Believe it or not, I was more drawn to the final rounds of the Scripps Spelling Bee rather than the Carolina-Buffalo tilt last night. Lots of ClassCon in the final round (besides having UVermont Classicist Jacques Bailly as pronouncer), including tmesis and koine in round 19, poiesis in 16, maieutic in 15. Well the participants outspelled me on many an occasion, I still am having problems with sciolto, which knocked out one young participant. The official definition included an etymology suggesting it had Italian and Latin elements and I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out what Latin root would make this word.

Outside of that, congrats to the winner (Kerry Close) and to (especially) runner up Finola Hackett, the pride of Toefield, Alberta (and all of Canada this a.m.).