FILE PHOTO: Will Lourcey, 14, of Fort Worth, Texas, contemplates a word during the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S., May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee this week, hundreds of youngsters will compete in a uniquely American contest that has been likened to an intellectual extreme sport, involving one of the world's most tricky languages.
The competitors, some as young as 8 years old, face a three-day obstacle course through the English language, a mash-up of Germanic and French words laced with borrowings from tongues around the world. Any of 470,000 entries in the "Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary" is fair game.
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