What are some of the words other than Phoresy in the 2009 National Spelling Bee?
2009 National Spelling Bee Kavya Shivashankar, an eighth grader from Olathe, Kansas, correctly spelled L-a-o-d-i-c-e-a-n to win the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night. Kavya won at the end of a championship round in which runner-up Tim Ruiter was eliminated on “maecenas” and third-place finisher Aishwarya Pastapur was eliminated on “menhir.” Making her fourth appearance in the national bee, Kavya looked calm and collected throughout, never wavering as she spelled words like “phoresy” in the championship round. (The other championship round words that were spelled correctly were antonomasia, bouquiniste, oriflamme, guayabera, isagoge and sophrosyne.) In earlier rounds, Kavya effortlessly rattled off seemingly challenging words like “hydrargyrum,” “blancmange” and “baignoire.” Having finished in the Top 10 each of the last three years, Kavya was considered one of the favorites entering the bee. A student at California Trail Junior High School, Kavya enjoys playing the viol
Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe won it all on Laodicean, which means halfhearted in respect to religion or politics. It was the poised eighth grader’s fourth trip to the bee. With her father as a coach, Kavya pored over lists of possible words for months, she said. “You have to know you want to do it,” she said after hoisting the winner’s trophy. “You have to put the effort into it.” In the earlier rounds, students plowed through obscure words like omphaloskepsis and Caerphilly (which has nothing to do with parking your car in Center City), hoping to avoid the dreaded “bing” that signaled a botched spelling. Sources: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20090529__Spellbinding__is_the_word_at_national_spelling_bee.
