During introductions, at least five participants recall what grade they were in when a silent t ripped their heart out or the specific term that foiled them. Even libraries acknowledge that a little liquid courage helps grownups spell words on command, with some suburban branches promoting cash bars during their events.īut the bees are about more than giving some smarty-pants a chance to tipsily show off they also help right past wrongs. The Chipp Inn also hosts an annual adult spelling bee, but the fact that the Noble Square bar requires Jell-O shots after each round makes me suspect that the competition isn’t particularly rigorous. “It’s a way of finding out if you’ve still got it.” “With the advent of spell check, I think it’s a badge of honor ,” says Suzy Takacs, the Book Cellar’s owner. It was only a matter of time before nostalgia-craving adults turned them into alcohol-fueled showcases of spelling prowess-proud nerds flipping a collective middle finger to the LOL era. The success of the 2002 documentary Spellbound and the annual broadcast of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN have, in recent years, popularized the battles as intellectual blood sports. I should have known that a grown-up spelling contest would be plenty competitive. Then my three-year-old, Gemma, blurted out that she had to go number two (but didn’t use those words) and exposed our charade. As we sat in the courtyard at Bistro Campagne, couples at nearby tables looked at us like we were a family of intellectuals who spent our free time quizzing each other. I had grand plans to study practice sheets I discovered online-lists of words derived from Latin and French, frequently misused homonyms-but managed only 20 minutes of cramming with my in-house pro, Josephine, during our pregame dinner. Such is the stress of dropping in cold to the more-intense-than-you-think-it-would-be world of adult spelling bees. Josephine, who placed third in last year’s first-grade spelling bee at St. I’m confused until I realize that while sounding out the word in my head, I inadvertently spelled it with an s instead of a c. “I’m sorry, that is incorrect,” says Kennedy. Does it end in “ible” or “able”? I trust my instinct and go with the former. With his smart-ass personality (“Oh, that was really close,” he says sarcastically on more than a few occasions), he’s the panel’s Simon Cowell, which I guess makes poet Robbie Telfer, the more reassuring judge, Randy Jackson. ‘perceptible,’ ” says judge James Kennedy, a shaggy-haired author of surrealistic young adult fiction. But they’re not chanting my name or holding up signs that say “You’re an Awesome Speller, Dad!” Instead, my oldest, seven-year-old Josephine, is staring at me, mouth open, looking more nervous than I am. I glance at my wife and two daughters in the front row-my personal cheering section. I rise, take a breath, and gulp down a slug of beer. “Mention.” “Morphine.” “Patronage.” The spellers preceding me handle these gimmes with ease. The 50-person audience this September evening is filled with young studious types in hip glasses and urbane older women with short hair-exactly the group you would imagine hanging out at a bookstore on a Friday night.ĭespite the credentials of my 15 fellow contestants, among whom are two librarians, a high school English teacher, and a top-five state finisher from the senior circuit, the first few words make me believe I might be able to punch above my weight. I’m sitting in a row of metal chairs crammed into the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, anxiously awaiting my first word in the store’s seventh annual Adult Spelling Bee. Do you know how to spell the word “embarrassed”? How about “flummoxed”?
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