Wednesday, May 27, 2009

“Paralegal” Stumps National Spelling Bee Contender

There are those days when I have trouble spelling “paralegal” myself, along with simpler words like “blue” and my name. So I have nothing but the utmost admiration for those stellar baby spellers who make it all the way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. After all, I was the kid who got knocked out of my elementary school’s spelling bee by the word “ugh”. Ugh.

An 11-year-old Beavercreek boy misspelled the word “paralegal” during the second round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Wednesday morning, May 27.

Sawyer Krueger, son of Donna and Todd Krueger and a home-schooled fifth-grader, was one of 293 spellers at the bee — the largest number in bee history. During his turn at the podium, he added an “i” to the word, spelling it “parilegal.”

The word means, “a trained aide who assists a lawyer.”

The results of his first turn at the podium, however, may be irrelevant — he’ll combine those results with the results of a 50-word written test that he took Tuesday and a second turn on stage Wednesday to determine whether he’ll proceed to the second day of the bee. Sawyer, a home-schooled fifth grader, is sponsored by the Dayton Daily News.

Dayton Daily News

Sawyer gets another chance, which makes this former spelling geek happy. (I weep with joy every single time I watch Akeelah and the Bee.) Because there’s simply no justice when a child’s spelling dreams are ended by the word “ugh”.

2 comments:

Paralegal Mentor said...

Ugh? I was eliminated by 'foreign' and will never in my lifetime forget how to spell that. Watching those kids spell words I've never even heard of is inspiring and,yes, Akeelah and the Bee is an awesome movie.

Lynne DeVenny said...

Yep. I heard "uh" -- very apropos. It's not like I said "ugh" much as a fifth grader, but I'm sure I stood around with my geekly li'l mouth open saying "uhhhhhhh" more than once...lol.