Charlotte-area teen done in by the schwa at Scripps Spelling Bee finals
The dreaded “schwa” served as Sreethan Gajula’s downfall at the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals Thursday night.
The 14-year-old from Waxhaw took the stage alongside 10 other spellers at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Florida. With a five-figure cash prize up for grabs, the stakes were high.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the first three rounds of the bee took place virtually. Thursday’s competition was held in-person, and Sreethan, donning his lucky black zip-up, competed against his peers — and his nerves.
He was the third competitor to take the stage — and the first one off.
The word that pushed Sreethan out of the competition: trochiline, an adjective Merriam-Webster defines as, “of or relating to hummingbirds.”
The official pronunciations, “träkəˌlīn, -lə̇n,” sound like “trockehleen,” or “trockehlin.”
The “schwa” sound in the word’s pronunciation likely tripped up the teen from Marvin Ridge Middle School in Union County.
He spelled the word “t-r-o-c-h-e-l-i-n-e.”
A schwa is “an unstressed mid-central vowel that is the usual sound of the first and last vowels of the English word America,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Sreethan isn’t the first speller done in by the tricky sound. A speller in 2018 wore a shirt during the competition that read “We love to hate the schwa,” according to the New York Times’ Maria Cramer.
Sreethan, who was sponsored by the Carolina Panthers, finished in a seventh-place tie with four others and will return home with a $2,000 prize.
Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from Harvey, La., became the first African American winner and only the second Black champion in the bee’s 96-year history.
The only previous Black winner of the bee was Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Zaila also breaks a streak dating back to 2008 during which at least one champion or co-champion was of South Asian descent.
With the bee officially behind him, Sreethan can enjoy the rest of his summer as he prepares to enter the ninth grade at Marvin Ridge High School in the fall.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.