So much depends on so many words

Spend some time for some great spectator sport as the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee is underway. Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is blogging the Spelling Bee, sharing her spelling bee obsession at the great A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago blog. Scroll down and look for all items with "Posted by Shonda."

"Hierurgical" caused Canadian Cody Wang to suffer the first of what I fear will be many nervous breakdowns in his life. He grabbed his head, made several gasping shocked noises, a single pained whimper and then disappeared from Bee world forever.

Update:

11:36 am: The Canadians fall, the Canadians fall, the Canadians fall like trees. It's a Spelling Bee Battle Field -- these poor Canadians rushing to the microphone only to be beaten back with a horrifying ding. Were they not prepared for the rigors of TV? The joy of ESPN? Because these words did not seem particularly hard to me. But just like that, we have lost SIX CANADIANS IN A ROW. ALL THE CANADIANS ARE GONE. It's tragic. Oh, Canada..." - Shonda

Washington Post's Don Steinberg talks to the eliminated Canadian spellers, "a septet of softspoken sadness".