Pococurante

Sai Gunturi, Spelling Champion; Photo - Scripps Howard Sai R. Gunturi, an 8th grader from Dallas and four-time spelling bee veteran, won the 2003 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee by spelling "pococurante" correctly. According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, pococurante suggests indifference and nonchlance, from the Italian poco curante, and is pronounced "poko-kyu-ranty." The Times coverage includes tidbits like Gunturi saying "I'm going to buy a lot of video games, like, a lot," with the $12,000 prize and calling Samir Sudhir Patel snaggle-toothed though endearing.

Check out the words Sai had to spell to get to the top and his bio: He attends St. Mark's Academy, which is the school Owen Wilson was kicked out of. Why Gothamist knows this without needing to check is another question.

Gothamist has had a soft place in heart for spellers and spelling bees after seeing Spellbound, the documentary about the 1999 Spelling Bee. The Spellbound website has been redesigned and it's much easier, though Flash-intensive, to navigate. Spellbound will continue to open wider across theaters, and is currently playing at Film Forum and City/Reading Cinema in the city.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on May 30, 2003 7:57 AM

Comments [rss]

Mom

Little brother should work hard on spelling...look who's talking about SAT. By the way I heard on an interview of the champion by Matt Lauer: "I was going to use the $12000 to buy video games but now I think I'm going to save it for college" Good answer!

Mase

Spelling is a much-maligned ability. Spell-check only catches wrongly spelled words, not incorrect usage (such as "their" "there" and "they're" [made famous in "Henry Fool"]). Granted, Jen is correct that knowing how to spell "pococurante" is of little real world use. However, knowing that Owen Wilson went to and was kicked out of St. Marks IS quite useful. Cheerio.

Jen

Little brother, when you were that age, that's all you thought about - videogames. And while there is little real world application for knowing how to spell pococurante, how much real world application is there for me knowing Owen Wilson's life story?

On the pococurante note, that word sounds like an interesting dish at a fancy restaurant or a nice facial treatment.

Eric

What does spelling do for you? Just about nothing, maybe you're set for SAT verbal but that's just about it...

Come on.. Buying videogames? That's absurd. Why not spend your pocket money on black market PS2 games instead? Buying videogames, pshh.

He should buy me an iPod or something. Now there's something worth $400. MmMmMmMMmm iPod.