SPELLBOUND
Kids who can spell reely good, and other things on TV this week
SPELLING bees are not big in South Africa. Maybe it’s because we prefer other forms of competition, like fights to the death. Maybe it’s because the grown-ups who are supposed to organise spelling bees are themselves unsure how to spell things: is it P-R-E-T-O-R-I-A or T-SH-W-A-N-E, for instance? Either way, public spelling contests have never been our national idea of a good time.
Elsewhere, things are quite different. In the US, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is a revered institution, with the finals televised live on sports channel ESPN. It is, frankly, insane. Pint-sized contestants shoved forward by demonically ambitious parents cram upwards of 8 000 words a day in preparation for the bee. A six-yearold scored a place in this year’s finals. He correctly spelled “inviscate” — to encase in a sticky substance — but tumbled out on “bacteriolytic”, referring to the destruction of bacterial cells.
The two words which eventually won it for this year’s co-champions, both under the age of 14, were “Feldenkrais” — a copyrighted system of body movements — and “gesellschaft”, meaning a type of social relationship.
This brings me to Spellbound ,a new spelling quiz show which has just debuted on M-Net on Sunday nights. From the looks of things, you may not be seeing words like “feldenkrais” and “gesellschaft” appearing on Spellbound any time soon. At least in its first episode, contestants were asked to spell considerably easier words. Like “Xray”. I honestly can’t think of an easier word to spell than X-ray, except maybe “cat”.
But perhaps the first episode provided deliberately simpler words than will subsequently be the case, because the contestants taking part were celebrities doing it for charity. Journalists Devi Sankaree Govender and Waldimar Pelser went up against TV personalities Dineo Ranaka and Stacey Norman, who for reasons known only to herself was dressed like a magician at a children’s party. Govender won, which was definitely for the best, because I felt like she might have literally killed someone if she hadn’t.
None of the four inspired much awe with regards to their spelling abilities — and these were all media types! I dread to think what would happen if you got a bunch of South African sportsmen up there. Maybe we should change the national anthem to Nkosi Sikelel’ iAutoCorrect.
From this week, though, it will be regular South Africans duking it out against each other. I’m holding out hope for some spelling prodigies from unlikely corners of the country. If Spellbound whets your appetite for more spelling bee-related action, do seek out the 2003 documentary of the same name, which chronicles a group of kids’ journey to the finals of America’s national bee. It’s full of suspense and emotion: truly spellbinding stuff.