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The metro's best student spellers will face off Sunday at the 

Featuring 50 champions from the six-county metro area, the winner of the regional bee will advance to the 

Real word or fake word?

Winning words at the bee more D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T than ever


The Scripps National Spelling Bee, which started in 1925 with just nine contestants, describes itself as the nation's largest and longest-running educational promotion. More than 11 million students were expected to take part in bees this school year for a chance to be part of the national competition.


No, it's not named after the insect. It actually 

 where attendees join together in a single activity, usually to help another person or family. 


The term "spelling bee" is apparently an American term — it first appeared in print in 1875 but is believed to have been used orally for several years before that. 


Millions tweet about it (the 2015 tournament was apparently the most tweeted show the week of May 25, beating even "Game of Thrones"). And the national bee is so popular that ESPN televises the competition. Kids + spelling = riveting television? 


Absolutely, says James Maguire, journalist and author of "American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds."  


"It is the original reality TV show," Maguire says. "To sit there and watch a kid get up to the microphone and go round by round, there's an incredible natural drama to that." 


America's soft spot for spelling bees may also be in part because we can relate to the contestants — not in being able to spell words like "esquamulose," but in recognizing how public speaking can get even the best of us sweaty-palmed and tongue-tied.  


"We all know how hard it is to step on stage and face the microphone, Maguire says. "We sort of have to respect the kids' bravery to get up there. We end up sort of identifying with the kids and admiring them."
 


"It's children, they're cute and they're extremely smart. It gives you hope for the future," said Jacques Bailly, the 1980 champion and official pronouncer for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. 


How do the best stay sharp? Bailly and Maguire offer these tips for improving your spelling:

Look up the most frequently misspelled words and study those. 


"Nobody's going to really fault you that much if you misspell 'syzygy' but if you misspell 'receive,' well, people will think, 'Gosh, what happened in sixth grade?' " Bailly said.  


Maguire said he thinks it's hard to be a great speller without having some familiarity with the languages of the world, especially because English has borrowed so much from other languages. 

"I see many people misspell words because they think 'There's got to be a trick in there. I bet they threw in a silent letter,' " Bailly said.


Obviously you might not come across all the obscure words ... but to get a sense of the language, it's invaluable to read voraciously," Maguire said.
 

You don't have to read the whole thing (Maguire says 2004 champ David Tidmarsh basically did), but make it a habit to look up words frequently. 

Hear Jacques Bailly spell some winning bee words

(In which he shows us how hard it is to even pronounce them.)

We challenged the 1980 champion to spell some of the recent winning words from the contest. How did he do? 

https://soundcloud.com/mprnews/hear-jacques-bailly-spell-some-winning-words

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The metro's best student spellers will face off on Sunday at the regional spelling bee sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio. Test your skills: Can you spot real words from fake ones?

That's not a real word ... or is it? A spelling bee quiz

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