A question that I perennially encounter when I tell people that I am a professional spelling bee tutor is: “Why bother with spelling bees when we have spell check?” It’s an eminently understandable response, especially when it comes from people who have never watched a bee. Cell phones and computers have no problem storing the entire corpus of the English dictionary and consulting it at a moment’s notice. Like all games and sports, spelling bees aren’t strictly speaking necessary or useful – at least not in an immediately practical way. Yet questions about spelling bees’ utility (or lack thereof) miss what makes them so beloved – why it broke spellers’ and logophiles’ hearts when the Scripps National Spelling Bee was cancelled in 2020 amid the pandemic; why the Bee was quickly revived in 2021 and 2022, with altered rules and a partially virtual format; and why the Bee continues to captivate people internationally, motivating countries like Jamaica, China, and Ghana to send teams to Washington DC to compete.
How to watch
All times Eastern.
Tue 28 May Preliminaries 8am to 7.40pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)
Wed 29 May Quarter-finals 8am to 12.45pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)
Wed 29 May Semi-finals 2.30pm to 6.30pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)
Thu 30 May Finals 8pm to 10pm (ION)
