As the final pre-competition meeting of the Scripps National Spelling Bee’s word selection panel stretches into its seventh hour, the pronouncers no longer seem to care. For decades, the word panel’s work has been a closely guarded secret. This year, Scripps a Cincinnati-based media company granted The Associated Press exclusive access to the panelists and their pre-bee meeting, with the stipulation that The AP would not reveal words unless they were cut from the list.
This year’s meeting includes five full-time bee staffers and 16 contract panelists. The positions are filled via word of mouth within the spelling community or recommendations from panelists.
Before panelists can debate the words picked for the bee, they need to hear each word and its language of origin, part of speech, definition and exemplary sentence read aloud. aaa