The Scripps National Spelling Bee, a.k.a. the spelling bee of spelling bees, ended in a two-way tie yesterday, with the winning lads both misspelling some ridiculously obscure words: “corpsbruder” (a comrade) and “antegropelos” (waterproof leggings) respectively. However, they did manage to correctly recite each letter of “stichomythia” (a type of dialogue in Greek plays) and “feuilleton” (a section of the newspaper devoted to fiction) in the final round—words I couldn’t even begin to mangle. This made me realize that spelling bees are the professional esports of word usage: we all play games, and we all use words, but 99.9999 percent…

Arthur Chu has caused a stir in front of a live studio audience by taking an unorthodox approach to Jeopardy and continuing to win. Normally, contestants play the game the same way: start with an easy question for $100, then work their way down the board to pricier trivia. Chu’s strategy has veteran fans shook up because he plays only for the Daily Doubles, which are more likely to be found at the bottom of the board. This results in a haphazard order of questions and answers that leaves the tiles in disarray. What Chu’s essentially doing is playing Jeopardy…