Look, it’s no secret that we here at The New York Times love words, games, and, yes, word games. Not only have we covered spelling bees for nearly 150 years, we’ve also expanded our section on games outside of crossword puzzles to anagram beehives and five-letter word searches.
Tonight is Scripps’ 94th National Spelling Bee, and we’ll cover it live here as 12 students encounter a menagerie of vocabulary monsters: colossal nouns with diphthong hearts, adjectives of unknown origin, and words dotted with insidious schwas.
The finalists went further than hundreds of others – orthographers defeated by words like sirtaki, wirrah and palombino, among others. And just like last year, when Zaila Avant-garde made its way to history as Bee’s first black American champion, finalists will also face a camera vocabulary test that will test their knowledge of the meaning of words.
For the first time since 2019, when eight students shared the championship on a draw, Bee returned entirely in person, just outside of Washington at National Harbor, Md.
Nominees for the $ 50,000 prize range in age 11 to 14 and include students from Texas, Colorado, Florida, Washington, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Arizona.
what are the rules
To actually participate in the National Spelling Bee, you will need to meet the requirements of Scripps – namely, that you are actually an ordinary child.
The rules stipulate, among other conditions, that competitors must not have reached the age of 15 on or before 31 August 2021; that they could not have passed after the eighth grade and that they had to attend a school enrolled in the Bee program.
But if you’re just trying to write and choose definitions, things are clearer. During the finals, competitors will face spelling and vocabulary rounds until a champion or co-champions are announced. The spellcaster is eliminated with only one incorrect letter or incorrect answer.
During spelling rounds, each spell writer has two minutes to go. The person who reads the words, called a pronoun, can respond to requests for repetition of a word and give its definition, part of speech, language of origin and alternative pronunciation, if any. He can also use it in an example sentence.
If there is still no champion late in the show, we come to a “spell”. In this scenario, each spellcaster has 90 seconds set aside from competitors to write words off the list.
The winner is the one who writes the most correct words in those 90 seconds – unless there is a tie, in which case the most successful ones win together.
Wait, how about watching it, as the title says?
Okay, okay, you’ve scrolled down enough. The last round starts at 20:00 Eastern Time. It will be broadcast – but not on ESPN, the home of the competition for years.
Instead, it will be broadcast on ION and Bounce, two Scripps networks hosted by LeVar Burton. These networks are widely available with antennas, smart TV or various providers such as Spectrum or Verizon FiOS. With a zip code and provider, Scripps can direct you to an ION-specific channel in your area.
What if you are bored and also like word games?
If you want to try your hand at some other spelling games, you can play a Times version of the classic quiz, an anagram challenge called Spelling Bee, or a five-letter word search known as Wordle.
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