"Porwigle" -- an alternate spelling for "Polliwig," (a tadpole or a young frog) -- was the word that stopped the run of 14-year-old Parker, Colorado boy Frank Cahill eliminating him from the final round of the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee, Thursday night.
Frank misspelled "porwigle" with two g's, instead of one, within the first thirty minutes of the championship round's start. And after several intense rounds of spelling, a champion finally emerged from the original 278 contenders -- San Diego's Snigdha Nadipati, 14, was declared the winner of the 85th annual national spelling bee with her correct spelling of "guetapens" (a French word for an ambush or trap).
Frank, an 8th-grader from Ave Maria Catholic School in Parker, was the only Coloradan to make it to the finals of this year's contest after 13-year-old Eva Kitlen of Niwot was taken down by a written test and did not advance to the semifinals, 9News reported.
On Thursday morning during the semis, Frank correctly spelled "guilloche" -- a French word for a decorative engraving technique -- sending him into the finals, according to The Denver Post.
The Scripps Spelling Bee website gives a breakdown of all the words that Frank spelled correctly during Wednesday and Thursday's preliminary and semifinal rounds:
- "frangible" -- easily broken
- "ephemeral" -- lasting a very short time
- "drosophila" -- a fly genus
- "cannelon"-- tubular or rolled pieces of pasta
Frank is clearly a great speller, but apparently his best school subject is math, his Scripps Spelling Bee bio states. He was a Colorado state finalist in the MATHCOUNTS National Competition in 2011 and 2012. Frank also plays violin and piano, is a 4.0 honor roll student, is a boy scout, a sculptor and participates in theatre where he has played lead roles in Dracula and Oliver Twist -- way to go, Frank!
The finals did not include the much talked about youngest speller in bee history, 6-year-old Lori Anne Madison of Lake Ridge, Va., who was eliminated during the preliminary rounds when she misspelled one of her two words -- "ingulvies" (the crop, or craw, of birds) -- and then fell short on her written test.
LOOK: The winner and hilarious faces of the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee
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