Bee Complex

What8217;s wrong with 8220;manoeuvre8221;? Oh, it is the letter 8216;O8217; and the 8216;-re8217; ending. When the American Spelling Bee comes to Delhi...

Spelling Bee comes to the Capital and has children tied up in knots over 8220;rendezvous8221; and 8220;kleptomania8221;

What8217;s wrong with 8220;manoeuvre8221;? Oh, it is the letter 8216;O8217; and the 8216;-re8217; ending. When the American Spelling Bee comes to Delhi, leave your British-bequeathed English at home and pronounce maneuver, like the Yankees do, that it can pass off as a brand of Chilean wine 8212; and spell it likewise. So this reporter felt quite foolish when she realised that she, along with approximately 100 school kids across the National Capital Region, added that extra 8216;O8217; and ended up with a blooper. Welcome to the first ever Spelling Bee in Delhi where the alphabet is alpha, beta and omega.

The Spelling Bee, for the uninitiated, is an American institution. Primarily a spelling competition, it is open to students who have not yet completed the eighth grade or have turned 15 or won a previous National Spelling Bee. The first ever Spelling Bee was organised in 1925 in Louisville, Kentucky, and had just nine contestants. 8220;The Scripps National Spelling Bee is enormously popular and most of the finalists are Indian-Americans. So this year, we decided to bring the competition to India,8221; says Ann Seshadri, cultural affairs officer, American Center, Delhi, who has organised the competition for students in the NCR and Kolkata.

Thursday morning saw a flurry of activity at Delhi Public School, Mathura Road, as students of Class IX-XI from over 100 schools across NCR attended the preliminary round, attempting to spell common and not-so-common words and trying to remember the rules of American English. 8220;When we did a dry run last year, we found that the usual Bee words were too difficult for students here. So we8217;ve slightly increased the age limit,8221; says Seshadri. Indian-American kids might be poring over dictionaries to get their 8220;guerdon8221; and 8220;prosopopoeia8221; right and asking politely 8220;Can I have the language of origin, please?8221;, but in a country without a Bee tradition and where English is not quite the first language, children were tied up in knots as 8220;rendezvous8221; turned into 8220;rondeywoe8221; and 8220;prodigious8221; became 8220;prodigas8221;.

However, for the winners of the elimination round, Sushmita Sarkar and Nitika Khaitan of the Convent of Jesus and Mary, finding their way around multiple pronunciations and spelling variations was not a problem. 8220;This cannot be done overnight. I set aside time everyday to learn the words in the spelling pamphlet that was given to us a month in advance of the competition. There are words that can8217;t be recalled easily, like the one which means contemplation of one8217;s belly button,8221; said Khaitan. It is omphaloskepsis and you need to be a genius to get that one right.

Thirty-four finalists are set to battle their wits at the American Center on November 20. The winners of the Delhi round then face the winners of the Kolkata round. The final will take place at the Kolkata Book Fair next year.