Can you spell the following words: Marocain – a heavy crepe fabric; Marram – a beach grass; Cheiropompholyx – a type of eczema affecting the skin on hands and feet; Durchkomponiert – a song that does not have repetitive sections; Tchefuncte – which relates to a Native American tribe that lived in Louisiana from 600 BC to 200 AD? Ananya Vinay, a 12 year old girl from California, and Rohan Rajeev, a 14 year old from Oklahoma, can after the pair went head to head in the final of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. In the spell off, both finalists had to correctly spell challenging words until one of them slipped up. Eventually Rohan got “marram” wrong which paved the way for Ananya to take the title and the US$40,000 prize money after she spelt “marocain” correctly. The newly crowned champ certainly earned her spurs as she was one of 11 million competitors aged between six and 15 from all over the US as well as from countries including Japan and Jamaica who took part in the Spelling Bee. As for what she intends to do with the money, the youngster plans to split it with her 7 year old brother and use her share to fund her college education. As Mary Poppins would say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Now try spelling that…
