While all the spellers took to the stage on Tuesday, they also took a field trip – to Planet Word, an interactive language museum in Washington, D.C.
The museum was "really fun," said speller 199, Dhagash Desai, after he spent some time practicing Mayan and Navajo languages, and American Sign Language. His favorite was Hawaiian, he said, since it’s easier to understand. He practiced saying "humuhumunukunukuapua’a," the state fish of Hawai’i, and signing "hungry."
"I got to learn about languages," he said. "It was a little hard."
Other parts of the museum included a virtual painting with brushes labeled things like "nocturnal," "surreal" and "nostalgic." Brushing over the pastoral scene changes the details, almost like adding a filter.
That was Katherine Connolly’s favorite part. Katherine, speller 194, said she liked that everything was "sparkly."
Parker Dodge, speller 180, liked the "hibernal" brush the best – it turns the picture into winter.
"I like how it’s interactive, unlike most museums," he said. "It’s been pretty fun."
Parker has a twin sister who spells as well – she didn’t make it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but helped Parker prepare for the competition.
For speller 187, Isaac Imboden, the museum taught him that there’s a lot of things he doesn’t know about words.
"It’s awesome," he said. "I didn’t think they’d make words fun."
Isaac liked learning about rhythm in poetry and what makes a poem a poem. Jessica Widodo, speller 164, said she liked learning about portmanteaus as well as meeting the other spellers.
"I think this experience is amazing," she said. "I can’t really choose a favorite part of the whole museum."
In other areas, spellers placed books on tables to hear pieces of the story, sang karaoke as they learned about anadiplosis – repeating the end of a line as the beginning of the next one – and practiced identifying advertising techniques, like persuasive language.
They also learned about the communication of animals, and practiced recording speeches using a teleprompter. That was Riya Anumakonda’s favorite part. Riya, speller 183, also played a game with her father where they guessed the phrases that were represented by illustrations – a horse in a box, a knife in a cereal bowl, a pile of windows in a shopping cart or a cloud with lightning, rain, snowflakes and the sun.
(Answers: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, serial killer, window shopping and under the weather.)
"I think this museum is awesome," Riya said. "It’s been so much fun so far. I’m really excited for the competition."