Spelling Bees and Pop Singers

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! About 1 1/2 weeks after starting this blog, I finally have enough time for a post. Sorry it took so long, to all the people that were waiting. and waiting. and waiting. :b So anyway, this blog, as you can see in the title, is about spelling bees and pop singers, 2 things that are completely, totally messed up. So, to start off, how many of you watched the Scripps national spelling bee on ESPN last year? (that's right it was on ESPN. It's a sport :0) For those of you who did watch, you know that Anamika Veeramani won by correctly spelling "stromuhr." I personally, have never come across the word stromhur in my entire life before the spelling bee. I have read lots of adult books, some of them written by Robin Cook, a renowned medical horror writer who managed to scare the crap out of me when I was 7, but I have never caught a glimpse of the word stromhur. Go ahead and ask your parents, if you consider them smart(I hope you do) if they have heard the word stromhur, know what it means and can spell it properly. Make sure they didn't watch the spelling bee though. I don't want skewed results. The point I'm coming to is that while spelling bees may be exciting and suspenseful, real world-wise they are mostly useless. These are actual words on my list for seventh grade: zigzaggedness and abracadabra. Can someone please tell me how knowing how to spell these words will help us out in our jobs? I can't think of any, but for the benefit of the doubt I'm going to put these into real life work scenarios.

Editor 1 : Editor 1 sees that the newspaper contains the word stromhur in the medical section and abracadabra and zigzaggedness in the entertainment section, but the words are spelled wrong. Not knowing how to correctly spell the words, He/She right clicks the red line under them to see a choice of accurate spellings. He/ She chooses the appropriate one and submits the newspaper. The spelling corrections have taken her about 10 seconds( I timed this myself and did it slowly so I'm not exaggerating.)

Editor 2: Editor 2 sees the same mistakes in the newspaper as Editor 1, but she was a spelling bee champ previously. Remembering how to spell the words, she finishes her work in roughly 15 seconds (Again, I spelled the words wrong the same way and corrected them timing myself). She submits the newspaper, happy that her spelling skills have come to use.

See what I mean? I'm not saying having a good vocabulary and knowing how to spell stuff is bad, but usually the words given in spelling bees are useless except in rare instances and to confuse people and make them think your smart. One last thing, please don't think I'm a sore loser because I came in first place in my classroom bee this year, and 7th place in last years school wide bee. Also, no offense to the Spelling champion last year ( I know you're reading Garima), this was really supposed to be just my opinion on spelling bees, I'm not insulting your intelligence, everybody knows your a good speller and a smart person. So anyway, on to my next topic: Pop singers. In the modern world, celebrity singers are becoming more and more important and famous, feeding off a population of pre-teens, teens and young adults. Forbes magazine ranked Lady Gaga 7th and Beyonce Knowles 9th on a list of "most powerful women in the world" released in October. Both are supposedly more powerful than Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. Seeing as Pelosi is next in line for president after Obama and Biden, this is a fact that both makes me laugh and scares me at the same time. In any event, today's celebrity singers are seen as superheroes, being able to do anything and everything. In my mind, there is one thing they can't do. That thing is singing. 

To be continued...

Sorry, but that's all the free time I have today, and I really don't want to put off posting another day, so I'll finish my rant on pop singers later, possibly tomorrow. So until then, good luck on your semester exams, be sure to check back for more blogs, I'll try to get better about posting, I know y'all had to wait a while for this one.

Leave your comments below :)