Eight spelling bee winners take home $50k each as organisers run short of tricky words
Organisers call a halt and crown all eight children champions after they put on a flawless display of spelling expertise.
Friday 31 May 2019 11:29, UK
Eight spelling boffins have been crowned co-champions in the US after none made a mistake and organisers started to run out of difficult words.
The national spelling bee competition is an institution in America and has been going for 94 years, but this year's showdown was the most extraordinary.
Scroll to the bottom for some of the words they were up against.
"Champion spellers, we are now in uncharted territory," Jacques Bailly told them in announcing the decision to give all of them the title and $50,000 (£39,600) each.
"We do have plenty of words remaining on our list," said Mr Bailly.
"But we will soon run out of words that will possibly challenge you, the most phenomenal collection of super spellers in the history of this competition."
Dozens of words rattled by in the tense finale, but the six boys and two girls - aged 12 to 14 - did not put a single letter wrong.
"We're throwing the dictionary at you, and, so far, you are showing the dictionary who's boss," said Mr Bailly, after 18 error-free rounds.
The three-day Scripps National Spelling Bee had started with 562 competitors, but organisers called a halt as the final eight went through 47 words without error.
They celebrated in a shower of ticker tape and the unprecedented decision was made to give each of them the full $50,000 prize.
The champions are: Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja.
Dictionary-maker Merriam-Webster conceded that it had "lost" but tweeted that it was "SO. PROUD."
:: A few of the words the winners took on in the final rounds:
Omphalopsychite: One who stares fixedly at his navel to induce a mystical trance
Pendeloque: A gem, especially a diamond, cut in the shape of a drop and used as a pendant
Mondegreen: A misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song
Bougainvillea: An ornamental shrubby climbing plant that is widely cultivated in the tropics
Auslaut: Final sound in a word or syllable
Logudorese: The dialect of Sardinian spoken in the Logudoro district
Erysipelas: An acute, sometimes recurrent disease caused by a bacterial infection, characterised by large raised red patches on the skin
Paralipomena: Things omitted from a work and added as a supplement
Limitrophe: A borderland; an immediately neighbouring country
Sphaeriid: Mollusc of the family Sphaeriidae