I just read on the BBC website that an American 13 year old has just won the International Spelling Bee chmapionships. Firstly, good for her. However, is this a true measure of spelling ability? The ability to know how to spell 'acrocephaly', 'glossopharyngeal' and 'vestibulocochlear' is not a true test of spelling, it is a test of revising words learnt from a dictionary that have very little bearing on a 13 year old's life (I hope).
If only the winner brought attention to the correct usage of 'you're' and 'your' or 'its' and 'it's' (I still have trouble with that one) then this would help the average child to incerase their vocabulary, instead of polarising spelling ability into something that children either can do perfectly or not at all.
Poor Susan Boyle! All she wants to do is sing, not be hounded by the press. It is timely with the 10 year anniversary of Big Brother upon us that reality TV is still so prominent in our consciousness. Britain's Got Talent has held a mirror up to the British public and found us severely wanting. We're judgmental, biased and now ready to bring down those whose success has not even been cemented. 'SuBo' deserves to win the competition, if for nothing else, as a timely reminder to us all that we should think before we speak, and that fame is never what is is cracked up to be.
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