SOME MISSPELLED WORDS in the 2008 National Adult Spelling Bee in Long Beach, Calif. included desuetude, minaret, suet, souk, epicurean, kohlrabi, wassail, revenant and daguerreotype.

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g A GROWN-UP BEE
Adults Were Abuzz in Long Beach After Two-Hour 2008 National Bee

2008 Winner
Janice Davis, Garden Grove, Calif.
Correctly spelled decoupage and isinglass. She won $1,000 after 37 rounds! She'll be donating $500 of that to her favorite charity, Set Free Christian Ministries in Orange, Calif.
2nd Place
David Riddle, Pacific Grove, Calif. Misspelled axolotl.
3rd Place
Michael Petrina, Arlington, VA. Misspelled aikido.
4th Place
Christy Ewing, Long Beach, Calif. Misspelled tilde.
5th Place
Vicki Paris Goodman, Long Beach, Calif. Misspelled burgher.

g R-E-G-I-S-T-R-A-N-T-S
2008 Adult Spellers
Click the image (below right) to meet the spellers and the charity for which they competed.

1. Michael Petrina
2. Lorraine D'Abate
3. Vicki Paris Goodman
4. Bernetta Gresko
5. withdrawn
6. Alluri Varma
7. Larry Austin
8. Janice Davis
9. withdrawn
10. Mitch Powell
11. James Cox
12. Rey Barcelo
13. Mark Fieldson
14. David Riddle
15. Nina Malakooty
16. Cory Bilicko
17. JoAnn Adams
18. Dickson Chen
19. Christine Coleman
20 Christy Ewing
21. Bobbie Sterbins
22. Robin Edmondson
23. John Liu
24. Teresa Kennedy
25. Ryan Davis

CORRECTLY SPELLED WORDS included tourniquet, myrrh, hacienda, phlegm, frangipani, exuberant, fuchsia, centenarian, cummerbund, anthropomorphic, schwa, balmoral, queue, vichyssoise, and jabberwocky.

SEE THE COMPLETE 293-WORD LIST IN THE RIGHT COLUMN OF THIS PAGE.

Thanks to our product sponsors for their coupons for the contestants:
- Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Belmont Shore
- Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt, Long Beach Martketplace

2008 National Adult Spelling Bee in Long Beach SUN., MAY 4, 2008; 2 p.m. Bay Shore Church, 5100 E. The Toledo, Long Beach, Calif., 90803 map WHO MAY ENTER? Any adult, at least 16 years old, who is a resident or student in the United States. ENTRY FEE 4$20 advance 4$40 at the door COME WATCH 4$5 to spectate payable at the event PRIZE MONEY The winner will receive $500 and his/her favorite nonprofit organization, school, or church will receive $500. SPONSORS CONTACT Justin@JustinRudd.com 2008 PRONOUNCER Kate Karp, 2006 Adult Spelling Bee champ 2008 REGISTRANTS click PRACTICE WORDS BELOW

 

The National Adult Spelling Bee is designed to help adults and students in high school and college improve their spelling, increase their vocabulary, and develop correct English usage. This contest is sure to have some nail-biting, breath-bating competitors.

g SOME ROUNDS MAY INCLUDE THESE WORDS
A Few Practice Words

absence, acceptable, accessible, accidentally, acclaim, accommodate, accomplish, accordion, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, acquit, across, advertisement, aggravate, alleged, amateur, apparent, appearance, argument, atheist, attendance, auxiliary, balloon, barbecue, barbiturate, beggar, beginning, believe, bellwether, biscuit, bouillon, Buddha, camouflage, cantaloupe, category, cemetery, chagrined, changeable, characteristic, changing, chief, cigarette, collectible, colonel, colossal, committee, commitment, committed, comparative, competent, completely, concede, conceive, condemn, condescend, conscience, conscientious, consciousness, consensus, consistent, continuous, controlled, coolly, corollary, convenient, correlate, correspondence, courteous, courtesy, criticize, daiquiri, deceive, defendant, deferred, definite(ly), dependent, descend, desirable, despair, desperate, develop, development, difference, dilemma, disappearance, disappoint, disastrous, discipline, dispensable, dissatisfied, dominant, drunkenness, dumbbell, ecstasy, efficiency, eighth, either, eligible, embarrass(ment), equivalent, exaggerate, exceed, excellence, exhilarate, existence, experience, experiment, explanation, extremely, exuberance, Fahrenheit, fallacious, fallacy, familiar, fascinate, feasible, fictitious, fiery, financially, fluorescent, forcibly, forfeit, formerly, foresee, forty, fourth, fulfill, fundamentally, gauge, grievous, guerrilla, guidance, handkerchief, harass, height, heinous, hemorrhage, heroes, hesitancy, hierarchy, hindrance, hoarse, humorous, hypocrisy, hypocrite, idiosyncrasy, ignorance, imaginary, immediately, implement, incidentally, incredible, independence, independent, indicted, indispensable, inevitable, influential, inoculate, intelligence, intercede, interference, interrupt, irrelevant, irresistible, jealousy, judicial, knowledge, laboratory, legitimate, leisure, length, lenient, liaison, license, lieutenant, likelihood, liquefy, longitude, loneliness, maintenance, manageable, maneuver, medieval, millennium, millionaire, miniature, minuscule, mischievous, misspelled, mortgage, mosquito, mosquitoes, murmur, mysterious, narrative, necessary, necessity, ninety, ninth, noticeable, nowadays, nuisance, occasionally, occurred, occurrence, octopus, omission, omitted, onomatopoeia, opponent, opportunity, oppression, ordinarily, outrageous, overrun, panicky, parallel, parliament, particularly, pastime, pavilion, peaceable, peculiar, penetrate, perceive, performance, permanent, permissible, permitted, perseverance, persistence, physician, picnicking, pigeon, pilgrimage, pitiful, planning, pleasant, portray, possess, possessive, potato, potatoes, practically, prairie, preference, preferred, prejudice, preparation, prescription, prevalent, primitive, privilege, probably, procedure, prominent, pronounce, pronunciation, propaganda, psychology, publicly, puerile, pursue, quandary, quarantine, questionnaire, quizzes, realistically, recede, receipt, receive, recognize, recommend, reference, referred, relevant, relieving, religious, remembrance, reminiscence, repetition, representative, resemblance, reservoir, resistance, rheumatism, rhythm, rhythmical, roommate, sacrilegious, sacrifice, safety, salary, satellite, scary, secede, seize, separate, septuagenarian, sergeant, shepherd, simile, soliloquy, sophomore, souvenir, specifically, specimen, spontaneous, strength, strenuous, stubbornness, subordinate, subpoena, succeed, success, succession, sufficient, supersede, suppress, surprise, susceptible, suspicious, syllable, symmetrical, synonymous, tangible, technical, technique, temperature, tendency, themselves, theories, therefore, thorough, through, tournament, tourniquet, transferred, truly, twelfth, tyranny, unanimous, undoubtedly, unnecessary, vacuum, valuable, vengeance, vigilant, villain, violence, weird, wherever, wholly, yacht

g GOOD TO KNOW
Elimination

ADULTS ARE ELIMINATED from the competition after misspelling one word. The rules are fashioned after the National Spelling Bee -- a contest for students up to and including grade eight.

g NATIONAL ADULT SPELLING BEE
Bee Rules

1. Any adult, at least 16 years old, who is a resident or student in the United States, may enter and participate.

2. All words listed in the dictionary may be considered for this contest. There is a practice list of words at www.AdultSpellingBee.com

3. The entry fee is $20 in advance or $40 on the day of the competition. Nonrefundable. Nontransferable.

4. The difficulty for words in the competition will start at a middle school level.

5. The judges are in complete control of the competition, and their decision shall be final on all questions. All rules are subject to modification by the judges and/or the event organizer, Justin Rudd.

6. There is not an official study booklet for this competition. All words listed in the dictionary may be considered for this contest.

7. All participants are expected to be signed-in at the event location no later than 30 minutes prior to the announced starting time of the contest.

9. Participants will draw numbers to see who starts first (which presents an element of risk as elimination occurs in order). Or, organizers may pre-assign the numbers.

10. The role of the pronouncer is (1) to correctly pronounce the word and (2) to give a sentence, definition, and other information about the word at the speller's request.

11. The role of the judge(s) is to determine whether the contestant has spelled the word correctly.

12. The role of the speller is (1) to gather as much information as possible to help spell the word correctly and (2) to spell the word correctly.

13. In competition, after the pronouncer gives the speller a word, the speller is encouraged to pronounce the word before spelling it and after spelling it. The judges may not disqualify a speller for failing to pronounce the word either before or after spelling it.

14. The speller may ask the pronouncer to say the word again, define it, use it in a sentence, provide the part of speech, and/or provide the language of origin. The pronouncer shall grant all such requests until the judges agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the speller. The pronouncer and judges will not entertain root word questions.

15. The judges may disqualify any speller who ignores a request to start spelling.

16. The judges may not disqualify a speller for asking a question.

17. Having started to spell a word, a speller may stop and start over, retracing the spelling from the beginning. In retracing, however, there can be no change of letters or their sequence from those first pronounced. If letters or their sequence is changed in the respelling, the speller will be eliminated.

18. The competition shall be conducted in rounds. Each speller remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round shall spell one word in the round. Upon missing the spelling of a word, a speller immediately drops out of the competition. The next word on the pronouncer's list is given to the next speller.

19. Under no circumstance is any speller asked to correct the misspelling of another speller.

20. If none of the spellers remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, all shall remain in the competition with the spellers spelling in the original order.

21. All spellers eliminated in the same round will be tied for the same place.

22. During the final rounds of the competition, the judges may choose to allow participants the option of writing the word down on paper before being required to spell it orally.

23. If only one of the spellers remaining in the competition at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, a new round shall begin and the speller shall be given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list. If the speller succeeds in correctly spelling the new word, the speller shall be declared the champion. Otherwise (that is, if the speller does not succeed in correctly spelling the new word), all the spellers remaining in the competition at the start of the previous round shall remain in the competition. A new round will begin, with these spellers spelling in the original order.

• The champion is not the champion until he or she has spelled correctly two more words than the speller or spellers placing second have spelled. These two words will be spelled consecutively only if the champion is the last speller in a round.
• It is possible in two instances to have a round in which only one word is spelled. The first instance of a one-word round is the correct spelling of the final championship word. The second instance of a one-word round is the misspelling of what could have been the final championship word.

24. Any question relating to the spelling of a word should be referred to the designated official immediately in writing on the official appeal form that will be provided at the competition. The official appeal form will contain space for the following: the word in question, the name of the speller, and the reason for the appeal.

25. The judges will not entertain appeals from individuals seeking to dislodge another speller from the competition. The deadline for filing an appeal is before the speller affected would have received his/her next word had he/she stayed in the competition. No appeal will be entertained after that word has been given to another speller.

26. When only five or fewer spellers remain, an oral appeal must be made immediately, that is, before the speller affected would have received his/her next word had he/she stayed in the contest.

27. If a word has one or more homonyms, the pronouncer will indicate which word is to be spelled. If the listed word is not properly identified, either by defining it or distinguishing the homonyms, any correct spelling of any homonym of the word will be accepted.

28. The speller shall not be disqualified for failing to note that a word is capitalized (noted as "cap," "usu cap," "often cap," or "sometimes cap."

29. The dictionary provided by the judges shall serve as the final authority for the spelling of words. If more than one spelling is listed for a word, any of these spellings will be accepted as correct if the word either matches the pronunciation and definition provided by the pronouncer or if it is clearly identified as being a standard variant of the word that the speller has been asked to spell. Spellings at other locations having archaic, obsolete, or regional labels (such as North, Midland, Irish) that are different from those at the main entry will not be accepted as correct.

WHAT ELSE DOES C.A.T. DO?
Details about the Community Action Team C.A.T. and their more than 38 annual Long Beach events and projects are at www.JustinRudd.com.