The 81st Scripps National Spelling Bee finals took place on May 30, 2008.

Competition

Two hundred eighty-eight champion spellers competed in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, a new record. Most of the spellers were from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, with a small showing from other locations such as

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. Twenty-two were

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

. Wikipedian

Emily Temple-Wood Emily Temple-Wood (born May 24, 1994) is an American Wikipedia editor who goes by the name of Keilana on the site. She is known for her efforts to counter the effects and causes of gender bias on Wikipedia, particularly through the creation of ...

was one of the competitors. Sriram Hathwar, who would be a co-winner of the 2014 bee six years later, set a new record as the youngest ever participant to date, only a month past his 8th birthday.(27 May 2008)
8-year-old competing in national spelling bee
''Reading Eagle''

Champion

The winner was

Sameer Mishra The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The competition began in 1925, and was initially organiz ...

, a 13-year-old eighth grader at

West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School (also informally known as West Side High School or simply West Side) is the only high school within the West Lafayette city limits, and is administered by the West Lafayette Community School Corporation. W ...

, in Indiana. He was sponsored by his hometown newspaper, the ''

Journal & Courier The Lafayette ''Journal & Courier'' is a daily newspaper owned by Gannett, serving Lafayette, Indiana, and the surrounding communities. It was established in 1920 through the merger of two local papers, the ''Journal and Free Press'' (establish ...

''. His winning word was '' guerdon''. He won $35,000 in cash and more than $5,000 in prizes. In rounds 3 through 15, Mishra spelled "demitasse", "quadrat", "diener", "hyssop", "macédoine", "basenji", "numnah", "

chorion The chorion is the outermost fetal membrane around the embryo in mammals, birds and reptiles (amniotes). It develops from an outer fold on the surface of the yolk sac, which lies outside the zona pellucida (in mammals), known as the vitelline ...

", "nacarat", "sinicize", "hyphaeresis", "taleggio" and "esclandre" correctly, in that order. In second place came Sidharth Chand, 13, misspelling "prosopopoeia" as "". In third place came 13-year-old Tia Thomas, misspelling "opificer" as "". In a comical moment during the spelling bee, he mistook the word "numnah" for "numb nut". Mishra incorrectly spelled "sudation" in Round 2 as "sudatian". However, because a speller's combined score from Rounds 1 and 2 determines whether he or she advances in the competition, a speller can incorrectly spell a word in Round 2 without being eliminated.

TV coverage

As with previous years, coverage was divided amongst

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...

properties, the quarter-finals were broadcast on

ESPN360 ESPN3 (formerly ESPN360 and ESPN3.com) is an online streaming service owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) and Hearst Communications (w ...

, and the semi-finals were aired by

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, and the finals were broadcast by ABC. Unlike other ESPN-produced telecasts for ABC, ESPN branding was not used, even though the telecasts adopted the newer-styled ESPN graphics package.

Word list championship round

* guerdon *

prosopopoeia A prosopopoeia ( grc-gre, προσωποποιία, ) is a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer communicates to the audience by speaking as another person or object. The term literally derives from the Greek roots "face, person", and " ...

* esclandre * introuvable *

taleggio Taleggio may refer to: *Taleggio, Lombardy Taleggio ( Bergamasque: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan and about northwest of Bergamo. As of 31 Decembe ...

Kulturkampf (, 'culture struggle') was the conflict that took place from 1872 to 1878 between the Catholic Church led by Pope Pius IX and the government of Prussia led by Otto von Bismarck. The main issues were clerical control of education and ecclesiastic ...

hyphaeresis Attic Greek is the Greek dialect of the ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that i ...

* opificer * aptyalism *

sinicize Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization (from the prefix , 'Chinese, relating to China') is the process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, cul ...

* oxylophytic *

tamale A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tamale ...

* posaune * ecrase * nacarat *

shtetl A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...

rhyton A rhyton (plural rhytons or, following the Greek plural, rhyta) is a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk or to be poured in some ceremony such as libation, or merely at table. A rhyton is typically formed in t ...

Huapango is a family of Mexican music styles. The word likely derives from the Nahuatl word that literally means 'on top of the wood', alluding to a wooden platform on which dancers perform dance steps. It is interpreted in different forms, the most ...

parfleche A parfleche is a Native American rawhide container that is embellished by painting, incising, or both. Envelope-shaped parfleches have historically been used to contain items such household tools or foods, such as dried meat or pemmican. They w ...

* lemel *

bogatyr A bogatyr ( rus, богатырь, p=bəɡɐˈtɨrʲ, a=Ru-богатырь.ogg) or vityaz ( rus, витязь, p=ˈvʲitʲɪsʲ) is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear ma ...

ziarat Ziarat (Urdu and ps, ) is a city in the Ziarat District situated in the Balochistan. It is from the capital city of Eastern Balochistan Quetta. It was established as a district on 1st July 1986, before then it was part of Sibi district. The ...

* martellato *

fumagillin Fumagillin is a complex biomolecule and used as an antimicrobial agent. It was isolated in 1949 from the microbial organism ''Aspergillus fumigatus''. Uses In animals It was originally used against microsporidian parasites ''Nosema apis'' infecti ...

satyagraha Satyagraha ( sa, सत्याग्रह; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone w ...

escabeche __NOTOC__ Escabeche is the name for a number of dishes in Spanish, Portuguese, Filipino and Latin American cuisines, consisting of marinated fish, meat or vegetables, cooked or pickled in an acidic sauce (usually with vinegar), and colored w ...

Nietzschean Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Repres ...

* ranunculaceous * boulangère * ommateal

References

{{Scripps National Spelling Bee Scripps National Spelling Bee competitions 2008 in American television 2000s American television specials

Scripps National Spelling Bee The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scri ...

2008 in education May 2008 events in the United States

Competition

Champion

TV coverage

Word list championship round

See also

References