Hear me out – spelling bees and drama may not appear to go together, but you’re missing a trick.

The championship final of the 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee unfolded on Thursday evening, before a national television audience in America.

For those of you who haven’t watched enough American middle-school cinema to be in the know about the Bee, it’s an annual spelling competition where kids fourteen and younger compete against each other in a spelling showdown.

This year contestants were hit with words like sphaeriid, Omphalopsychite, vraic, huanglongbing and auftaktigkeit, somehow managing to make it through to never-before-seen historic win, reports The Guardian.

From 10:44, things really get heated. Go to 12:02 if you just want to see how it all turned out:

Yep, these incredible kids managed to spell their way to an eight-person tie.

Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rojan Raja combined to spell the final 47 words correctly over five consecutive perfect rounds, an exhibition of orthographic precision unlike any witnessed before in the 94-year history of the competition.

…The unprecedented outcome was made possible after a shock announcement by official pronouncer Jacques Bailly at the conclusion of the 17th round – the second in a row with no eliminations – where he acknowledged that organizers were fast running out of challenging words and that any speller still alive after three additional rounds would be declared a champion.

“Champion spellers, we are now in uncharted territory,” Bailly said. “We do have plenty of words remaining on our list. But we will soon run out of words that will possibly challenge you, the most phenomenal collection of super spellers in the history of this competition.”

Superb work, super spellers. Given that WhatsApp autocorrects anything that closely resembles the word you’re trying to type, I fear this will one day be a lost art.

This eight-way tie is the most exciting thing to happen at the Spelling Bee since this kid:

Just gets right back on that horse and nails his word.

Good for you, buddy.

Congrats to the eight winners – may you spell long and prosper.

[source:guardian]