One of the first things kids learn in school (after learning to stay in their seats and raise their hands when they want to say something) is how to spell: C-a-t, h a-t, b-a-t. If it stayed as simple as t-h-a-t, spelling would be no problem. A-l-a-s, it doesn’t. Before you can spell “recess,” you’re up against: “weird,” “arctic,” “science,” “special,” “February,” and, of course, “misspell.” Jr. will try very hard to spell all the words in this article correctly. Let us know if we don’t!

Some people hate spelling. They think it was created to torture innocent children, and grown-ups too, with words that are almost impossible to spell correctly, because they don’t sound the way they’re written.

Others love it. They enjoy the quirky spellings. The odder and more complicated, the more they seem to like it. These guys would like to get the first group to feel friendlier toward spelling, which is why they invented The National Spelling Bee. This is an annual competition to see who the best speller in the country is. Millions of kids participate in local spelling bees, and the winners of those get together for a national bee.

This sounds pretty straightforward, but the first question to start buzzing around your brains probably is:

Why Is It Called a Spelling Bee Anyway?

As far as we can tell, bees can’t read and don’t know how to spell. Can’t even spell their own names. All they can do is buzz, and they can’t spell that either. So what does a spelling contest have to do with bees?

This is actually one of the great mysteries of the English language. Nobody knows for sure how the name spelling bee came about. But word experts think the word bee originally referred to a gathering of people for some community project. In times when sewing clothing and making quilts at home was common, women would gather for sewing and quilting bees. At apple bees, farmers would come from all over to help each other harvest the apple crop. Since a spelling competition is a community project to help promote good spelling, it was also called a bee.

But why bee? It likely comes from the old English word bene, which means “a prayer” or “a favor.” A language spinoff was been or bean, which meant favors or voluntary help given by neighbors. From there it was a short flight to bee, which might have been inspired by the way bees live and work in busy groups.

 The First Winner

The National Spelling Bee is held every year. In 2018, about 11 million kids took part in local contests, and the winners — about 270 — went to Washington D.C. for a two-day competition. The winner got more than $40,000 in cash and prizes, and an invitation to the White House.

But the whole thing started much smaller, and originally had as much to do with business as education. In 1925, the Louisville Courier-Journal was in a circulation war with another newspaper, and to attract more readers it held the first national spelling bee.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 734)