Adult spelling bee gets a gold star from pub patrons at the Good Will

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This article was published 09/01/2016 (3928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two Zs or not two Zs: That is the question.

It’s just after 9 p.m. at the Good Will Social Club where, since June, adult spelling bees — cheekily dubbed spelling bee(r) s — have been held every two months. This evening, 17 men and women are on stage, anxiously awaiting their opportunity to test their spelling acumen in front of an enthusiastic throng of onlookers.

So far, so good; the first three competitors of the night are safely back in their chairs after correctly spelling, in turn: inept, leisure and surgeon. But right now, contestant No. 4, a bearded gent named Brendan, is scratching his head, muttering the word he was just given — haphazard — over and over again.

“Can I have the definition, please?” Brendan asks the host Stephen Sim, who many people in the packed house recognize as one-half of the celebrated improv duo Crumbs.

“You can,” replies Sim in his best game-show voice. “Haphazard: lacking any obvious principle of organization.”

“Can I have the language of origin?”

“I can give you that, too,” Sim responds. “It’s middle English so yeah, right there in the middle.”

Brendan chuckles, thanks Sim and says, “OK, here goes: Haphazard: H-A-P-HA- Z-Z-A-R-D – haphazard.”

“I’m sorry,” Sim says, after a loud buzzer sounds to signal Brendan’s response was faulty. “The correct spelling of haphazard is HA- P-H-A-Z-A-R-D, with only one Z. Thanks for trying and hopefully we’ll see you again, next time.”

A couple of hours earlier, Tyler Sneesby, one of the West End club’s co-owners, was seated near the bar, trying to decide if the words he’d selected for that evening’s get-together were too tough — or not tough enough.

“The words do get progressively harder as the night moves along but in the first round — when people are still a bit nervous — I usually try to give them (words) they should be familiar with,” said Sneesby, who “borrowed” the idea of spelling bees for grown-ups from a watering hole in Portland, Ore. “But you never know. Last time a person went out on the very first word of the night, which was weird.” (Sneesby, the night’s judge and jury, wasn’t inferring it was weird somebody was eliminated so quickly; what he meant was the first word of that particular bee was the word “weird.”) Aside from allowing participants to approach the microphone toting a pint, a shooter or, in some cases, both, the Good Will’s rules are fairly consistent with what occurs at the $1,000 National Adult Spelling Bee, which is held in Long Beach, Calif., every March. If you’re unsure of the word you’ve been given, you can ask for its definition and/or etymology, or you can ask the host, in this case, Sim, to use the word in a sentence.

“The first time we did this, most of the spellers were your typical bar crowd — people who happened to be here that night and figured sure, why not,” said Sneesby. “But that’s definitely changing. Now we’re getting people who are quite competitive and show up expecting to do well.”

Take Derek Bowman, for example. Not only does Bowman, 35, work with words for a living — he’s a clerk at Millennium Library — he is also a member of the Winnipeg Scrabble Club and a published crossword puzzle author. (Bowman’s latest puzzle appeared in the New York Times Dec. 24, 2015 and is slated to run in the Free Press Jan. 28.) “I’ve always been a pretty good speller and after one of my friends heard about this on Facebook, she texted me saying, ‘You should do this,’” said Bowman, who used to participate in adult spelling bees sponsored by Pride Winnipeg. “I came in second at a bee held at Gio’s about five years ago — I lost out on indefatigability — but I won the next one, after nailing onomatopoeia, which is a pretty standard spelling bee word.”

Tonight will be Marko Barac’s second attempt at spelling glory. Barac, 23, was a spectator at the Spelling Bee(r) held in August — he arrived too late to take part, he said — but he entered a subsequent one in October.

“The time when I was in the crowd watching, I was thinking I could do this, no problem,” said Barac, a biochemistry student at the University of Winnipeg. “But it’s a whole different story when you’re up there and the lights hit you. Last time, I got knocked out by consensus, not so much because I didn’t know how to spell it but more because I forgot where I was in the word and ended up throwing a U in there too early.” (Alas, Marko fails to make it past tonight’s first round after tripping over the word “occasion” and spelling it with a double-S.)

“Either tonight’s contestants are really smart or tonight’s words are too easy,” Sim announces at the beginning of Round 4, noting this is the first time as many as 10 people have lasted this long.

That is all about to change, however. First, a toxicologist named Dayna is stumped by “sabot,” which Sim describes as “a shoe made out of a single block of wood.”

Next, a CBC staffer named Jill flubs corroborate, spelling it minus the third O. After a 27-year-old actor named Caitlin fumbles her way through magnanimous, Sim says, “Well, folks, that was three up and three down. If this was baseball, it would be a whole new inning.”

At the conclusion of the round, only four people remain unscathed, including Bowman, who successfully negotiated his way through jurisprudence.

“So much of it depends on the luck of the draw,” Bowman says, during a quick breather between rounds. “For instance, the person before me who misspelled minuscule? I would have gone out on that, too, so it definitely comes down to chance, sometimes.”

Bowman’s remarks prove prophetic a few minutes later. After missing his Round 5 word — abstemious — by a single vowel, Bowman takes a seat at the bar where, under his breath, he successfully spells the next three words — acrimonious, asphyxiate and encephalon — without any trouble at all.

“It’s frustrating but it’s OK,” he says, taking a sip of his beer. “I’ll definitely try again, another time.”

The rules change somewhat at the beginning of Round 6, when the bee is down to two contestants. Sim explains to the pair — a 57-year-old communications expert named Sandy and a “book nerd” named Tristan — if one of them misses his word, not only will his opponent have to spell that same word correctly, he will also have to successfully spell a second word in order to claim tonight’s top prize — a crisp, new $50 bill.

Sim informs Tristan he will go first then emits a groan when he sneaks a peek at the next entry on his sheet.

“Tristan, your word is supposititious, which means — because I know you’re going to ask — fraudulently substituted or pretended.”

Tristan “writes” a few letters in the air with his pointer finger, takes a deep breath and mutters, “Ah, what the hell: Supposititious; S-U-P-P-O-S-I-T-I-T-OU- S, supposititious.”

“So close… and yet so far,” Sim says, after Sneesby sounds his buzzer. “But don’t go anywhere because Sandy still has to spell supposititious and another word besides. If he doesn’t, you’re still alive.”

No such luck; not only does Sandy rattle off the proper spelling for Tristan’s word, he only needs a few seconds to collect his thoughts before launching into misoneism, which turns out to be the winning word of the night.

“I had not heard (misoneism) before but after hearing the definition — a hatred or intolerance of innovation — I made a comparison with misandry, the hatred of man,” Sandy says matterof- factly, seconds after stepping off the stage to a chorus of cheers and backslaps.

And although Sandy shrugs when he is asked what makes him a superior speller, the secret to his success could be his more-than-suitable surname, which turns out to be Beeman.

That’s B-E-E — as in spelling bee — MAN.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca