Latest news with #spellingbee
RNZ News
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Guy Montgomery is back with his stand-up show
media culture 20 minutes ago He's well known to kiwi audiences through his hit shows - Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, Have You Been Paying Attention, and Thank God You're Here. Guy has recently found success across the Tasman with the Australian version of his spelling bee show proving a big hit with audiences. The show was picked up for a second season and he's been nominated for a Logie for Most Popular New Talent at the prestigious Australian Televison awards.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Iolani School student represents Hawaii at 100th Scripps National Spelling Bee
HONOLULU (KHON2) — Kira Lau, 13, is a spelling powerhouse. The Iolani School student recently represented Hawai'i at the 100th Scripps National Spelling Bee, a milestone year for the prestigious competition that draws top young spellers from across the country. Calling all Oʻahu teens! These summer volunteer spots fill fast: Photos Kira confidently spelled her first word, Fatimid, and followed up with Marooned—a word she defined as 'abandoned on a deserted island.' She made it through two rounds before facing a written test in Round 3, where her impressive run came to an end. 'I was like, if I got out, I already made it this far. It doesn't matter. I accomplished this,' Kira said. Competing on the national stage was a major shift from Hawai'i's local spelling bee, with the setting being more intense. Check out more news from around Hawaii Held at the Gaylord National Resort Convention Center at the National Harbor, spellers were on stage in a large auditorium with judges directly in front of the spellers and an audience full of parents. 'I was trying not to look at everybody. I was just focusing on Dr. Bailey,' she recalled. Jet lag added another challenge. 'We didn't get off Hawai'i time. We were six hours behind. We'd wake up at 1 p.m. and miss stuff,' Kira said with a laugh. 'Then we'd go down and do the activity for the day and go back to the room after.' Still, Kira says the experience was unforgettable. 'I think of how it started in my classroom with just 10 people. Got all the way to Washington, D.C.' When asked her favorite word to spell, she answered: 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'Her advice for future spelling bee hopefuls? 'Study more than I did,' she said with a smile. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
News.com.au
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
TV quiz show host shocked as audience member yells out answer
A TV quiz show host was visibly shocked when a member of the studio audience yelled out an answer to a contestant. The bizarre moment happened on the hilarious ABC show, Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, which returns to screens tonight, Wednesday June 4 (with all episodes to be available on ABC iView from 8.35pm). The program, hosted by comedian Guy Montgomery, tests the spelling prowess of some of Australia's favourite personalities. But one of the contestants, Chinese comedian He Huang, got a little bit of unexpected help while filming an episode for the soon to be released second season. In the clip, which you can watch in the video player above, Huang was struggling to answer a question about flags. She eventually locked in 'Austria' as her answer, before a heckler in the audience quickly corrected her and yelled out, 'Poland!' The contestants could not believe it … '(That's) absolutely illegal,' host Montgomery said to the audience member, much to the amusement of others in the crowd. Speaking to about the hilarious incident, Montgomery said, 'it was just a moment of, not madness, but something got away from them (the audience member) where they had to pitch in.' He continued, 'The show does draw an audience of word nerds or people who believe in themselves as spellers and there is a sense of excitement and frustration that can occur when they're watching a contestant who's approaching a word or so close to being able to spell it.' When asked if he had any words of advice for future audience members, Montgomery joked, 'Keep your mouth shut! Pull your frickin head in!' Roll with the punches Whereas most taped TV quiz shows would have edited the moment out, Montgomery was adamant he wanted to leave it in the final episode. ' I like that in the world of the show, we can just sort of roll with that,' he told 'It's like, 'well that is incredibly unusual and kind of funny and I guess builds on the lunacy and the madness of the universe that we're trying to have inside the spelling bee.'' Other contestants As mentioned, Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee has featured some of Australia's favourite personalities as contestants. Tim Minchin, Wil Anderson, Urzila Carlson, and Tony Armstrong are just some of the big names who competed in the show's first season. When asked which contestant he was most excited about in the upcoming second season, Montgomery named Hamish Blake. 'I grew up a fan (of his) … he's such an influential Australian television comedy figure.' Others who'll feature in season two include Julia Morris, Rove McManus, Denise Scott, Becky Lucas, Josh Thomas and Dave Hughes.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scripps National Spelling Bee crowns new champ
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WSAV) — How do you spell success? For the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, it's spelled 'éclaircissement.' The word is French and means 'the clearing up of something obscure: enlightenment.' 13-year-old Faizan Zaki from Allen, Texas, beat out eight others in the final round before successfully spelling it to win. 'It was just so amazing. I mean when I heard the word, I instantly knew it. I recognized it was from French and when they said it was correct, I was just so elated and happy that I got it right.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CTV News
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Faizan Zaki overcomes a shocking, self-inflicted flub and wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee
Faizan Zaki, 13, of Dallas, holds the trophy after winning the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, May 29, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) OXON HILL, Md. — Faizan Zaki's enthusiasm for spelling nearly got the better of him. Ultimately, his joyful approach made him the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion. The favorite entering the bee after his runner-up finish last year — during which he never misspelled a word in a conventional spelling round, only to lose a lightning-round tiebreaker that he didn't practice for — the shaggy-haired Faizan wore the burden of expectations lightly, sauntering to the microphone in a black hoodie and spelling his words with casual glee. Throughout Thursday night's finals, the 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, looked like a champion in waiting. Then he nearly threw it away. But even a shocking moment of overconfidence couldn't prevent him from seizing the title of best speller in the English language. With the bee down to three spellers, Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane missed their words back-to-back, putting Faizan two words away from victory. The first was 'commelina,' but instead of asking the requisite questions — definition, language of origin — to make sure he knew it, Faizan let his showman's instincts take over. 'K-A-M,' he said, then stopped himself. 'OK, let me do this. Oh, shoot!' 'Just ring the bell,' he told head judge Mary Brooks, who obliged. 'So now you know what happens,' Brooks said, and the other two spellers returned to the stage. Later, standing next to the trophy with confetti at his feet, Faizan said: 'I'm definitely going to be having nightmares about that tonight.' Even pronouncer Jacques Bailly tried to slow Faizan down before his winning word, 'eclaircissement,' but Faizan didn't ask a single question before spelling it correctly, and he pumped his fists and collapsed to the stage after saying the final letter. The bee celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and Faizan may be the first champion who's remembered more for a word he got wrong than one he got right. 'I think he cared too much about his aura,' said Bruhat Soma, Faizan's buddy who beat him in the 'spell-off' tiebreaker last year. Faizan had a more nuanced explanation: After not preparing for the spell-off last year, he overcorrected, emphasizing speed during his study sessions. Although Bruhat was fast last year when he needed to be, he followed the familiar playbook for champion spellers: asking thorough questions, spelling slowly and metronomically, showing little emotion. Those are among the hallmarks of well-coached spellers, and Faizan had three coaches: Scott Remer, Sam Evans and Sohum Sukhantankar. None of them could turn Faizan into a robot on stage. 'He's crazy. He's having a good time, and he's doing what he loves, which is spelling,' Evans said. Said Zaki Anwar, Faizan's father: 'He's the GOAT. I actually believe that. He's really good, man. He's been doing it for so long, and he knows the dictionary in and out.' A thrilling centennial After last year's bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the spell-off, Scripps tweaked the competition rules, giving judges more leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker. The nine finalists delivered. During one stretch, six spellers got 26 consecutive words right, and there were three perfect rounds during the finals. The last time there was a single perfect round was the infamous 2019 bee, which ended in an eight-way tie. Sarv, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, who ultimately finished third, would have been the youngest champion since Nihar Janga in 2016. He has three years of eligibility remaining. The most poised and mature of the final three, Sarvadnya — who's from Visalia, California — ends his career as the runner-up. He's 14 and in the eighth grade, which means he has aged out of the competition. It's not a bad way to go out, considering that Faizan became just the fifth runner-up in a century to come back and win, and the first since Sean Conley in 2001. Including Faizan, whose parents emigrated from southern India, 30 of the past 36 champions have been Indian American, a run that began with Nupur Lala's victory in 1999, which was later featured in the documentary 'Spellbound.' In honor of the centennial, dozens of past champions attended this year and signed autographs for spellers, families and bee fans. With the winner's haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of $25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik's cube with 21 squares on each side. This time, he said he'd donate a large portion of his winnings to charity. The bee began in 1925 when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. For the past 14 years, Scripps has hosted the competition at a convention center just outside the nation's capital, but the bee returns downtown next year to Constitution Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House. A passionate champion Faizan has been spelling for more than half his life. He competed in the 2019 bee as a 7-year-old, getting in through a wild-card program that has since been discontinued. He qualified again in 2023 and made the semifinals before last year's second-place finish. 'One thing that differentiates him is he really has a passion for this. In his free time, when he's not studying for the bee, he's literally looking up archaic, obsolete words that have no chance of being asked,' Bruhat said. 'I don't think he cares as much about the title as his passion for language and words.' Faizan had no regrets about showing that enthusiasm, even though it nearly cost him. 'No offense to Bruhat, but I think he really took the bee a little too seriously,' Faizan said. 'I decided to have fun with this bee, and I did well, and here I am.' ___ The story has been updated to correct the number of consecutive words spelled correctly by six spellers to 26, from 28, and to remove a reference to Nupur Lala being among the past champions who attended. ___ Written by Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012.
