Spelling champ 'bee'-comes a two-time winner
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In the end, it came down to ‘monocle.’
It took 49 rounds, but 14-year-old returning champ Zhongtian Wang took home the top prize in the Spelling Bee of Canada’s London chapter championships.
She’s no stranger to winning.
Wang, who is a Central secondary school student, has been spelling her way to success since she was six years old.
Last year, she came fifth in the Ontario-wide competition. Her win this weekend means she’ll move on to the provincial round again this year.
“I try to read as much as I can so I can be exposed to many words in different contexts,” said Wang, who beat out 12-year-old Huzafa Hyde.
Hyde, from Thamesville, has an impressive history in his own right – last year, he was the champion in the junior age division, and placed second in Ontario.
It was monocle that stumped him, but he was the only one of four remaining kids to spell tautog – the word tripped up three other spellers, and propelled Hyde to the championship round.
A tautog, by the way, is a kind of fish, also known as a hoodfish.
Between the two of them, Hyde and Wang spelled more than 50 words correctly. Both spelled ‘velveteen’ wrong, but moved on passed the blunder (Wang got back in the game with ‘comportment,’ and Hyde with ‘corrosion.’
They breezed past ‘muleta’ (the red cloth used in a bull fight) and labrum (an ornamental Roman bathtub).
Before the championship round, where they squared off head-to-head, they’d tackled words like whelk (Hyde) and hackamore (Wang). There were eight contestants in the intermediate age category, from age 12 to 14.
Wang said she tries to memorize the official spelling manual before each competition.
If she thinks she knows how a word is spelled, she tends to ask the judge to use it in a sentence, to make sure she’s got it right.
Her favourite subject is history.
“I like learning about different times and comparing them to the present day,” she said.
Kate.dubinski@sunmedia.ca
Twitter.com/KateatLFpress
Winners:
Primary age group (6-8)
First: Junior Nyamusa, Grade 3, Jack Chambers public school
Second: Alessandro DeMenech, Grade 3, Louise Arbour French Immersion school
Junior age group (9-11)
First: Eshal Tariq, Grade 5, Thamesville Area Central school
Nagham Barakat, Grade 5, London Islamic School
Intermediate age group (12-14)
First: Zhongtian Wang, Grade 9, London Central secondary school
Second: Hyzafa Hyde, Grade 8, Thamesville Area Central school
SAMPLE WORDS FROM SATURDAY’S INTERMEDIATE CATEGORY:
urbane
krimmer
philippics
williwaw
metrication
honourary
borborygmustibialis
sapodilla