Phenomenal Philippics: #1
First published: Wednesday February 12th, 2025
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Spelling Bees are dumb.
If you haven't realised the (frankly) obscene amounts of propaganda until now (which is insanely incredible), I believe Spelling Bees are dumb and pointless.
Why?
Because the entire concept of Spelling Bees is based on the fact that English is not a phonetic language, not just that, but English also draws widely from almost any language it chances upon.
Spelling Bees exist because English is flawed.
Now, this opinion may be overly complex and generalised. Let’s refine it for clarity and precision.
How so? By checking out the history of Spelling Bees.
History Section
You could have guessed it, but Americans started Spelling Bees! Of course, the Yankees started something as dumb as these. (I'm just joking, obviously.) And the best part: They were started to teach American students standardised spelling. I mean, American English itself deserves a blog. Hell, English deserves a blog post rant.
Anyways, the epitome is that American students in the 19th century were newly introduced to Americanized English spelling (think color, traveler, beter (jk) and other words which completely remove any personality that these words had). Spelling Bees were established to help students learn these spellings. Somewhere along the way, it became less 'learn spelling' and more 'English has complicated words so why don't we make a business out of it?'
And the problem arises...
Imagine I had a car. Now imagine my car broke down. Ideally, if I wanted to drive it to get somewhere, I'd fix the car. But the car can't be fixed, and it's my only source of getting somewhere. Basically, it's go in the car, or nothing. So, I reward people to push my car and televise it as a contest.
That is the premise of Spelling Bees. At this point, it's a contest for glory, not some tool to teach students.
For example, who even is going to use 'psammophile', 'Gesellschaft', 'auslaut', 'murraya', or 'Laodicean'? At least words in the 60s, 70s and 80s were somewhat recognisable. These just look like they came from another language.
Well, guess what? They are from another language.
But that's for another blog post.
Tbh, I'm fine with an 'albeit', a 'hereby' or even a 'wherefore'.
'Miasma', 'ukulele': stuff like that should be asked.
Most common words are derived from Old English, whereas the complex ones are built off of Latin and Greek roots.
That's not the point of contention. The problem is that these words are of nought use. You are more likely to learn Sign Language than you are to use these words.
As I said, these are now merely contests for glory, much like a toned-down, E-Rated Gladiator fight. Except instead of gladiuses, they use words.
These should be asked.
But by being that, they have strayed from their original (and arguably more useful) purpose of educating students on 'useful' spellings.
antidisestablishmentarianism (this i sometimes actually use)
english spelling bad but american english spelling better
It's 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis'.