US National Spelling Bee!!!

[jayakris]

How many here know what the "bee" is, in a "spelling bee" ?? .. Jay

[jaydeep]

I m not going to fall into the trap as I luv honey...

[Prashant]

I am completely befuddled, so I suppose I am falling into whatever trap Jay is laying. I have always thought the word "bee" was a meeting or gathering - I've definitely heard the usage "quilting bee" for a group of women sewing a quilt.

[jaydeep]

U r absolutely right, Prashant ... Bee indeed means gathering- either for work, pleasure or competition - in US ...

[jayakris]

No, I am not setting any trap! ... I learned what it was, only recently. Prashant is correct and the "bee" stands for a social/community gathering to do some specific work. I too had heard of other bees like the quilting bee, but had always assumed that other "bees" came after "spelling bee". That is not so, and apparently the word existed before American groups with Newspaper sponsorship started the spelling "bee" contest in 1925.

But the English word "bee" is now considered not to have come from the honey bees, though some people assumed that a noisy gathering of people sounds like a gathering of bees. But the English language does not usually come up with a singular word like "bee" for something like that and it would have become "bees". It is apparently more probably from the old English word for "prayer group" coming from the Latin root "bene" for "boon" which became "been" and then "bee" in English. Something like that...

Jay

[spven]

I know this is out of topic, but cant help but to share. Congratulations Snigdha Nandipati for winning spelling Bee. Indian kids rocking the Bee last few years. This year was sweet to see(ESPN, prime time) all 3 kids left in the championship round are of indian-origin.

[kujo]

Yes, congratulations to her. If you looked at the semifinal line up, 1 out of every 2 contestants was of Indian origin. For some reason, Spelling Bee and Niagara Falls are two crazy things for Indian American families!

Got to move these two posts to "Misc" category.

[jayakris]

Moved the last two posts out here to the thread we had for some time. Indians still continue to rule the spelling business.

Congratulations to Snigdha. Now, if only her parents knew that her name has a spelling that is unreadable for native English speakers (the "dha" part)

Jay

PS: Her name can mean "beeswax" in SamskRtam, by the way. More commonly it is an adjective - "oily", "tender", "soft", "slippery" etc...

[jaydeep]

Arvind Mahankali from New York has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee for 2013, becoming the sixth Indian-American to win the title in a row.

Congratulation to Arvind!

Arvind Mahankali. 13, of New York win Scripps National Spelling Bee after coming close before

[gbelday]

Congrats, Arvind! I like that they added a vocabulary portion to the test this year.