KEY POINTS:
A 13-year-old Hamilton boy heading to the world "Olympics of spelling" is ready for university level linguistics papers, his tutor says.
Thomas North, from Hamilton Boys' High School, is the country's fourth representative at the Scripps National Spelling Bee - which in its 81st year is the longest run academic competition in the world - to be held in Washington DC next week.
Thomas was named New Zealand's spelling bee champion in March, correctly spelling flotilla after a 22-round competition.
Since then, he has been coached by his mother, Katherine North, and Nicola Daly, a lecturer in the Department of Arts and Language Education at Waikato University.
Ms Daly has been teaching Thomas the history of English, sounds in the English language, ways of analysing words, and ways in which new words are added to the English lexicon.
She said in her opinion Thomas was ready for university level linguistics papers.
The last few days together will be spent going through lists of less common words, and looking at their spelling, their meanings and origin.
"You never know when a word we cover might be the key to going through to another round in the Spelling Bee in Washington," she said.
Thomas will fly to the US on Sunday, carrying with him the competition bible, the 5kg Webster's Third New International Dictionary.
The dictionary contains 450,000 words from "a" to "zyzzogeton".
As well as mastering the more unusual words of the English language, Thomas is also practising using the American spelling of words.
He said he was looking forward to the Washington DC experience and was trying not to be too overwhelmed by the prospect of competing on stage in front of hundreds of people.
The competition begins with a 25-word multi-choice written test, then one oral test to pass the preliminaries.
"I would like to get through the preliminaries, into the quarterfinals and then I am going to try and win," he said.
Thomas said his favourite word, schwa, was related to a spelling tip. Schwa is the indistinct unstressed vowel sound - for example the "a" sound in "a moment ago".
"Mum always says 'beware of the schwa', which is great advice," he said.
Thomas won the place at the Scripps finals, along with return air fares for two, accommodation and spending money in the New Zealand Spelling Bee finals.
He will spend three days sightseeing in Washington along with the other 288 competitors.
The winner of the US final will walk away with a prize package including US$37,000 ($48,420) in cash.
- NZPA
