Melvin's blog

Nshima & Curry

Melvin's  Blog

Nshima & Curry

BIG WORDS TURN INTO BIG MONEY

My mother complains about writers who like
to use big words, saying their books and
essays are hard to read. She had better
hope that national spelling champion
George Abraham Thampy doesn’t become
a writer. The 12-year-old Missouri boy
knows so many big words, he could
probably insult everyone in his class,
including his teacher, without using a single
four-letter word.

George, whose parents are from India, won
first place in the Scripps Howard National
Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., beating
a field of 248 contestants by correctly
spelling 15 words, including emmetropia,
eudaemonic and propaedeutic. Don’t ask
me what those words mean. I’m still trying
to figure out the meaning of simple words
like "love," "relationship," and "commitment."

You won’t catch me using big words, unless
I happened to meet George, who won
$10,000 in the spelling bee and $15,000 in
the recent National Geography Bee. Since
he seems like a nice kid and may be willing
to give part of that money to a poor writer,
I’d definitely try to impress him by saying,
"Hey George, if my emmetropia were
eudaemonic, it would be propaedeutic."

If that didn’t work, I’d try a simpler approach.
"Hey buddy," I’d say. "You spelled some big
words and won a lot of money. But can you
spell ‘donate’ and ‘share’?"

I’ve never won that much money, but then
again, I haven’t spent half my life studying
the dictionary. When I was George’s age, I
had trouble spelling the word "dictionary." I
was sure it was spelled "dikshunry."

If there’s one word George knows well, it’s
persistence. He was 4th in the spelling bee
in 1998 and 3rd in 1999, before taking
home the big check this year. He also
finished second in this year’s geography
bee, so he probably won’t have trouble
finding his way to a Swiss bank.

George is obviously a genius compared to
me. As a baby, the first word I ever uttered
was "mama," whereas George said,
"Microsoft." Unlike me, he knew who would
control his life.

The seventh-grader wants to become a
doctor (big surprise) and if he jumped
straight to medical school, he’d make his
new classmates look like dopes. His
professors, amazed by his intelligence,
would probably ask him to do all the
teaching.

George: "Hello students. Your first lesson
will be on emmetropia. Does anyone know
what that is?"

Student: "Can you spell that?"

George: "T-H-A-T. Any more silly questions?"

Student: "Yes, are you related to that Indian
kid who won the National Spelling Bee?
You kind of look like him."

George: "Yes, he is my cousin. Poor guy is
stuck in seventh grade."

After winning the spelling bee, George
gave credit to God for answering his prayer
and telling him how to spell ‘emmetropia.’
He also credited his parents, K. George
Thampy, a biochemist and physician, and
Bina, who home-schools her four sons and
daughters. "My mom and dad taught me
everything," he said.

I certainly hope they taught him how to share.

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