SPELLING BEE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 May 1938, Page 10

SPELLING BEE

TRANS-ATLANTC CONTEST WIN FOR AMERICAN TEAM “You wouldn’t think there was much fun to be got out of a broadcast spelling contest, even with one team in London and the other in Boston, Massachusetts. Yet the 8.8.C.’s broadcast in cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company of America provided plenty of laughs. “ for listeners —and competitors,” writes H. L. McNally, in the “Daily Mail.” “I watched the Oxford spelling ‘blues’—six men and two women —do their best against a Harvard and Radcliffe team.

“Mr Tom Woodrooffe, who conducted the London end of the contest, tossed a penny, and Oxford kicked off. The spellers, wearing headphones and sitting along one wall, in turn faced a microphone in the middle of the studio, and spelled words dictated from Boston. From the control where I sat I could see hope expectant on the competitors’ faces, and sheepish grins when their mistakes were gonged. “ Beatitudes’ was the first word, and was spelled correctly from America, but pronounced ‘beatitoods.’ The calmest competitors were the women, Miss Penelope Knox and Miss Miranda Tallents, daughter of Sir Stephen Tallents, 8.8. C. Controller of Public Relations, who sat watching her in the studio. Miss Tallents got a little cheer for spelling ‘obeisance’ at the first attempt. ‘Daugerreotype’ (early kind of photo) defeated four competitors, but Miss Knox spelled it with hardly any hesitation. Mr Peter Wood, son of Lord Halifax, spelled ‘anonymity’ ‘aninity’ and was duly gonged. ‘Pusillanimity’ left competitors gaping, and became ‘pusilaminity.’ I tested my own spellby writing down the words as soon as they were uttered, but was beaten by one ‘braggadocio,” to which I gave one ‘g’ and two ‘c’s.’

While the contest raged a couple of announced came into the control room to watch the fun. One competitor, faced with the word ‘pettifoggery,’ said plaintively, ‘l’d rather spell ‘humbug’ and was gonged. ‘Trachea’ puzzled several spellers, but ‘sesquipedalion’ frightened nobody.

The result of the contest was a victory for the American team by 28 points to 24, and one each side of the Atlantic the women proved the better spellers. Miss Tallents proved herself a first-rate microphone personality as well as a dauntless speller. The young Earl of Oxford and Asquith-was another good microphone performer. Some competitors gained time to think by asking for a dictionary definition of the word. Mr Turetzky, of Harvard, made us laugh every time he spelled by repeating the spelling in a whisper after he was sure the gong was not going to banish him from the microphone. A further broadcast spelling bee may be arranged soon.”