Local students eliminated from spelling bee

Area’s last chances at a possible national title are knocked out in quarterfinals

A trio of 13-year-olds from Los Angeles and Orange counties who had advanced to the quarterfinals of the 93rd Scripps National Spelling Bee were all eliminated on Tuesday.

Baominh Le and Sophia Lin, both from Orange County, both incorrectly answered their fifthround word meaning questions to finish in a 16-way tie for 43rd place. Irene Thomas of Tarzana misspelled her fourth-round word, clinquant, an adjective meaning glittering with gold or tinsel, and finished in a 17-way tie for 59th.

Baominh incorrectly answered the question, “What does it mean to circumambulate?” The correct answer is to walk around. Sophia incorrectly answered the question “Scansion is:” The correct answer is the analysis of a rhythmic structure.

Both both began Tuesday’s competition by correctly spelling their fourth-round words. Baominh correctly spelled swelldom, a noun meaning people of rank and fashion, while Sophia correctly spelled waldhorn, a noun for a musical horn.

All three Southland students correctly spelled two words and correctly answered their word meaning questions as the bee began Saturday with a field of 209, with 75 advancing to the quarterfinals.

Baominh and Sophia both

graduated Thursday from The Pegasus School, a private, pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school in Huntington Beach.

Irene graduated Friday from eighth grade at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, a fourththrough 12th-grade magnet school in Tarzana. It kept its original name after moving to the site of the former Sequoia Junior High School in 1980.

This was the trio’s lone opportunity to compete in the national bee, which is limited to students who are in eighth grade or lower on Aug. 31 of the year preceding the competition.

The second round of each level of the competition — the preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals — is a wordmeaning round, requiring the speller to orally select the correct multiple choice answer to a vocabulary question read by the pronouncer.

This new element of the competition is designed to challenge the spellers and further advance the bee’s focus on word knowledge and literacy.

Questions have been prepared by noted linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer, language columnist for The Wall Street Journal. The speller has 30 seconds to view the question and the three answer choices. The speller must answer correctly within the time limit to move on to the next round of competition.

The bee will resume June 27 with the semifinals. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, all competition through the semifinals will be held on a virtual basis. The top 10-12 finalists will travel to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Fla., for the finals, which will be held July 8.

No speller from Los Angeles or Orange counties has won the bee.