'Embololalia' trips up Kiwi spelling bee

A single syllable spelled the end of hopes that 13-year-old New Zealand spelling champ Nicole Kennington in the US today.

Nicole, who was bidding for the final of the "Olympics of Spelling", the Scripps National Spelling Bee, missed out when faced with spelling the word "embolalia".

The Hutt Valley High School student, representing New Zealand at the Washington DC event, had already aced the written round, which included such daunting tongue-twisters as "sprachefuhl" and "oeillade".

But it was "embololalia" -- meaning a speech disorder in which meaningless words or sounds are interjected into sentences -- that tripped her up in the second round, an oral test.

Nicole's attempt, "embolalia", was just one syllable too short.

However, Nicole -- only the second New Zealander to compete in the event -- did spectacularly well to get as far as she did.

The competition, now in its 79th year, attracts more than nine million competitors each year from all over the world.

Since winning the Plunket National Spelling Bee two months ago, Nicole has had to master American English by studying the Scripps National Spelling Bee word list, and reading the Webster's International Dictionary, which has 470,000 words.

Speaking after the national competition, Nicole said she had always found spelling easy, but "it was still a huge surprise to win".

National Spelling Bee manager Janet Lucas said it was "a great honour" for New Zealand to be able to participate in the event.

It was a gruelling knock-out contest with no second chances, she said.

US television network ABC will screen the championship round on Saturday, New Zealand time.

- NZPA