Paul Wing’s Spelling Bee, Circa 1938

March 12, 2010

Did you know that the first-ever televised game show — in 1938 — was a spelling bee?

According to UKgameshows.com, that program (or rather, programme) began with a US vs. UK match featuring Harvard and Oxford students (US won), followed by a US/UK rematch featuring actresses and various notables (UK won), followed by “Under Twenty” vs. “Over Forty” (over 40 won), followed by Women vs. Men (women won). The show was a tight 15 minutes, and was ultimately canceled when the imminent war made televised spelling seem a bit frivolous. Incidentally, the spelling bee game show led to several spinoffs, including, amazingly, Tactile Bee.

The impetus for this post is that my longtime Williamsburg Spelling Bee co-host, bobbyblue, found a copy of the board game “Paul Wing’s Spelling Bee” on eBay, purchased it, and allowed me to borrow it for purposes of investigative reporting.

img_1265.jpg
The game of zest and test!

(Apparently, Paul Wing was a giant in the field of film stereography, continuing his career from the 1930s through the 1990s, and also, according to IMDB, survived the Bataan Death March; it is perhaps lost to the shifting sands of time exactly how Mr. Wing ended up hosting a televised spelling bee).

img_1266.jpg
What’s inside!

img_1278.jpg
Hmmn.

img_1269.jpg
Apparently, spelling fans are called “rooters.”

img_1272.jpg
Every hostess will appreciate a game that doesn’t require moving the furniture!

img_1275.jpg
One of the harder sets of words. One list had food words, including “pumpkin.”

The game was played by choosing a word caller, then going around the room and having people pull numbered disks out of a bag; the number on the disk determined the word you would spell (and some words were notably easier than others, so it was a bit of a game of chance). Correct moves got you a little green counter called a “honey,” and wrong moves got you a little red counter called a “stinger” (because it’s a bee, get it?)

I only had my gentleman consort around, and it’s a pretty lame game with only two people. I asked him to spell “blancmange,” and he insisted that I had not pronounced it like a true French person (neither, I imagine, did most people playing Paul Wing’s Spelling Bee in 1938), so I gave him a re-do and he got “pumpkin.” We sort of shrugged and gave up.

Zest and test! I kind of like the slogan.

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Save the Date for the NYC Spelling Bee at Housing Works

March 9, 2010

nycbee-051010.jpg

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Williamsburg Spelling Bee on NPR

March 6, 2010

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee was featured on WFUV’s “Cityscape” show a couple weeks ago, and the podcast has finally gone up. The show begins with a clip of our theme song, so I can now say I’ve sung on the radio!

Listen here.

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Williamsburg Spelling Bee on NBC Niteside Blog

March 2, 2010

Last night’s spelling bee featured words including bondieuserie, phrontistery, bagatelle, psephology, gyroceracone, and phthisiology. A reporter from NBC New York came, and this went up this morning:

NitePics: Inside the Williamsburg Spelling Bee at Pete’s Candy Store

rachelnbc.jpg

Photo by Rachel Rique

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee

February 16, 2010

Last night’s Williamsburg Spelling Bee was a delight, attended by myriad spelling dynamos and their supportive compatriots, and covered by Games magazine.

Congratulations to winner David Riddle, who spelled 17 words correctly before we had him sit down. (The rules are that you keep spelling until you get three words out, but since David had scored 17-1 and it seemed unlikely that anyone would catch up, we had him take a seat, telling him that we’d call him back up if anyone matched his total; no one did. That’s the spelling equivalent of a K.O.).

Everyone’s welcome at the next bee on March 1st (details). We take the first 18 people to sign up, and signup begins at 7pm, so arrive early to ensure that you’ll get a spot.

Photos by Eric Walton:

22242_469067250161_870645161_11165179_3757789_n.jpg

22242_469067290161_870645161_11165180_2651730_n.jpg

22242_469067330161_870645161_11165181_2714108_n.jpg

22242_469067460161_870645161_11165183_7895679_n.jpg

22242_469067560161_870645161_11165184_7065036_n.jpg

22242_469067615161_870645161_11165185_6193504_n.jpg

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Photos from the Williamsburg Spelling Bee Finals

December 17, 2009

Congratulations to Wilson Southerland and all our finalists, and thanks to Eric Walton for the photography.


All (well, most) of the Finalists!


The top three!


Winner Wilson Southerland!

The bee starts up again on February 1, 2010 — save the date!

Posted by jen | Categories: party photos, spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

A Sandwich Called the “Kanye Interrupt”

December 10, 2009

After the spelling bee, I often go to the deli that is on Metropolitan right near the Lorimer L stop, where I pick up some groceries, am sometimes flirted with by the staff (once, in 2005, I said I wasn’t feeling well, and the guy who makes the sandwiches offered to leave work and drive me home to East Harlem), and often buy my favorite sandwich, cryptically entitled “Marry Me Omar” (it contains chicken, bacon, apples, avocado, and horseradish).

Here are some of the other sandwiches currently on offer:

img_0668.jpg

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | 1 Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Congratulations to Williamsburg Spelling Bee Winner Wilson Southerland

December 9, 2009

In Williamsburg Speling Bee news … congratulations to Season Ten Winner Wilson Southerland, who spelled twelve words correctly at Monday’s Season 10 Finals! Ben O’Donnell took second place and Lilli Heard took third in a very difficult bee! Professional-quality photographs were taken and will be posted soon.

Congratulations as well to all our Finalists (each of whom placed in the top three during a regular-season bee):

Trent Williams
Jenny Brown
Jonathan Lill
Lilli Heard
Wilson Southerland
Carolyn D’Aquila
David Zheng
Octavia Silva
Ben O’Donnell

A few words spelled by our competitors include imprimis, overslaugh, gramineous, avenaceous, moue, materfamilias, coetaneous, dermatoglyphics, quodlibet, moirologist, and schwerpunkt.

Join us at Pete’s Candy Store on February 1st to start up Season 11 of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee.

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Williamsburg Spelling Bee Theme Song

December 3, 2009

My spelling bee co-host bobbyblue (an internationally renowned dance music star) dragged me into the studio to record our original Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song. My voice had to be auto-tuned to a substantial degree. Enjoy!

On a related note, the Spelling Bee Finals will take place this Monday, December 7th, at Pete’s Candy Store.

Posted by jen | Categories: audio, spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Why Spelling Is Important (MTA Edition)

September 23, 2009

I took this photo at the 96th St 1/2/3 stop.

img_0440.JPG

“Concreate” was, of course, intended as “concrete,” but it looks rather like a new, intentionally coined word. Specifically, the prefixes “co” and “con” (and “com”) are really the same prefix, meaning “together” — as in, conjugate, congenial, coworker, colleague, consummate, commingle, community, etc. “Concreate” (pronounced as con-create) could be a perfectly suitable synonym for “co-create.”

Of course, that makes the “No concreate untill pipe install” sound a bit dirty (if it didn’t already).

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | 1 Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Next Page »