US spelling bee morphs into media darling

WASHINGTON - The United States National Spelling Bee, that ultimate anxiety fest for brainy schoolkids, has morphed into a media darling, inspiring a novel, a documentary, a feature film and a Broadway musical.

Thursday's winner, Anurag Kashyap of Poway, California, was among the students who tackled such stumpers as "sphygmomanometer" in the final rounds of competition.

To win the contest, Kashyap correctly spelled "appoggiatura," a musical grace note. He said he felt "sheer happiness."

The sports television network ESPN covered the proceedings live.

If spelling doesn't sound like a competitive sport on a par with football, consider ESPN's ad in The Washington Post: "The silent 'E'. It's ended more careers than the torn ACL."

A torn anterior cruciate ligament can put a real crimp in an active sports career -- but offers three good words to try in the spelling bee, at least in the earlier, easy rounds.

Seasoned spellers fell before the onslaught of words like "tropholytic," "drepaniform" and "sciosophy".

Their struggles were real enough - marked by sighs of relief and pumped fists when they succeeded, and slumped shoulders and shaken heads when they failed.

A fictional version of the struggles, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was playing at the Circle in the Square theatre in Manhattan.

Nominated for six Tony awards, the musical comedy won good reviews for its story of palpably nerdy contestants, played by demonstrably glamorous actors. The show's main gimmick is to draft members of the audience into the spell-down.

Beyond that, the best-selling novel Bee Season was made into a feature film this year, starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche as the parents of an unlikely spelling champion whose success fractures her family.

And then there was Spellbound, a documentary that got an Oscar nomination for its chronicle of eight competitors in the 1999 bee, including winner Nupur Lala of Tampa, Florida, who triumphed on the word "logorrhea".

The pressure is real, and so are the prizes. Kashyap won a total of US$22,000 ($31,935) in cash, plus a US$5000 college scholarship, a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a US$1000 savings bond and other prizes.

Hannah Smith of Minneapolis seemed beyond strain as she listened to the official reader give two alternate pronunciations for the word "cancrizans".

"Whatever," Smith said, with a laugh, and then misspelled the word.

- REUTERS