Chauffeur.

Significance.

Maintenance.

These aren't difficult words. I type them all the time. But every time -including this time -I have to stop to think.

Embarrassing.

There's another word that always trips me up. Two Rs? One R?

Embarrassing? I'll say it is.

I'm a professional writer. Not only do I have a master's degree in journalism, I have an honours degree in English, for heaven's sake.

Spelling has never come easily to me. Grammar largely seems intuitive. (Grammer? Grammar?) But after all these years of reading and writing, the orthography of the English language often defeats me.

It's such a ridiculous Velcro language, composed out of discarded bits of ancient Greek and Latin, Anglo-Friesian, West Saxon, Celtic and medieval French, spiced with borrowings of Hindi, Yiddish, Cree, Malay, Afrikaans, Hawaiian, not to mention German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and Japanese.

English has absorbed vocabulary picked up the length and breadth of the British and American empires. It's been colonized, too, by the generations of immigrants who've taken up residence in the anglosphere.

But as difficult as it is to spell the English language while sitting down quietly in front of a notebook or computer keyboard, spelling it aloud, competitively, is a thousand times harder.

And so, I am in honest awe of the 70 students from across Edmonton and northern Alberta who'll gather in Myer Horowitz Theatre this Sunday afternoon for the seventh annual Edmonton Journal Canspell spelling bee. Ranging in age from nine to 14, and from fourth grade to eighth, they come from 31 communities and 39 school divisions, from as far north as Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie and Peace River to as far south as Wainwright and Red Deer, from big city schools, and from villages and hamlets as small as Berwyn and Bezanson.

They'll be gathered to compete for the right to represent our region at the national spelling bee in Toronto on Feb. 27, where they could earn the chance to travel to the storied Scripps bee in Washington, D.C.

Last year, I went to the bee for the first time, as a backstage volunteer. It was a humbling experience.

A spelling bee is as stressful a children's competition as any I have ever witnessed. In a debate tournament, a soccer match, a music competition, a hockey game, a dance festival, a figure skating championship, you can get away with making one or two tiny mistakes. There's usually a chance for redemption, an opportunity to score another point, to pull off a final flourish of excellence that will impress the judges into forgetting or forgiving your earlier gaffe. But in a spelling bee, it's all or nothing. You have to spell every word perfectly, on the first try, every time. Every round is sudden death. Blurt out one wrong letter, say "e" when you meant to say "I," make a slip of the tongue and say "g" instead of "c," and there's no going back.

And every kid standing on the stage stands alone. There are no teammates, no partners to lean on. Brains, logic, preparation and an outstanding visual memory aren't enough to win a spelling bee. Artistry, creativity, speed, strength? They're no help at all. You have to have courage, self-sufficiency and extraordinary grace under pressure, as you stand by yourself, under the spotlight, and do personal combat with the English language.

The students I watched on stage weren't really trying to defeat each other. The mood was surprisingly collegial, as they each stood up, in turn, and stepped forward to battle the words themselves.

I didn't know a single child on the stage, but I was riveted. I had butterflies in my stomach as each one stepped forward, and my heart bled, just a little bit, each time some freshfaced speller took the sad walk off the stage, brought down by a silent p or double l.

Why put kids through the agony? Well, you certainly could argue that spelling bees are a celebration of an arcane skill that has little purpose in our modern world. You could even argue that they are politically suspect, a neo-con throwback designed to falsely romanticize the past, promoted for ideological reasons by the back-to-basics zealots who'd rather see schools, and kids, focus on rote memory skills than original, analytical thinking.

There's some truth to those criticisms. We do need to teach our children to think critically and independently, not just to memorize and regurgitate some idiosyncratic words. True literacy is about more than spelling.

Society, though, provides so many competitive opportunities to young athletes. Young brainiacs don't get nearly so many chances to shine, nearly so many opportunities for public validation. Making temporary celebrities out of elite spellers seems a small way to right that balance. We shouldn't be shy to value excellence when we find it -no matter how you spell it.

psimons@edmontonjournal.com

Twitter.com/Paulatics

www.facebook.com/EJPaulaSimons

bee there early

-The 7th annual Edmonton Canspell spelling bee begins this Sunday at 1 p.m. at the University of Alberta's Myer Horowitz Theatre. Admission is free, but seating is limited. To follow the action live, as reported by The Journal's young team of "cub" journalists, visit the Canspell Facebook page at www. facebook.com/Canspell2011 or on Twitter, @cubcanspell