The main change at this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee is the introduction of an innovative new program called RSVBee, a "second chance" for competent spellers who either didn't win their regional bees or didn't have a sponsor for their regional bee. It will undeniably change the way the bee runs. Due to RSVBee, there are 519 spellers attending the Scripps National Spelling Bee--almost double the numbers of spellers in recent Scripps bees. The RSVBee Effect, as some have dubbed it, will likely show itself in a number of ways throughout the bee, mostly logistically but also competition-wise.
Firstly, the schedule of the bee itself has changed. Instead of the preliminaries test on Tuesday followed by rounds 2 and 3 on Wednesday, the test and round 2 will take place on Tuesday, leaving Wednesday just reserved for round 3. Spellers will be divided into five groups for the onstage preliminary rounds instead of two. Many past spellers reported that Rounds 2 and 3 felt long in previous years--they will likely feel even longer this year.
In addition, the Thursday night finals have a ticket policy for the first time in years. Each speller receives three tickets, and anyone else who wants to watch will have to stand in line in order to obtain a limited number of first come, first serve general admission tickets.
Perhaps the most interesting (although this is more of speculation than fact, unlike the previously mentioned effects) impact of RSVBee will be a higher cut line for the semifinals. Previously, the best prepared speller in a regional bee sometimes lost and, therefore, could not go to nationals. This phenomenon has largely been eliminated, as many of the most competent spellers in the nation who did not win their regionals are going to nationals anyway. This means that there will be a higher concentration of top tier spellers, which likely means that there will be a greater number of high scores on the Preliminaries Test. However, since only 50 spellers will be named semifinalists (just as before), the minimum score required to be a semifinalist will likely be higher than it has been in the past.
How do you think RSVBee will change the outcome of the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year? Will the cutoff score be higher than usual? What are your thoughts on the RSVBee program in general?

I had so much fun talking about Portuguese words last week that I decided to do it again. This brief post will have some more of my favorites. 
Abacaxi   \¦a-bə-kə-¦shē\. This one has the typical Portuguese "x" for the \sh\ sound, which is always fun. Other than that, the spelling is actually pretty straightforward. It's a word for a large pineapple grown in Brazil. 
Barbeiro \bärˈbā(ˌ)rü, -rō\. This word for a type of insect exemplifies Portuguese patterns in two ways. Firstly, the \ā\ sound being spelled as "ei" is very common. There's also the tendency to spell \ü\ as "o" at the ends of words derived from Portuguese. 
Cachaca  \kəˈshäsə\. This is a type of Brazilian liquor. The last c has a cedilla, which enables it to be used for an \s\ sound before an a (it otherwise would be pronounced as \k\). It also has the typical "ch" used for the \sh\ sound in Portuguese.
What are your favorite Portuguese words?

The week leading up to a bee (especially a regional or national bee) is often one of the most stressful weeks of a year. I've had the opportunity to experience these weeks firsthand a number of times. Many people, especially if it's their first time competing at a certain bee, are unsure of what to do in the week beforehand. How to modify your schedule, how to modify your study strategies, and how to mentally prepare yourself are frequently asked (and very good) questions. Here's what worked for me.
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Scheduling: Set up your schedule so that you can study as much as possible. Eliminate all but the necessary obligations from your schedule if you can. Write out a schedule each night (on school nights) or day (on weekends) of what you're going to do when. Give yourself breaks though--it's not efficient or healthy to study for hours and hours on end without breaks. Take 5-10 minutes every hour or two to get up, walk around, and drink a glass of water.

Studying: Review, review, review. Go over all the words you've struggled with from everything that you've studied. Then, write down the ones you miss and go over the missed words 5-10 times (it might seem like a lot, but it's absolutely worth it). Then, write down the ones you miss during those 5-10 reviews, and review those 10 times. Repeat the process until you've gotten all your missed words correct multiple times.

Mental Preparation: If you're anything like me, you're probably at least a little nervous. Take some time to get into a good mindset. Envision yourself winning as vividly as possible multiple times, and envision yourself losing once or twice too so that you're prepared for both outcomes. (Mostly envision yourself winning, though--confidence boosts are always a good thing). Most importantly, remember that you've worked hard. Remind yourself that regardless of the outcome, the experience and knowledge gained is so much more important than your placement or a trophy. 

Good luck!

       Every speller comes face to face at some point with the everlasting conundrum of -ible versus -able. It always appears at first as though there are no rules, no patterns, no guidelines by which to guess what ending the word uses. However, if one parses through enough words, some tendencies become apparent.
     The basic rule for this is to drop the suffix and see what remains. If it's a whole word, use -able. If it's not, use -ible. Take, for example "accountable" and "disponible." "Account" is a word. "Dispon" is not. Of course, even the best rules have exceptions, so there are some ways to determine if a word is an exception. 
      The -ion rule can be incredibly helpful in this pursuit. It's pretty simple. If the base word of the -ible/-able word has a form ending in -ion, it's probably -ible. Think of "combustible." "Combust" is a whole word in itself, but it doesn't use -able because of its noun counterpart: combustion. There's "assertible" too: "assert" is a whole word, but it still uses an i because of "assertion." It's not a perfect rule, but it's a helpful one at least. 
    However, there's another challenge if the base word ends in -e. There's still the confusion regarding i vs. a, but an additional question is added: should the e stay or go? The e typically only stays if the base word ends in -ce or -ge, assuming they make s and j sounds respectively. In that case, the word would be -eable (but if the -ion rule applies,  drop the e and use an i). Otherwise, it will probably be -able. "Pronounceable" and "ageable" are both good examples--"deducible," however, drops the e and uses and i because of the -ion rule.
      If all else fails, go by the numbers--four times as many words end in "-able" as end in "-ible."
     Of course, none of these rules are constant, and there are plenty of exceptions. Use these rules as a loose guide, though, and you'll start seeing vast improvement in your ability to differentiate between -ible and -able.

      Everyone is familiar with the hippopotamus, the gargantuan gray pachyderm that's cute but can also be dangerous and deadly. The word hippopotamus has one of my favorite etymologies. It's not that it's esoteric or complex. It comes from the Greek hippo- meaning horse and potam- meaning river, so literally, it means "river horse." There's something oddly funny to me about thinking about a hippopotamus as a river horse, but such is language. There are a number of hippo- words in addition to this that are equally amusing, baffling, or fascinating. 
      Case in point: hippotigrine, meaning "of or relating to the zebra." Etymologically, however, this means "horse tiger." It's definitely amusing to think of a zebra not as its own animal, but as a hybrid of a tiger and a horse. It's funny, but it makes sense--the zebra does, after all, look like a horse, but with striped patterns reminiscent of the tiger.
       Then, of course, there's hippogriff. It's a mythical creature that's half griffin and half horse. That one's straightforward enough, but I still love it because of its portmanteau-style construction. There are plenty of other very straightforward hipp- words, like hippology (the study of horses), hippic (relating to horses or horse racing), and hippodrome (a stadium for horse races). Overall, though, it's a fun (although common) root that has a part in some incredible words.