One of the great events on the annual calendar, the US Spelling Bee, is on tonight. Perhaps the art of spelling and grammar is losing its importance and relevance with AI taking over, but you can still instantly spot a moron by the way they write. For example, imagine being someone who unnecessarily puts spaces inside their quotation marks.

Have a crack at this little quiz of previous winning words from the competition, and let's see who is PW's brainest/nerdiest. I got 8/12.

An octopus picking answers at random would have done better than you

And they want me to donate to their fund too... <_<

Nah, I'm going to do it you " dweeb " as it's easier to read. In fact, I'm doing people on here a service.

I got 8/12.

While it's better than some, my grammar is poor. I even took a grammar course in my 30's. Plus, my Ukrainians who are learning English are quick to tell me how our poor grammar affects them. Our landscaper Vasil asked me "what is 'wanna and gonna'?" I had to explain it's how we often say 'want to'/'going to'.

10/12. Excellent stuff. I know my Succedaneum from my Succedanneum.

A solid 8/12 from me.

5/12

I blame NATH45 because I'm even worse at taking personal responsibility!

Sadly, I feel like Baker has used every single word in one form or another on PW. That American Males match was so bad it gave me diverticulitis! That's a freebie from me to all you sissies who are afraid to take this test. Maybe I should have watched more Larry Poffo promos?

@admin must of caught me in a weak moment as usually boos from men like him don't phase me ( despite the dig ) as I've seen what makes him cheer.

Feel free to drop an open quotation mark or two around any of those words.

10/12. I'm basically a genius.

I got Appoggiatura and Chiaroscurist wrong.

Id love to see the scores if it was fill in the blank 😒

I have a somewhat appalling memory so my score here was woeful.
Generally, I am a decent speller because I am good with knowing which rules to apply and which word is like another word.

Manay of these words are a little random with their roots in other languages and rules,so I was pretty appalling.

One of my greatest flaws is despite being a very good writer (composer of emails and documents) I am an appalling proof reader of my own work and have started using AI to handle that.

I did not expect multiple choice. I expected small audio files to play someone saying the word and then to spell it.

I did poorly and got 7 correct.

And man did @admin hit a bit of a nerve on Big Nate.

With all of our years on PW, especially on the old boards riddled with teenagers (some of them being you!) the spelling has always been atrocious.

RT is lucky it was multiple choice. Otherwise he would've failed. 😁

12 year old Bruhat from Tampa won, he got 29/30 in the final tiebreaker, only misspelling the scientific name for the Swamphen.

May 31, 2024 14:00:54 GMT RT said:

10/12. I'm basically a genius.

I got Appoggiatura and Chiaroscurist wrong.

Chiaroscurist was a rare example of my art history degree coming in handy. :lol: