From Reuters
Language as extreme sport: Youngsters square off in U.S. spelling bee
By Ian Simpson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee this week, hundreds of youngsters will compete in a uniquely American contest that has been likened to an intellectual extreme sport, involving one of the world's most tricky languages....
Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California Berkeley, said the Bee was more of an intellectual exercise than a practical gauge of language skill since almost no one would ever use such recent Bee-winning words as “marocain," “nunatak" and “guetapens."
“It bears the same relationship to regular spelling as riding a BMX bike does to riding a bike in the street,” Nunberg said, referring to another extreme sport covered by ESPN
Geoff Nunberg is an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information.
