of the National Spelling Bee event. Can we just go ahead and give these kids all of the information they need in order to spell the word correctly? Don't make them beg for a definition. Then ask for a language of origin. Then we have a request for an alternate pronunciation. Now we get to the point where they'd like the word used in a sentence. Some will now ask for a part of speech. Then the repeat requests. Why do we put these kids through this?
I've long been against this kind of treatment. In fact, I now confess I spelled "plussing" wrong on purpose. I didn't want to go through this myself.
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