Sunday, May 31, 2009

Spelling Bee Winner

The winner of the Scripps annual Spelling Bee was decided in a major contest held in Washington. D.C. The winning word was Kavya Shivashankar.

Ooops, sorry, that was her name.

The actual winning word was Laodicean, which means "kid who has not been outside since last August."

It just reminded me of my participation back when I was in 8th grade. It was a long time ago, so there weren't that many words. I placed 4th, and was eliminated on a technicality. I forgot to ask for permission to retrace my stupid word.

Funny thing is, I have never used that word since that fateful day. I'm not even sure what it means. I just looked it up on dictionary.com, and it's not even a word any longer.

Bastages.

Oh well, good luck to Kavya.

www.humorbloggers.com

14 comments:

A New Yorker said...

in this day&age whn txting is the communication of choice i'm surprised any1 noes how 2 spell any word rite!

Me-Me King said...

I'm with you, dictionary dot com is on my Booksmarks Bar - can't blog without it.

Anonymous said...

Was that the word? Bastages? heh heh

Secondary Roads said...

According to the Urban Dictionary,
"Fumbled form of "bastards" first used in the 1984 film "Johnny Dangerously" by the character Roman Moroni, who had a mishandle of English obscenities. "

How old were you when you entered the spelling bee?

Donnie said...

Dayam Joe! You used the fumbled form of basturds? Hmmm. Wonder what Urbane Dictionary has to say about Laodecian.

Lin said...

They had spelling when you were young????

Da Old Man said...

@ Lauren: True dat

@ Me-me: I spend a lot of time there, too.

@ Quirky: No, but it should have been.

@ Secondary Roads: I really like that movie. One of the few I bought on DVD, too.

@ Don: I doubt it's a word. I think they just make stuff up.

@ Lin: Language then was mostly just grunts and gestures.

Chris said...

I heard that Kavya didn't make the top ten last year, so this year they're billing it "The Shivashankar Redemption".

Jeez, I crack myself up.

ReformingGeek said...

I ust to be abel to spel. I misspelled neurosis in my 4th grade spelling bee. Oops.

nonamedufus said...

Here in Canada they carried the Bee on the sports channel. Boy, it's come a long way; right up there with poker and darts!

Unknown said...

It sounds like the bastages were out to get you if they were requiring you to spell a word that did not even exist at the time. For I know that you had to have been in at least the 34th grade by 1984.

On second thought, I forgot to consider the possiblity of you being held back. So, I suppose that it is possible that you were still in the 4th grade in 1984, but that doesn't mean that the bastages still weren't out to get you, of course. (Yes, I traced all of that out on my palm.)

Da Old Man said...

@ Chris: That was excellent.

@ Reforming: I gave up. There's just too many words.

@ Nonamed: It was on a major channel here (ABC) for the finals, but the early rounds were on ESPN (Sports)

@ FishHawk: You were pretty accurate, though I dropped out before 34th grade. I never did get to graduate.
:(

P.L. Frederick said...

Bastages? Did that used to be a fancy swear word?

I cannot find the definition on Google either. It really isn't a word. Who knew that was possible in one's lifetime?

P.L. Frederick (Small & Big)

Hattie said...

I won a spelling bee in eighth grade and it was the last thing I ever won. Oh, except something at a raffle once.