The word gets around locally: Spelling bees are adult fun

Not long ago, someone brought a bowl of citrus into the University of Washington office where Josh Malamy works as an assistant. To Malamy, the sweetest thing was not the taste of the fruit but the sound of its name: satsuma.

"I'd never heard that before," said Malamy, 25, who was so thrilled to discover the word that he wrote it down.

If it sounds ludicrous to go gaga over a noun, consider this: The obsession is catching.

In a world where spell-check software would seem to make the ability to spell irrelevant, quite the opposite has happened. The spelling bee, an arena once reserved for children, is edging out trivia quizzes and rock-paper-scissors competitions as the bar game of choice, while a more formal event, the AARP-sponsored National Senior Spelling Bee, draws spellers age 50 and older from all over the country. The top prize is $100.

At The Seattle Spelling Bee, which Malamy co-founded and co-hosts once a month at Seattle's Re-bar, people pack the place to drink and watch others spell words like tribadism. (Look it up.)

The event can be raucous, drawing diverse crowds of up to 165 people, with some participants bringing their own entourage, and the words running from obscure to deceptively simple.

On Wednesday, three-person teams of spellers will face off at the second annual Kirkland Adult Spelling Bee, which benefits the Kirkland Library's literacy programs.

No alcohol will be served at that contest. When spellers take the stage at the Kirkland Performance Center, they'll be stone sober, the better to show not just how much they know about language, but how much they care.

Local spelling bees

The Kirkland Adult Spelling Bee takes place at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave. There's still time to sign up your three-person team. The $100 entry fee supports literacy programs through the Friends of the Library of Kirkland. To register, contact the Kirkland Library: 425-822-2459. Or e-mail kirklandlibrary@kcls.org. For more information or to sign up online, see www.kcls.org/kirk/spellingbee.cfm.

The Seattle Spelling Bee is held at 8 p.m. the first Monday of every month at Re-bar, 1114 Howell St. It's 21 and over and costs $5 at the door to watch or participate. For more information, go to seattlespelling.livejournal.com.

Mason County Spell-e-bration is set for 6:30 p.m. May 11 at the Shelton Civic Center, 525 W. Cota St. Teams of three compete. Community groups and businesses pay the $500 team sponsorship fee, which benefits Mason County Literacy. For more information or to sign up, call 360-426-9733.

Prizes aren't the point. The Kirkland Adult Spelling Bee offers no cash awards, though there's plenty of cachet. The winning team's members will get their names inscribed on a trophy they keep for the duration of their reign, and on a plaque displayed at the library. Finalists also earn Olympics-style medals that can be worn around the neck.

Beyond the other spoils of victory — gift certificates and books — a bee's greatest prize is the respect of fellow competitors, whose common bond is perhaps stronger than some would like to admit.

"It's not really a spelling community," Malamy insisted. "That just sounds corny."

Whatever you call them, local bees have brought geek-chic barflies together with ardent word lovers like Randy Hilfman, a copy editor for Eddie Bauer.

Though he was no spelling champ as a child, Hilfman, who is 57 and lives in Woodinville, won the portion of last year's Kirkland bee where the audience writes down words spoken by the pronouncer. He went on to enter eight of The Seattle Spelling Bee contests held at Re-bar, where he nailed tough words alongside people decades younger.

At this year's Kirkland bee, Hilfman will compete with Malamy on a team called the Cantrips, along with Barrie Trinkle, Seattle author of "How to Spell Like a Champ."

Hilfman is also preparing for the National Senior Adult Spelling Bee on June 16 in Wyoming by studying 13 pages a day of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which is about 1,400 pages long.

It's a niche he found late in life, but Hilfman, who has published erotic crossword puzzles in a literary journal, has always loved words. The history of language is embedded in their spellings, he said.

To spell well in front of others, under pressure and sometimes the influence of alcohol, is "one small way to establish some sense of order in a chaotic world," Hilfman said.

To Malamy, spelling pays tribute to English, which fascinates him because there's "so much vulgarity in it. The words feel ... very earthy. You can fling them around."

In 2005, while living in New York, Malamy discovered the Williamsburg Spelling Bee and threw himself into studying for it.

"I felt like my life revolved around it," Malamy said. "Every two weeks, I'd do the bee, wait two weeks, and then there'd be another bee.

"It just felt so ideal, so fun," he said.

Malamy collects unfamiliar words and their definitions the way an entomologist might catalog rare butterflies. The most precious in his collection, starproof, means impervious to starlight.

Because it's not in the dictionary used by The Seattle Spelling Bee, starproof will never turn up there.

No matter. Malamy is thrilled just to know it exists.

"Crazy," he said. "What a beautiful, poetic thing."

Amy Roe: 206-464-3347 or aroe@seattletimes.com