The air in the Forbes Black Box Theater was strained, hushed and slightly sour as George Schwartz '07 took the stage late Friday night. He was stalking victory. "Kinkajou: K-I-N. . ." His final "U," garnished with a Minnesotan baritone, brought the capacity audience to its feet. An evening that had ranged from the mundane — "diarrhea" — to the obscure — "tetragrammaton" — ended with shouts of admiring incomprehension. "What the hell does kinkajou mean?" a spectator yelled.
Against 25 spellers-in-residence, before an audience of nearly a hundred, Schwartz bagged kinkajou, the name of an arboreal mammal from Central and South America, and the title of First Annual Forbes Spelling Bee Champion.
Schwartz also took the grand prize, a 20-gigabyte iPod.
Despite correctly spelling "otiose" early in the evening, Jean Yin '07 fell to "tetragrammaton," taking home second place and a Scandisk MP3 player. Eric Meng '08, a 'Prince' staff writer, won third place and a DVD player.
"I'm just glad some of my residential college fee is being spent on me," Meng said, adding that the competition reminded him of the movie "Spellbound," a recent neurotic comedy about the National Spelling Bee.
The Forbes bee, sponsored by the college and organized by residential advisers Devan Darby '06, Sean Cameron '05 and Erinna Chen '06, boasted audience t-shirt raffles, music and special spotlighting arranged by a Richardson Auditorium set technician. Words were selected in order of increasing difficulty from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and read by Lispeth Nutt '06.
Organizers said they planned the bee partly in response to growing concern among administrators and some students that University social life, pervaded by the Street and weekend athletics, is becoming increasingly "anti-intellectual." "This is an event that speaks loudly to students' interest in participating in intellectual endeavors," Cameron said. "We feel proud to provide a venue for students to flex their intellectual muscles."
Schwartz has competed in bees since the sixth grade. He was the evening's only competitor who didn't once request definitions, languages of origin or other clues. He advised those gunning for next year's bee to "do your homework, read the dictionary, read everything."
His advice may be needed. According to a 2001 study by the Basic Skills Agency — a British institute studying trends in education — more than two-thirds of English-speaking adults cannot reliably spell everyday words like "accommodation." One in three could not spell "receive," "sincerely" or "apologize."
It was in reaction to similar complaints from professors regarding fundamental deficiencies in student spelling and grammar that the University instituted its writing seminars three years ago.
The College Board recently responded to a call from college admission counselors to send a "loud and clear message" about the importance of spelling and grammar. Last year, the organization added a writing section to its SAT I Reasoning Test. Some employers are beginning to worry as well.
In a recent interview for a job in finance, Cameron said some interviewers randomly interject questions that test their recruits' math and verbal skills. "In the middle of a conversation they'll say '12 times 14' or ask you to spell something."
Alan Wells, director of the Basic Skills Agency, suggested that even among elite institutions, there is indeed "a case for stressing spelling and basic math purely to get young people over the hurdle of getting into the job market."
For the harried, pre-professional Princetonian the correct spelling of words like "rhinorrhea" likely seems trivial. But the mood Friday night was bright, even charged. Pink and green spotlighting and a Nelly soundtrack made for a stimulating atmosphere, half "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," half junior high makeout party.
"Spelling rocks!" one enthusiastic audience member said over the cookies and cocktails that followed. "I think I'm going to go read the dictionary now."
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