Friday, April 1, 2016

The ACES Spelling Bee

The first day of the American Copy Editors Society national conference is over. We were all given a lot of good food for thought and good food for digestion (thanks, Portland!). After the sessions were over for the day, many of us attended a raucous adult spelling bee, possibly the only spelling bee in which spellers sipped beer between words.

This year, except for the first round, the word lists were themed for each round, which made the bee more interesting as we tried to guess what the next spelling word would be based on the theme.

So, for those interested, here is the word list from the 2016 ACES spelling bee. Words in bold are the ones that eliminated contestants. The words that I misspelled, sitting in the audience with my laptop, are marked with an asterisk.
  • ambiguity
  • veterinarian
  • rudimentary
  • chastisement
  • boondoggle
  • bankruptcy
  • provocative
  • artesian
  • venison
  • tertiary
  • subterfuge
  • tantamount
  • nostalgia
  • limousine
  • antithesis
  • papyrus
  • diacritic
  • monograph
  • virgule 
  • caret
  • biblioclast
  • fleuron 
  • palimpsest
  • enclitic
  • opusculum
  • brevet 
    Portland, Oregon. An underwhelming view from an eleventh-floor hotel room.
  • majuscule
  • imprimatur
  • colophon
  • incunabulum
  • Connecticuter *
  • Michigander
  • Louisianian
  • Mississippian
  • Delawarian
  • Tennessean
  • Utahan
  • Wyomingite
  • Wisconsinite
  • Missourian
  • bialy*
  • lutefisk*
  • geoduck
  • knish 
  • chitterlings 
  • burgoo*
  • cioppino*
  • ptarmigan
  • beryl
  • loblolly
  • sequoia
  • palmetto
  • saguaro
  • chickadee
  • tourmaline*
  • pendanus
  • subrident*
  • sortition
  • demiglâce
  • sybaritic
  • nockerl*
  • cardiomegaly
This year's winner was Kate Karp, who runs her own adult spelling bee in Long Beach, California. Congratulations, Kate!