Eighth-graders from Diamond Bar and Anaheim Hills were eliminated in the fourth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Wednesday.
Justin L. Tran of Diamond Bar misspelled flong, a sheet (as of several layers of tissue paper superposed on a sheet of heavier paper) used for making a stereotype matrix, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. He spelled it flaung.
Aaron Lim, an eighth-grader from Anaheim Hills, competing two spellers later, misspelled ovination, a noun meaning introduction of sheep-pox virus locally into the body as formerly practiced to induce immunity or reduce the severity of the disease. He spelled it ovanation.
The original field consisted of 231 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, the Bahamas, Germany and Ghana. There were 59 spellers eliminated in the first round, 32 in the second and 19 in the third, reducing the field to 121 for the fourth round, with 73 of them advancing to the fifth round and 48 being eliminated.
Justin told City News Service he was familiar with every word he received except for flong.
“I misspelled flong because I had never seen it on any word list and the information given didn’t help me to discern whether it was spelled flaung (my spelling) or flong,” Justin said.
“In the end, I decided to go with flaung, because it seemed like more of a French spelling, and it was unfortunately incorrect.”
The 13-year-old, who attends Chaparral Middle School in Diamond Bar, said in an email interview: “I would have liked to have gotten farther in the competition, but I’m pretty happy being among the best spellers in the United States. My younger self would never have thought that I would get this far.”
Justin advanced to the quarterfinals by correctly spelling gaseous, an adjective meaning having the form of or being gas, in Tuesday’s third round at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
Aaron advanced by correctly spelling muckraker, someone who searches out and publicly exposes real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business, in the third round.
Justin correctly spelled renminbi, the official currency of the People’s Republic of China, in Tuesday’s first round, then correctly answered his second-round multiple-choice word meaning question, “Something described as reverberant:” selecting “tends to repeat in echoes.”
In Tuesday’s first round, Aaron correctly spelled cephalopod, a noun meaning any of a class of marine mollusks who move by expelling water from a tubular siphon under the head and have a group of muscular usually sucker-bearing arms around the front of the head, highly developed eyes, and usually a sac containing ink which is ejected for defense or concealment.
The 14-year-old student at El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim correctly answered his word-meaning question, “Another word for seraphic is:” correctly selecting sublime.
With the spelling bee limited to students in eighth grade or below, this was the final bee for both Justin and Aaron.
Justin also competed in the 2022 national bee and was eliminated in the first round when he misspelled catjang, a plant in the pea family native to Africa, spelling it katjang.
Justin said the most memorable moment in his bee career came in his first bee when he was in first grade.
“I had made it to the finals of my school bee, and it was pretty intimidating going up (against) the fifth graders that were so much bigger than me,” Justin said. “I worked my way to the top three, and found myself on the word physicists.
“I made a guess and ended up adding way too many s’s. And even though I was out, that was the first step where I realized the spelling bee was something I could really excel at.”
No contestant from Los Angeles or Orange counties has ever won the bee. The 2023 bee will conclude Thursday.