After 14 rounds of words like “probouleutic” and “zwitterion” and “schistorrhachis,” Dev Shah, an eighth grader from Florida, reached the apotheosis of his craft, correctly spelling “psammophile” to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night.
He denied the spelling community another thrilling spell-off, outlasted the dominant Texans and didn’t let the schwa make him schweat.
If you weren’t able to watch the finals on Thursday night, here are a few takeaways.
The schwa is a stone-cold killerThe schwa — the “uh”-like sound that can be represented by any vowel in the English alphabet, also known as the bane of competitive spellers’ existence — knocked out several finalists, as it routinely does.
Persons:
“, ” Dev Shah, ”, didn’t, —
Organizations:
Scripps, Spelling, Texans
Locations:
Florida