The 81st Scripps National Spelling Bee

Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a highly competitive annual spelling bee in the United States, with participants from other countries as well. It is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W...

took place on May 30, 2008.

Competition

Two hundred eighty-eight champion spellers competed in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the most ever to date. Most of the spellers were from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, with a small showing from other locations such as Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

, Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, and South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

. Twenty-two were Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Champion

The winner was Sameer Mishra, a 13-year-old eighth grader at West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School, in Indiana. He was sponsored by his hometown newspaper, the Journal & Courier. His winning word was guerdon. He won $35,000 in cash and more than $5,000 in prizes.

In rounds 3 through 15, Mishra spelled "demitasse", "quadrat", "diener", "hyssop", "macédoine", "basenji", "numnah", "chorion

Chorion

The chorion is one of the membranes that exist during pregnancy between the developing fetus and mother. It is formed by extraembryonic mesoderm and the two layers of trophoblast and surrounds the embryo and other membranes...

", "nacarat", "sinicize", "hyphaeresis", "taleggio" and "esclandre" correctly, in that order.

In a comical moment during the spelling bee, he mistook the word "numnah" for "numb nut".

Mishra incorrectly spelled "sudation" in Round 2 as "sudatian." However, because a speller's combined score from Rounds 1 and 2 determines whether he or she advances in the competition, a speller can incorrectly spell a word in Round 2 without being eliminated.

TV coverage

As with previous years, coverage was divided amongst American Broadcasting Company

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 properties, the quarter-finals were broadcast on ESPN360

ESPN360

ESPN3 is an online streaming service for WatchESPN to deliver both live streams and replays of global sports events to sports fans in North America, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Middle East, New Zealand, and Europe...

, and the semi-finals were aired by ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

, and the finals were broadcast by ABC. Unlike other ESPN-produced telecasts for ABC

ESPN on ABC

ESPN on ABC is the brand used for sports programming on the ABC television network. Officially the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, for all practical purposes, ABC's sports division has been merged with ESPN, a sports cable network majority-owned by ABC's parent, The...

, ESPN branding was not used, even though the telecasts adopted the newer-styled ESPN graphics package.