Americana `He keeps saying: `I can't believe you
spelled shillelagh.' It is the babbling of a condemned man.' Louis Theroux
competes in a spelling bee
It's Saturday night, a few weeks back. I'm
with about 200 other young journalists, in a private gallery in downtown New
York. I'm about to compete in a `a spelling bee' " a public spelling contest "
but I'm getting second thoughts.
I've always prided myself on my spelling
prowess but as zero-hour approaches fast, my confidence is ebbing. From
initially thinking I might win the competition, my objective has dwindled to
`Make It To Second Round' and finally to `Just Don't Embarrass Self'.
This
particular `bee' was organised by Sam Pratt, the editor of a zine called Ersatz.
It's an atypical bee, insofar as it doesn't involve children. `It's pretty
much unheard of among adults,' Pratt informs me.
With so many young
journalists gathered together in one place, it feels like a convention. We all
seem to be wearing oval glasses. Maybe spelling is the way people in our
profession show off " just as cowhands get together to watch one another lasso
bulls and ride bucking broncos. This is a kind of rodeo for pencil-necks. As we
huddle by the side of the stage, about to go on, I size up the competition. I
recognise Toby Young, former editor of the Modern Review. A little in front of
the rest of us, Young is wondering aloud if going on first will put him at a
disadvantage. He moves to the back.
The compere introduces the competition
judge, Jesse Sheidlower. Sheidlower is a young Random House dictionary editor.
He recently published a book called The F Word, a compendium of usages of the
word `fuck'.
An inscribed copy of the book, and a Random House dictionary,
are tonight's first prize.
Finally on stage, we stand in a line facing the
crowd and play a quick non-scoring `fun' round to get us relaxed. I misspell
Schwarzenegger and feel slightly less relaxed than before.
The first
for-points word is `abysmal'. The speller takes it. Then, Toby Young's up. I
notice his plan of positioning himself near the end of the line has backfired
since they're working back-to-front. Bad move, Tobes.
The word is `barette.'
Is it one `r' or two? Young opts for two. Incorrect! He's out! I feel much
better suddenly.
The pleasure has hardly worn off when a second speller
falters " no less a personage than John Simon, New York magazine's eminent
theatre critic. He is felled by `cartilage', which he spells
`C-A-R-T-I-L-E-G-E'.
`That is incorrect.' Unaccountably, Simon begins again:
`C-A-R-T-I-'. . . All hell breaks loose.
`I thought we had two chances,'
Simon protests, before being bustled off stage.
I'm feeling strong.
Cartilage was one of a number of words that I had `revised' the night before.
Others were `timpani', `nasturtium' and `whippoorwill'.
Next to me, a young
editor from i-D magazine mangles `stupefy'. Earlier during the evening, we had
been bonding in that slightly giddy pre-exam way. But these are battle
conditions. I correct her spelling and dispatch her from the game without pity.
After this, they're falling like flies. A nervous young man from Folio
magazine misspells nice as `N-E-I-C-E'. (Whoops!) Two others go out on
vermilion, one getting a double `l'; the other forgetting the second `i.' I take
special pleasure in knocking out an editor of the Paris Review, a stuffy
literary magazine, with `collagen'.
Before I know exactly what's happening,
we're down to the last five. I'm still in the game.
`Dentifrice',
`filibuster', `truncheon', `myrrh' " we're into the attrition phase now. It's
World War I up here.
The compere announces he's taking the words to the next
level of difficulty.
Then he throws out `shillelagh'. A gasp issues from the
crowd. The first speller " a columnist for the New York Observer " bungles it.
Next up, a writer from New York magazine. She's been rather irritating
during the game, asking for definitions of all the words, even truncheon. Worse,
I know for a fact that she edited New York's special issue, `The Hundred
Smartest New Yorkers', and she didn't include me " a fact I can't help holding
against her. She, too, muffs `shillelagh'.
My heart is pounding. I don't
remember ever having read the word `shillelagh', and yet from somewhere deep
within me the letters swim up. I achieve a kind of Zen clarity and know with
near certainty that I can spell it.
`S-H-I-L-L-E-L-A-G-H. Shillelagh.' I
take it! A cheer goes up.
There are now just three of us: myself, a
columnist from Worth magazine called Ken, and `Phoebe' from New York magazine.
`Chamois', `suppurate', `whippoorwill'.
Whippoorwill! A word I revised!
Phoebe stumbles. Unerringly, I move in for the kill.
It's me against Ken now
" Ken against me.
I'm feeling invulnerable. Oh, Ken, I wouldn't want to be
in your shoes.
Over and over, he keeps saying: `I can't believe you spelled
`shillelagh'.' It is the babbling of a condemned man.
The words get harder
still. `Kerf', `plebeian', `archaeopteryx', `schwa', `heresiarch'. Back and
forth we go.
Again the words get harder. Now they're so hard it's silly.
Neither Ken nor I can spell them.
`Ennead'? `Callipygian'? `Ptomaine'?
`Catafalque?' Neither of us is ejected, but we're twisting in the wind up here.
`This is humiliating,' Ken whispers.
`Could you take the words down a
notch?' I ask the compere.
Before I know what's happened, I've won,
correcting Ken's `desiccate' and confirming it with `pulchritudinous'.
I
take my dictionary and my copy of The F Word. It is inscribed: `To Louis
Theroux, the best fucking speller in New York.' It was never in doubt.