Why was the spelling bee competition ever invented? Call me crazy, but I can’t help wondering if these kids will be socially accepted later on when they grow up… or if this becomes the next big thing, whether we will become the language pariahs.
Let me explain…
The competition, I guess, is about spelling words, which otherwise regular human beings would never have come across…. and will probably never do in their lifetime, much less use them in an appropriate situation. So, I think when these kids grow up, they will form a sort of a clique, talking in strange tongue amongst each other that nobody else will understand… I, for one, will most certainly not…. I do not understand regular English quite well, to begin with.
When the above happens, regular people (like me),
- will look at them bees like they are from another planet
- will think the bees have a speech impediment and will pity them…and, will feel really sorry for the parents who had to raise them.
- will quite possibly assume that they are talking in another language
and the bees would probably end up doing the same to us.
All this reminds me of my GRE prep days, where I used to wonder why I needed to learn the meanings of certain words in order to survive in a country where English was the primary language. Seven years later, I am still using most of the same words that I did back home and most of the people understand. Only some do not understand me, and that is only because they cannot understand English AT ALL.
My brain suddenly jumps to the Seinfeld episode where Newman uses Kramer as an excuse to get out of a speeding ticket. Kramer, after having been kicked in the head by some other guy, behaves really strangely. He picks up the phone and starts talking in some hispanic sounding language. While in the court, he suddenly almost yells — in his usual body-shuddering style — “Yoyoma!”… How a normal person would react when looking at Kramer’s antics, would exactly be the way I react when I find myself in the midst of the bees.
So, I wonder, what in the name of an elephant’s arse is the point of these competitions?
P.S. : In case you are wondering… or not.. my English language translator wrote this post for me, and I made sure he needed to mention this to get some credit.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Because its my blog, glorification of mediocrity, on general world happenings, spelling bee
Inferiority complex machi. Vaera onnum illai
. Its human tendency to alienate and scoff the elite by demeaning the very skills that make them special. That way the rest feel good about themselves.
It has always been so in history. Humans act in all strange manner when their very way of life is challenged :p.
samy – do you know what “special” really means? are you one of them then?
Why have any sort of a competition at all then? Why have the Guinness records?
viji – can’t answer this question… but IMO, spelling bee is just a steroid shot to the kid’s ego, from which he/she almost never recovers.