STUDENT'S WORK ABOVE `BEE' AVERAGE.Byline: LISA FRIEDMAN Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- David Pruden insisted he didn't experience any horripilation hor·rip·i·la·tion n. The bristling of body hair, as from cold; goose bumps. Wednesday as he sailed through three rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It was only when he missed a single letter of the word meaning ``goose bumps'' in the fourth round -- spelling it h-o-r-r-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n -- that the 14-year-old Placerita Junior High School student felt any himself. ``It was actually on my word list; I looked back and there it was,'' David said after the competition, holding a hefty wad of lined notebook paper, each page containing three neat columns of 99 handwritten hand·write tr.v. hand·wrote , hand·writ·ten , hand·writ·ing, hand·writes To write by hand. [Back-formation from handwritten.] Adj. 1. words. ``I couldn't believe it,'' he said. ``I said to myself, `I saw the word three days ago.''' Yet in making it through three rounds of the 79th annual national spelling bee -- where he aced such words as ``balneation'' and ``madid'' -- David went further in the competition than any Southland area speller since 1998. Principal Robert Gapper said he wasn't surprised by David's success. ``He's been working really hard at this for months and months and months,'' Gapper said. He noted that as David was toiling away onstage in Washington, his classmates were taking their end-of-the-year trip to Disneyland. ``He's made a sacrifice,'' Gapper said. But David said he knows it was worth it. He doesn't have any major plans for the summer, and his mother Connie said she thinks that's best. Already this year, in addition to making it to Washington for the spelling competition, David has won the President's Award for Academic Achievement, was nominated for a national math award, won a citizenship honor from his church group and was recognized for his voracious reading -- about 25 books since January alone. ``Riding up the escalator, he goes, `Now, no more studying,''' Connie said, laughing with her son in relief. ``He needs a break. A brain break.'' lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com (202) 662-8731 WORD UP In the national spelling competition, 14-year-old Placerita Junior High School student David Pruden successfully spelled more than two dozen brain twisters, including: culottes, derogatory, precedent, immolate im·mo·late tr.v. im·mo·lat·ed, im·mo·lat·ing, im·mo·lates 1. To kill as a sacrifice. 2. To kill (oneself) by fire. 3. To destroy. , basmati, lycanthropy lycanthropy (līkăn`thrəpē), in folklore, assumption by a human of the appearance and characteristics of an animal. Ancient belief in lycanthropy was widespread, and it still exists in parts of the world. , succussatory, nullipara nullipara /nul·lip·a·ra/ (nul-ip´ah-rah) para 0; a woman who has never borne a viable child. See para. nullip´arous nul·lip·a·ra n. A woman who has never given birth. , scopolamine scopolamine (skōpŏl`əmēn, –mĭn) or hyoscine (hī`əsēn', –sĭn), alkaloid drug obtained from plants of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), chiefly from henbane, , Erewhonian, Pierian, perciatelli per·cia·tel·li n. Pasta in long hollow thick strands. [Italian dialectal, diminutive pl. of perciato, past participle of perciare, to pierce, from Old French percer, percier , Capharnaum, oeillade, sprachgefuhl sprach·ge·fühl n. A feeling for language; an ear for the idiomatically correct or appropriate. [German : Sprache, language (from Middle High German , madid and balneation. CAPTION(S): box Box: WORD UP (see text) |
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