Mirna and Sharmi and I went to see Spellbound last night -- decent documentary on the National Spelling Bee, made better by our whispered comments on the difficulty of various words and the obnoxiousness of various parents. We're all pretty good spellers, and enjoyed competing in bees as kids. Since we went to a Catholic grammar school, we were in a separate spelling rotation from the real spelling bee; I made it to third place nationals, but only for the Catholic schools. I wonder if I would have even won city if I'd been in the regular bee. The words are a fair bit harder there, I think. I wanted to know, wanted to test myself against the actual best; I suppose I've always been a little bitter about not getting the chance to find out how I would have done.
Of course, what I'm really bitter about is that broccoli has only one l.
The only way I can remember how to spell broccoli is that I know it has only one double-letter, and I know it’s the Cs because the Campus Computing Organization here at Caltech used to name their computers things with “cco” in them, and they had a machine called broccoli. And now, you too can use this helpful mnemonic! If you can remember it at all. :^)
Trust me — I will *never* forget how to spell broccoli. It is my Word-of-Shame.