For one day last June, Samir Patel held my heart in his little
hands.
I had decided to take a break from studying and turned on the
television hoping to catch something interesting on the History
Channel. However, when I came across ESPN’s coverage of the
75th Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, I could not pull away.
Drugged by the sweet voices of nervous children who stammered
through words like “hypozeuxis,” I had no choice but to
watch it for three hours.
In fact, my friends got in on the action, and we cheered on the
9-year-old Patel, who, as the youngest contestant, fought his way
to a fifth-place finish. My friends and I were captivated by the
little kids and their talent, and sufficed to say, my life has been
very boring since those little kids walked off that stage in
Washington D.C., and away from my heart. So, hoping to capture the
magic of that day, on Monday night, I decided to hold my own
spelling bee.
I rounded up a few of UCLA’s brightest minds and came up
with a list of tough words ““ some even related to our fair
university’s athletic program. As the contestants filed into
my apartment along with a sizable group of spectators, my heart
again quivered as I thought of the fun possibilities with words
like “phylactery” and “astilbe.”
Once everyone had taken their seats, we began. The six
contestants fidgeted nervously as I read the rules. I provided
alternate pronunciations, the word’s origin, and used the
word in a sentence if the contestants so desired. Players were
ejected from the contest after misspelling two words.
The first round got off to a good start with Anthony Defrenza
correctly spelling “Faoa” and Grace Kapin netting the
word “and.” She asked me to use the word in a sentence,
and I replied, “I like grapes and cake.”
Elizabeth Berman correctly spelled the sentence “T.J.
Cummings rules,” while Alex Brizolis nailed
“football,” and Eric Geffner aced “Steve
Lavin.”
However things heated up in the second round when Berman was
given the word “perspicacity.”
“That’s not a word,” she said. “That is
a made-up word by a UCLA professor.”
“Stop talking, and keep spelling,” Brizolis shot
back.
Defrenza was the first to exit the game after misspelling
“apprehension” and then, in a later round,
“maudlin.”
“I’m relived now,” he said. “The
pressure is off.”
The next round was unique ““ it only included words used to
describe my feelings for the UCLA men’s basketball team.
Thus, our spellers attempted the following words:
“nauseated,” “disappointment,”
“cauliflower,” “chagrin,”
“frightened,” “mortification” and
“panicky.”
Nate Thompson was the next to exit the game when he misspelled
“gingham.” At the press conference after the event,
Thompson, visibly upset, wondered why he hadn’t gotten an
easy word like “and” served up his way. After Thompson,
Brizolis was out when he misspelled “détente.”
At this point, it became increasingly difficult to even find
words in the dictionary that were tough to spell, and many scoffed
when I offered “ruddy,” to one contestant. And Geffner
reproached me when I couldn’t even pronounce
“rapprochement.”
After Geffner was called out for “comeuppance,” most
of those in attendance marveled at the fact that only Kapin and
Berman remained. There were catcalls from the spectators ““
those that said the two women should settle their battle by trying
to spell the names of former UCLA men’s tennis players Lassi
Ketola and Erfan Djahangiri. But common sense, and the wishes of
the bookish coeds prevailed.
With only Berman and Kapin remaining, things went from
nerve-racking to even more nerve-racking. Berman was called out
when she misspelled “mnemonic.” However, as per the
final-round rules, Kapin needed to properly spell the next word to
attain victory. When she was given the word “Kikkoman,”
the name of a popular soy sauce brand, a hush fell over the
crowd.
“Could you use that in a sentence?” she nervously
queried.
“I love Kikkoman,” I replied.
“What is the origin?” she asked.
“Asia.”
Silence.
The tension was palpable.
“K-I-K-O-M-A-N.”
Then there was more silence as I consulted with the other
judges: She had left out a “K!”
It was all over; she had misspelled it ““ and because of my
unique scoring system, Defrenza, who couldn’t even spell
apprehension, was the winner.
“You guys all cheated, and I got all the words that
aren’t real. I am the second best, and I could have been the
best if I got real words,” Berman said.
For Defrenza, victory was sweet.
“I am the W-I-N-N-E-R.”
Miller loves hip-hop. E-mail him at
dmiller@media.ucla.edu.