Before you say I'm out of bounds on this topic because it has nothing to do with sports, I will merely state the Finals were televised by ESPN's flagship station. Obviously the network executives think it qualifies as such, and probably countless millions the world over watched the contest. So there. Onward.
To likely no one's great surprise, a 14 year old girl named Snigdha Nandipati, of Indian (the Asian variety) heritage, came out on top. I'm not so good at spelling and it will be a minor miracle if I get through this article without screwing something up. Hope I got her name right.
Can Indian kids spell? Are you kidding? Can Kenyans run marathons? Can the Chinese play ping-pong? Is Usain Bolt fast? Does Charles Barkley have a classic golf swing? Hmmm. Nah, forget that last one.
At any rate, this is the 10 time in the last 14 years a kid of Indian heritage has won the spelling bee. It would seem that while American children are busy texting, tweeting, face-booking, playing video games, and dreaming of being the next superstar in various sports -- the Indian children are studying. Kids devoting hours everyday to their passion to learn. Imagine that.
Snigdha speaks fluent Teluga, which is a language in southeastern India, and aspires to someday possibly become a neurosurgeon. As smart as that little girl is, she'll likely get a full ride scholarship through college and maybe even med school, right here in the USA. I wonder if when she's finely ready to wield the scalpel on people's heads and make the big bucks, if she'll pull a Lebron and "take her talents" elsewhere, like in back to India. Could happen.
Snigdha's winning word was "guetapens", which is some sort of snare or trap, maybe like what the Nashville Predators did to the Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs. The runner-up lost out by misspelling the word "schwarmerei", which is unbridled enthusiasm -- kinda like some sports beat reporters when it comes to the team they're covering. Betcha any of them could have spelled "Kool-Aid".
Yet this spelling bee has gotten out of control. Every contestant on every word drags it on way too long. The person presenting the words clearly enunciates it, gives a definition, and says the word again. That should be good enough. But no, the kids want to know whether it's a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. Then they ask from which language the word was derived. Then they want to hear the whole thing again. Even Snigdha said she already knew how to spell the winning word when it was first presented, but asked all the questions anyway. If I was a judge I'd put an end to this nonsense. Here's what I'd say: "I just clearly pronounced the word, gave you a definition, and pronounced it again. Now S-P-E-L-L the damn thing. Don't make me come up there on stage and cuff you up the side of your nerdy egghead. Let's GO".
That might spice it up a tad. And why not throw a little controversy into the whole thing? Every other sport seems to have it in one way or the other. When it gets down to the end where the kids are having to spell ridiculously hard words that most of us have never even heard of -- why not throw in a random blooper? After a word like "schwarmerei", ask the next kid to spell "cat", a domestic feline animal that purrs and goes potty in a litter box. Sure it would be unfair, but it would also be hilarious. The crowd in attendance would gasp, millions the world over would think the "fix" was in, scribes and talking heads would go berserk, and whoever put the word "cat" into the contest might wind up testifying before a few Senators on Capitol Hill.
Maybe it could even be arranged to have a few kids and/or their families get into the "octagon" for some cage grudge matches. A round-robin tournament with millions of cha-chings at $49.95 on pay-per-view. The possibilities are endless. After all, it's the American way.
Or maybe someday a lot of bright kids will stop pressing buttons, or thinking they're going to be the next Lebron James or Tom Brady. For 99.99999% of them, it ain't gonna happen. So many of them fall into the "guetapens" -- the trap. A dream future that has no chance of ever becoming reality.
They might even consider studying as hard as the contestants on the Scripps Spelling Bee do. Imagine that.
Chances are all those kids will go far in their various fields of endeavor.
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