Scripps National Spelling Bee 2015: What was winning word?
By Josh Hill
The Scripps National Spelling Bee came down to an insane word to win it all, and -_- ended up nailing it to become champion of the spelling world.
It’s hard for most of the world to spell our shopping lists right, and autocorrect has long been a crutch we lean on for spelling things wrong in e-mails and text messages. But for a handful of adolescents around the world, spelling insane words is all in a day’s work.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee was this week and in the end we saw co-champions named after the Championship List of 25 words wasn’t enough to determine a sole winner. The final round was a barn burner, as insane words that seemed like gibberish were accurately spelled with insane speed.
But the winning word was just lame.
In what can only be described as one of the most anticlimactic endings to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the winning word was ‘Nunatak’.
Not only is that word lame, the fact that it was spelled right led to co-champions. That’s a little less lame though, as both Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar rightfully deserved to be named co-champions.
The rules state that the Championship List consists of 25 words and if all words are exhausted, both spellers still standing are crowned as champs together. That’s exactly what happened, as Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar were named co-champions after all but two of the words on the Championship List were used up.
But the fact that such a thrilling final round ended with such an easy and lame word — at least in comparison to ‘hippocrepiform’ — was a shame.