Stumble knocks Dublin girl out of competition
Three wrong letters did in the dreams of a 12-year-old Dublin girl.
The word that Anisha Rao missed Thursday in the final round of the National Spelling Bee was “pavillon.” It means the large end of a wind instrument, like a trombone.
With the eyes of her classmates at Eleanor Murray Fallon Middle School on her from afar, Anisha took a deep breath on the stage just outside Washington, D.C., and said, slowly and tentatively, “P-A-VI-L-L-A-N-T.”
Ding went the bell. In spelling bees, the ding is bad.
“Thank you,” Anisha said, sweetly, like the good sport she is, and sat down.
It was a sad, sudden end for Anisha’s remarkable run to the finals of the 93-year-old national competition. Earlier in the day, in the semifinal round, she breezed through “geusioleptic” (having a pleasing flavor) and “neopterygian” (relating to a subclass of bony fish) to advance to the final 16 contestants. She was the only remaining contestant from the Bay Area.
In the semifinal round, Anisha also nailed “boogaloo” (a modern rock dance), “viscount” (a British nobleman) and “ducat” (a gold coin or ticket).
A previous regional finalist in the national competition, Anisha said her favorite books are the Harry Potter series, her favorite sports team is the Golden State Warriors and her favorite player is Stephen Curry. She has said her goal, in addition to remembering when “i” comes before “e” and when it doesn’t, is to rid the world of plastic pollution and overfishing.
Had Anisha won, her entire school would have gotten a pizza party and Anisha would have pocketed $40,000, which is a lot of ducats.
“I didn’t realize the school gets a pizza party,” said Principal Sheri Sweeney. “Go, Anisha!”
But not even principals can do everything. After adding the errant “a-n-t” and hearing the horrid “ding” from which there is no appeal, Anisha smiled grimly and fought back whatever else was trying to get out. She received an embrace from a companion and left the stage.
Sweeney said Anisha’s run of well-placed letters had been “amazing” and proved that “having a goal and sticking with it pays off.” She also said she didn’t know what “neopterygian” meant.
About two hours after Anisha’s slip, an eighth-grader from Texas, Karthik Nemmani, correctly spelled “koinonia” (an intimate spiritual communion) to win the title.
This year’s 516 contestants, winnowed from an international field of 11 million, found themselves particularly challenged when the official dictionary for the contest went out of print and they had to switch to a new one. Of words misspelled by contestants, the most common starting letter is “O” and the most common root is Latin.
The finals were broadcast live on ESPN, which cut away from the NBA Finals warmups to do it.