The Quidnuncs Are Abuzz Over Spelling Bee Victory

by Debra Lawless

            Doing a little prep work paid off for the Political Poseurs, who bested The Tee Team in the final round of the Fourth Friends of the Eldredge Public Library Spelling Bee Sunday afternoon.

            Poseurs Maureen Langille, Mary Price and Charlie Rader beat out Tee Teammates Robert Dow, Frank Hynes and William Morrison in spelling “quidnunc,” a term for a busybody. The Poseurs attributed their win to running mock bees beforehand with their coach Ellen Cowan, a social worker.  

Chatham spelling champs The Political Poseurs: (left to right) Mary Price, Charlie Rader and Maureen Langille. Behind the team is coach Ellen Cowan. DEBRA LAWLESS PHOTO

          “She read the words to us, simulating the bee,” Rader says after the team, formed of members of the political discussion group of the Newcomers Club of Chatham and Harwich, took the title.

            “I can’t believe it,” says Langille, whose last name was ironically spelled incorrectly on the bee program. “I’m in a state of shock.”

            The hour-long spelling bee began with 10 teams vying for the title of top spellers of Chatham. More than 100 people sat spellbound in the audience as master of ceremonies Richard Sullivan warmed the crowd up with a few jokes and then "pronouncer" Bill Litchfield fed the teams words.

            Here’s how the bee works: When a team gets its word, all three members can confer and jot down various spellings for 60 seconds. The team can also request a word be used in a sentence. At the end of that time one teammate must rise and spell the word. Ginger Plexico, Sheila Marx and Linda Nixon served as judges. Sabine Dow was the timer.

            Before the bee began, Litchfield quoted President Andrew Jackson as saying, “It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.” But he warned the 30 contestants who sat in red chairs on risers facing the audience, “he is dead and if you take his word you as a team will be as well.”

            Litchfield began with a warm-up round. Myriad. Risible. Kerchief. Mollify. The first sign of trouble came when the Chatham Fire team of Ryan Clark, Dave DePasquale and Justin Tevano try to spell gossamer.

            G-o-s-s-o-m-e-r, is the team’s consensus, and it is wrong.

            “Consistency is a virtue,” Litchfield says, evidently referring to the team’s performance in previous bees. But this was a practice round and the team remained firmly seated.

            Fervid. Perpetual. Retrospective. Escapade. Craven.

            And then the first round commenced for real, with the Appealers—Zoning Board of Appeals members Peter Acton, Ed Fouhy and Don Freeman—misspelling soporific. They were the first to vacate their seats.

            A couple of minutes later the Indecent Preposition team of Annie Bassett, Drew Downing and Kerry Spencer, from the Chatham Squire, departed with a misspelling of canard.

            “It’s an old canard that you cannot spell,” Litchfield says, using the word in a sentence. “And it turns out to be true.”

            Then it was the turn again of the Chatham Fire team. Just the mention of the team, which sat in the front row in identical jeans and blue shirts, made the audience titter in anticipation.

            “What is so funny?” DePasquale asks. “They’re already laughing.”

            Litchfield asked the team to spell besmirch.

            “We have a dilemma,” DePasquale says after the trio confers.

            “Extra credit if you spell dilemma,” Litchfield quips.

            Alas, at 4:30 the team was out after misspelling besmirch, and nine red chairs were now vacant.

            Nepotism. Attenuate. Ashram. Nebula. Luminary. Albeit. Invidious. Nuance. Gargoyle. Paradox.

            And then the EPL Biblio Babes—Dana Arel, Kate Ferreira and Sharon Hammersten—were undone with facile. 4:35 p.m. and 12 seats are empty.

            The words are getting tougher. The Poseurs spelled prognosticate and the Suffer-Jettes spelled opprobrium. The Tee Team spelled solstice. Then The Trustables—Dick Evans, Peter Saunders and Maryellen Sussman, all library trustees—came up against syllabub, one letter away from syllabus but meaning an old fashioned English drink of milk and wine. At 4:40 the Trustables vacated their three seats.

            Lodestone. Gherkin. Terrestrial. The Suffer-Jettes—Helen Pickett, Florence Seldin and Nancy Yeaw—spell troglodyte.

            “I have a feeling that Florence couldn’t resist because she knows so many of them,” Litchfield jokes.

            Enmity. Denigrate. Clairvoyant. Sapient. Folderol.

            The First Night Firecrackers—Jeff Hahner, Gerry McDowell and Karen Schwalm—are asked to spell anathematize. When they misspelled it Sullivan shouts, “It’s second night!” Eighteen seats were now empty.

            Down to four teams. Acerbic. Jaundiced. Reticulate. Rambunctious. Prerogative. Nonchalant. And then the Suffer-Jettes were out when Seldin spells skulduggery with two l’s (which is actually listed as a variation in several dictionaries.)

            Supercilious. And the CMMC Rhombics—Edwin Moxin, Robert Ryder and Ed Moss—were out with fissiparous, meaning divisive. Twenty-four chairs were now  vacant, with six filled.

            Sullivan handed out white boards for the Political Poseurs and the Tee Team to write their words. Neither team could spell peripeteia, the “sudden unexpected reversal of circumstance” which was going to reach out to one team.

            Both teams also missed pogonip, a dense winter fog containing frozen particles formed in mountain valleys of the western United States. (“C-h-a-t-h-a-m,” jokes someone in the audience.)

            Then only the Poseurs could spell quidnunc. “Fore!” Sullivan shouted to the Tee Team, and the crowd went wild as the Poseurs remained the only team still seated.

            Editor’s note: The Chronicle did enter a team in the competition this year, really we did, but illness sidelined our ringer, so we were forced to forfeit.  That’s f-o-r-f-e-i-t.  But we’ll be there next year, promise.