Noun. 1.) A Generalized Loss Of Feeling In The Testicles 2.) Roger Clemens

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Who Will Win the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee?

AJ Daulerio's Cultural Oddsmaker runs every Friday. Email him to let him know what you think. More »

Power To The Peepl

Reaction continues to pour in on yesterday's spelling bee post (OK, we got one note, which was attached to a rock and thrown through our window). Toward the end of the post we noted that there are actually people who protest in front of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.; folks who want to simplify the more complctd complicattd conplicated difficult word spellings in the English language. But there was one thing we missed. To wit: More »

When Words Collide

It was the mother of all spelling bees; the 1971 Chiefs-Dolphins of word competition. In case you were for some reason watching basketball on Saturday, two young contestants in the Treasure State Spelling Bee in Billings, Mont., slugged it out for four and a half hours — 25 rounds — before a champion was crowned to move on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. Actually, contestants Anna Rose Wright, 13, and Tim Best, 12, endured 41 rounds of gruelling human spell-check, the first 16 serving to winnow out the other 63 contestants. Wright and Best then went mano a la mano for 25 rounds, spelling like four kinds of crazy, until young Tim finally cracked. That's him the the photo, silently spelling the words "bathroom break." We're not sure of the word he got wrong, but the word that gave Anna the upper hand was "mumpsimus." We won't comment on it further except to urge Barry Bonds apologists to look it up. More »