The Korean alphabet didn’t phrase Orange County’s top speller, Sydney Tran, but something “jejune” did.
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The lone Orange County entrant into the Scripps National Spelling Bee was eliminated in the second round of competition Tuesday at Constitution Hall in Washington.
All three spellers from Los Angeles County advanced to the third round.
Tran was eliminated when she incorrectly answered her vocabulary question, “Something described as jejune is?” selecting irritating instead of the correct answer, immature.
The 14-year-old eighth-grader at El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim correctly spelled her first-round word, Hangul, the alphabetic script in which Korean is written.
She qualified for the national bee with her second consecutive victory in the Orange County Bee.
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The bee began with a field of 247 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates and a Department of Defense School in Germany.
The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below and who were born on Sept. 1, 2011 or later.
The bee will conclude Thursday. The winner will receive $50,000 from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, $2,500 and a reference library from Encyclopaedia Britannica, $400 in reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica, including a 1768 Encyclopaedia Britannica replica set and a three-year membership to Britannica Online Premium, two-day admission for up to four people, a two-night hotel stay, astronaut meet & greet, and $350 in merchandise from the from Kennedy Space Center & Visitors Complex and $1,000 in flight credits from Delta Air Lines.
This is the first time the bee has been held in Washington since 2010. It was held there from its inception in 1925 through 2010. Wednesday’s quarterfinals will be streamed on Scripps Sports Network from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and the semifinals from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The semifinals will be replayed on ION from 5 to 7 p.m.
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Thursday’s finals will air live on ION from 5 to 7 p.m.
No speller from Los Angeles or Orange counties has won the bee.