Culture

Drop Everything And Behold The Wholesome Wonder Of The Scripps National Spelling Bee 2019

The kids were so smart the judges ran out of words and had to declare an eight way tie.

by Sam Langford  31 May 2019
spelling bee

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Here’s the wholesome Friday afternoon content you need and deserve: this year’s US Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in an unprecedented eight-way tie because these delightful nerd kids were too good at spelling. And in case you think spelling bees are snooze, think again: this competition has drama, action, a large cash prize, and delightful memes to boot. Let’s dive in.

Usually, in a spelling bee like this, there is only one winner. Each round, each contestant is given a word to spell, and must spell it aloud standing on stage. If you get a word wrong you’re eliminated, which eventually leaves the winner standing victorious. In the event of a tie, the $50,000 prize (seriously) is split, 50/50.

Or at least, that was the plan. This year, Rishik, Erin, Saketh, Shruthika, Sohum, Abhijay, Christopher and Rohan are all going home with $50,000 each, as co-champions of the spelling bee, because every single one of these children was so good that the judges ran out of difficult words. 

That’s a huge deal, given that the kind of words these kids were asked to spell included hochmoor (German word for a kind of moor or marsh), paralipomena (things omitted from a work and added as a supplement), and cernuous (drooping/limp).

The eight kids were declared co-champions after they correctly spelled 47 of these words in a row, and the judges realised they were genuinely going to run out of words before someone stuffed up.

And honestly, these kids weren’t afraid to flex their knowledge. Check out this video of Simone, who was sadly eliminated late in the game on the word “tettigoniid”, calmly telling the judges what “manualiter” means before confidently spelling it correctly.

They were also just extraordinarily calm, and funny. When co-champion Rishik was asked to spell the word “yiddishkeit”, he was clearly unfamiliar with it and asked for its language of origin.

“It’s from Yiddish,” the judge responded.

“Oh,” Rishik said, with a laugh. “I don’t know what I expected.” Unflustered, he went on to spell it correctly.

If these kids are blowing your mind at this point, you’re not alone. This guy in the audience speaks for all of us, I think:

And as for what it feels like to win this thing, based on these kids’ reactions I’m tempted to say there’s no greater feeling in life than being crowned a spelling bee champion. Even just watching these videos will make your day:

I’m not crying, you’re crying. Good on these little nerds.