Spelling bee

Spelling bees were introduced to American schoolchildren in the early 19th century to teach spelling based on Noah Webster's spelling books. Children in many English-speaking countries now compete for recognition and prize money in contests that can get pretty tense towards the end.

Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar from Kansas studied word lists for years before she beat 300 other contestants last week to win the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

There was a moment during last year's contest when another 13-year-old, Sameer Mishra from Indiana, simply could not believe what he was hearing. Was he really being asked to spell "numbnut"?

Of course he wasn't. "That's a relief!" said Sameer, mastering the challenge with such aplomb that the moderator could only quip: "His numnah isn't up yet" — his number isn't up yet (he's still in the game).

Sameer wisely asked for the "language of origin" for "numnah", and its non-European, Hindi roots tipped him off that the last two letters just might be "ah". After all, Hindi has contributed "cheetah", just as Arabic has provided "ayatollah" and Hebrew has given English "hallelujah". So Sameer's calculated guess was pretty good.

You can test your own skills online in the excellent but challenging Visual Thesaurus Spelling Bee. But first you might just want to brush up on the rules of spelling with Jo Westcombe and Dagmar Taylor in the Spotlight feature "Easy as ABC". And before you go, try our Word of the Day spelling bee right here, on the next page.

Anne Hodgson