Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Well, probably not smarter the 5th graders who competed in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. The weeklong event began with 243 eager underage spellers from all over the United States and its territories. By the end of the preliminary rounds, only nine spellers remained. Of them, 13-year-old Faizan Zaki of Plano, Tex. emerged victorious, earning a cash prize of $50,000. The final word the competition came down to?
“Éclaircissement.”
Huh? Is that like an éclair pastry that got stuck in cement? According to Merriam-Webster, an éclaircissement is “a clearing up of something obscure.” To use it in a sentence: “Learning the definition of éclaircissement was an éclaircissement.”…