An earlier version of this article about the Scripps National Spelling Bee misspelled last year's winning word. The correct spelling is serrefine.
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Adoring Fans, Incognito Celebs Revel in Spelling's Super Bowl
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Another legend also is making a fifth appearance: Tia Thomas, a 13-year-old flutist and skier from a town deep in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.
She was clearly worried about her seventh-round word, "canicular." "May I have the California pronunciation?" she asked.
She finished third in the competition, going out on another one of those words that would knit the brow of the most orthographically adept of any age: opificer.
Besides Californian, the judges heard Southern drawls, Texas twangs and a Jamaican lilt. One year, they were stumped by a New Zealander's pronunciation of letters.
Spellers came from across the United States as well as Jamaica, the U.S. Virgin Islands, South Korea, New Zealand and Canada.
Most of the words represent things the children have never encountered: advocaat, a Dutch eggnog, or hidradenitis, the inflammation of a sweat gland.
There is one word Meghan Reynolds, a home-schooled 14-year-old from West Chester, Pa., never wants to encounter: Bercy.
It's a creamy sauce made from chicken or veal stock, thickened with butter and flour and enhanced with shallots, white wine and parsley.
Meghan was stumped. She could spell all the ingredients, she told the judges.
But ultimately, her guess that it ended with an "i" put an end to her run.
She has been spelling in bees since third grade, and the national bee was her dream.
"I was doing it before it became so popular," she said. "I'm so glad I got to the semifinals."
She won't be eating anything with Bercy sauce.
The spellers practice daily, some for several hours a day, some online. Others listen to recordings of spellings as they sleep.
But spelling isn't a way of life.
This was evidenced by a note written on the bee bulletin board asking fellow spellers to join in for a game of soccer on the Mall. Interested players were asked to call the speller's room, or they could leave their names, right "hear."
Staff writer Martin Weil contributed to this report.
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