They broke the Spelling Bee.

Did you watch last night? I had a hard time staying up as an adult in the Central Time Zone, but these were 13 and 14 year olds in the Eastern Time Zone, and they'd been challenged and stressed since 10 a.m. I was interested in seeing who would win, but ultimately I felt I was watching child abuse, not just because they'd been grilled for so long and so late but because all of them were obviously only there because they'd been put through some kind of highly refined (and expensive) process that just doesn't seem right. It was after midnight!

There were 8 co-winners, because they had to change the process as they were running out of words and the process of elimination wasn't happening. These kids simply got everything right, because something has changed in the preparation. There was little of the amusement of seeing sweet children striving and, eventually, failing. The bell of failure never rang, and it seemed these kids would go on until they started nodding off into sleep and having a dream, perhaps that they were spelling some other word.

From the NYT article: "There have been marathon spelling bees before — the 2017 event went 36 rounds, with two spellers battling it out after the 17th round — but the competition has never hosted such a large group of spellers who could not be defeated. The field is typically winnowed down to fewer than four by the 16th round." Last night, the game was simply ended after the 20th round, after an announcement that everyone remaining would be a co-winner if they made it that far, and then 8 of them did.

From the WaPo article:

By 3 p.m., the Bee’s organizers resorted to what Shalini Shankar, a professor at Northwestern University, called a “lawn mower” round of extremely hard words intended to winnow the remaining field. It worked, with spellers knocked out by head-spinning words such as Wundtian, coelogyne and yertchuk. Yet other spellers vanquished the likes of huiscoyol, bremsstrahlung and ferraiolone to advance to the finals.

“I was very tired, and I also did not drink a lot of water,” the Clarksville, Md., middle schooler said. “Since it’s going so fast, if you go to the bathroom you might miss your turn.”

See what I mean? How is that an acceptable way to treat children? That's just what it was like in the afternoon. The show continued until after midnight. Who is this show for? I used to love to watch the children. I will not watch again.

The winning words from [years ago] — croissant in 1970, incisor in 1975, luge in 1984 — would make today’s finalists laugh....

Another game-changing development is the new invitational program known as “RSVBee,” now in its second year. In the past, spellers reached the national event only by winning a regional bee and securing a sponsor, often a newspaper, to cover expenses. But with the advent of RSVBee, which supplied 292 of this year’s 565 contestants, families who can afford a $1,500 entry fee — plus six nights at the $300-a-night Gaylord and other expenses — can bypass the traditional path to the Bee.

So it's a rich kids game? Sorry, I know there are people these days who would say, "Well, okay, then, go ahead and abuse them. I wish rich-kid Trump had been abused as a kid. Can we get Barron to plunge down this rich-kid rat-hole of pointless achievement?"

Scott Remer, a New York-based tutor and author of a spelling bee textbook, coaches three of the 16 finalists. He said winning the Bee takes more than rote memorization. His students study word roots and how to spell sounds in Latin, Greek, German, Japanese and several other languages.

“A good speller knows a lot of words,” Remer said. “A great speller is able to spell pretty much any word that you throw at them because they’re able to use this process to break the word down and come up with a very well-educated guess.”

Yes, it was easy to see that system was working, and congratulations to the tutors who've figured it out and to Remer specifically for getting his self-vaunting quotes into The Washington Post without having to cough up a number for what he charges per hour and how many hours it takes to turn a child into a "great speller."

The comments at WaPo are full of gratuitous politics, some of which is cleverly based on Trump's penchant for misspelling, e.g., "Very cool story. Maybe when Trump has them to the White House for hamberders, they can teach him a thing about spelling." Some of which is more insanely peevish, like:

"8 young Americans smarter than the entire Republican party. This is the future King Don...a multiracial, multi ethnic America..and there's nothing you can do to stop it. This is the future and you are the rapidly dying past."

Speaking of a dying past... spelling. Why waylay the brightest kids into such a narrowing, unnecessary enterprise? It seems to me, the misspelling champ, Donald Trump, is President and what there's nothing you can do to stop is all his winning. The kind of smartness we need is people who can outsmart Trump at his game — tweeting, rallying, fighting off all criticism — and not people who've learned the tricks of spelling and can stand until midnight enunciating the proper letters.