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- This article refers to spelling bees in general. For information about the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in the United States, see Scripps National Spelling Bee.
A spelling bee is a competition where contestants, usually children, are asked to spell English words. The practice originated in the United States and has since spread to elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
The earliest evidence of the phrase "spelling bee" in print dates back to 1825, although the contests had apparently been held before that year. (The etymology of the word "bee" is unclear. Historically, it has described a social congregation where a specific action is being carried out, like a husking bee, or an apple bee.) A key impetus for the contests was Noah Webster's spelling books. First published in 1786 and known colloquially as "The Blue-backed Speller", Webster's spelling books were an essential part of the curriculum of all elementary school children in the United States for five generations.
The United States National Spelling Bee was started in 1925 by the Louisville Courier-Journal, the newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1941, the Scripps Howard News Service acquired sponsorship of the program, and the name changed to the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee (later simply "Scripps National Spelling Bee"). As well as covering the 50 U.S. states, several competitors also come from Canada, the Bahamas, New Zealand, and Europe.
In the United States, spelling bees are annually held from local levels up to the level of the Scripps National Spelling Bee which awards a cash prize to the winner. The National Spelling Bee is sponsored by English-language newspapers and educational foundations; it is also broadcast on ESPN. In 2006, the National Spelling Bee's championship rounds were broadcast on ABC live. In 2005, contestants came from the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Canada, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and a German military base, as well as the United States. This was the first year that spellers from Canada and New Zealand attended the competition.
The Spelling Bee of Canada started with a local contest in 1987 in Toronto, Canada. In 1996, contestants were accepted from other provinces. However, it has been overtaken in media coverage by the newer (and newspaper chain-affiliated) CanSpell National Spelling Bee.
Spelling bee preparation
Serious spelling bee competitors will study root words and etymologies, and often foreign languages from which English draws upon, in order to spell challenging words correctly. Spellers also study words used in previous bees; there are several preparatory materials put out in connection with the Scripps National Spelling Bee, including the Paideia word list.
The spelling bee in popular culture
A British television show called Spelling Bee, featuring adult contestants and broadcast by the BBC on 31 May 1938, is generally held to have been the world's first television game show.
The 2002 Academy Award-nominated documentary, Spellbound, featured eight competitors in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Fictional works about spelling bees include the 1969 animated film A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the 2001 novel (and 2005 film) Bee Season, the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee, and the 2005 musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Eleemosynary, a 1998 play by Lee Blessing, also uses the spelling bee as a key story element. Spelling bees have also been featured on television, including an episode of The Simpsons ("I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can")
See also
External links
"Spelling bee"