May 30 2025 - Spelling Bees Turn 100

 

Are Spelling Bees a U.S. phenomenon?  They turned 100 this year, or so an article says.  We can't know anymore which articles are news and fact and white are click bait headlines. So I thought this was something to check out. I find that the anniversary refers to the annual United States National Spelling Bee.   I don't remember this in public school. But then, I don't have vivd public or high school memories.  But wouldn't I remember attending a spelling bee? I don't even remember the expression spelling bee.  We had the Science Fair for maths, engineering and science.  There was the Kiwanis Festival Competition for music and the arts.  There were debating competitions.  So it is likely spelling bees were more of a minor activity in Canada. The  U.S. Spelling bee is the Scripps National Spelling Bee and participants came from U.S. and other countries.  It is very complicated now, with many rules, rounds, quarterfinals, semifinals, and so on.   Back in the early days the first place prize was either $500 0r $1000 - that's a lot in 1925.  And today?  First place gets $50,000.  I wonder if that even covers the costs involved.  There's a Spelling Bee of Canada now. It says that over 70,000 children have participated in the competition.  There are 26 regions competing.  The Canadian winner gets around  $10,000.   We older people raise an eyebrow, don't we?  The elevation of a spelling contest as a national entertainment when so many people can't spell simple words with correct grammar.     An abstract today.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 11 2020 - This Year has Numbers

2020 is an interesting year in numbers.  I went looking for combinations that will be interesting - like Feb 2nd 2020 will be 02 02 2020 and you could have time in there to be 02:02 02 02 2020 or 20:20 02 02 2020 with the twenty-four hour clock.  These are the weekend repeating dates. Sunday, February 2nd (02/02/2020) Saturday, April 4th (04/04/2020) Saturday, June 6th (06/06/2020) Saturday, August 8th (08/08/2020) Saturday, October 10th (10/10/2020) Saturday, December 12th (12/12/2020) The weekend repeating dates are listed because one seems to retrieve best wedding dates in 2020. The Guardian came to the rescue with this headline: Did you solve it? 2020 in numbers.   The article is here.  I've extracted two of the questions.  To get the answer for 3.1) you will want to visit the link as a few are presented. 2) Imagine 2020 is not a year but a rugby score, as I’ve scrawled below. This score spells out a word. Can you work out which one? Solution Wipe a tear from your eye. The word is ONION. Rotate the score by 90 degrees anticlockwise and you’ll see. The next question: 3.1) Fill in the blanks in the following ‘countdown’ equation so it makes arithmetical sense: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 = 2020 You are allowed to use any of the basic mathematical operations, +, –, x, ÷, and as many brackets as you like. An answer might look something like (10 – 9 + 8) x (7 – 6 – 5)/(4 + 3 + 2 + 1) = 2020, but not this one since the equation is incorrect. To see a lot more in numbers for 2020 by mathematician Inder J. Taneja, go HERE.  The introduction says this short work brings representations of 2020 in different situations.  These representations are of crazy-type, running numbers, single digit, single letter... Then there is a revised version.  It is HERE.  It contains the addition of this: