Spelling Bee Blues

June 6, 2010

This has nothing to do with bikes, but behind the bike and before it, we're all spellers, and did you watch the National Spelling Bee on Friday night?

Spelling Bees bum me out, because they're not fair. Everybody should get the same words, and have to spell them out, Jeopardy-style. It's not traditional for spelling bees, but when one contestant gets "gnocchi" (which is on the menu in every Italian restaurant in the country) and another in the same round gets, oh, I forget, but it's a word nobody's ever heard of, then it's not fair.

There was a Japanese word, too. "Gyokuro." Apparently it's one of those Japanese words that's become English, too, like "sushi," "teriyaki,", and "karate."

All fine, BUT the pronouncer pronounced it without any hint, without the whispiest whiff of a long "o" sounds, which is new to me. He said "gyahkuro" as plain as that, over and over, even after the girl asked seven or eight times for a repeat pronounciation. Finally she spelled it "gyakuro."

I am NOT an expert on this, even among dummies I'm not one. But I took 3 months of Japanese lessons and have studied with tapes and I've hung around a lot of Japanese people, and I've spoken a lot of it, and "o", sounds more like Homer's "doh!" than "owe."

I believe romaji words, those roman-lettered spellings of Japanese words originaly written in kanji and katakana and hirigana or whatever...the whole point is to be phonetical.

Anyway...happy for the winner, sad for everybody else.

Movie tip only super old timers will remember: Akeelah and the Bee. It's a spelling bee movie, and one of my favorites. Right up there with The World's Fastest Indian, Groundhog Day, Spanglish, Last Holiday, Nanny McPhee, and Tommy Boy. All women hate that last one. It makes 'em nervous. It has a great ending, though.

G