Twice now, Abirami Ratnakumar (Speller 157) has made an unusual request.
"Can you draw me a picture of the word?" she asked.
She didn't get a response from Dr. Jacques Bailly, the pronouncer.
"I guess that's a no," she quipped.
"Not that I couldn't try," Dr. Bailly said.
The word was "entourage." She got it right.
In Round 3, the New York seventh grader tried again.
"Am I correct in assuming you can't draw me a picture of this one either?" she asked, after receiving "cyathiform."
This time, she almost got there.
"This, I probably could," Dr. Bailly said. "It means shaped like a cup. But that's not one of the questions I can answer."
She spelled it properly.