Feeling the pressure

Vindicator Spelling Bee Pronouncer

Video

Vindicator Spelling Bee pronouncer and YSU Communication Prof. Dr Fred Owens.

By Harold Gwin

The man who pronounces the words spends days preparing for the event.

YOUNGSTOWN — As the date for the 76th annual Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee draws near, the 68 competitors won’t be the only ones feeling the pressure.

“Two days before the Bee, I get a bit nervous,” said Fred Owens, the man charged with pronouncing each word for the spellers who walk across the stage at Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center.

It’s an important task, because how each contestant hears a word is generally the way they spell it, and it’s not a duty that Owens, a professor of communication at YSU, takes lightly.

He said he’s been the official Bee pronouncer for about five years.

“It’s a little more challenging than a person off-handedly would think it would be,” Owens said. “I had no idea the level of preparation that would be necessary.”

Most people would think that the words used in the Bee are common words, easy to pronounce, but there is a wide variety of pronunciations out there, he said, explaining that Webster’s Third New International Dictionary is the official guide.

Owens recalled that about one week before his first Bee as pronouncer, a voice inside him advised him to be careful — that the kids and their teachers were spending a lot of time and effort to show what they could do and it was his responsibility to see that they heard and understood the words they were supposed to spell.

That interior voice prompted him to spend hours and hours in preparation, a practice that he continues before each event. He spends a good part of the 10 days leading up to the Bee working on each of the 500 words on the spelling list.

He also keeps a phoneticized guide with him during the Bee and relies on the three Bee judges who listen to him and then listen to the speller pronounce the word to be sure the contestant is saying it correctly.

During the Bee, Owens will pronounce a word and give its definition, and the speller must repeat it before beginning to spell.

Contestants can ask about the word’s origin and for its use in a sentence. When they finish spelling, they must repeat the word so that Owens and the judges know the contestant is finished.

There are local and regional variations to word pronunciations and sometimes parents challenge pronunciations — and there is a process for that during the event — but the Bee follows the established guide, Owens said.

People need to be able to leave the Bee feeling that they got a fair shake and that there is no controversy, he said.

“These types of events need to be nurtured, be protected,” he said, explaining that people are moving away from the printed word yet our culture is based on language and the meaning of those words. People must have a vocabulary to support that, he said.

“This is a great gig. I’m happy to do it,” Owens said of his involvement in the Bee. “It’s really something to celebrate.”

gwin@vindy.com