At the Scripps National Spelling Bee, behind the spectacle of kids vying to be champion spellers, a whole lot of work goes on to make words into this word sport. Offering a peek into the apiary are the Bee's executive director Corrie Loeffler, and Ben Zimmer and Jane Solomon from the Bee's word panel.

Find out more about this episode, get the transcript, hear the other Beelusionist episode about the Spelling Bee, and listen to the rest of the Word Play series, at theallusionist.org/wordsport. And visit spellingbee.com for all the information about this year's tournament.

The Allusionist is going on tour in the UK (and hopefully Ireland) in August and September! Some tickets are already on sale, with more dates to come: keep an eye on theallusionist.org/events.

Members of the Allusioverse get perks at the live shows; they also got daily Beecaps from my time at Bee Week, so if you want to read those, head to theallusionist.org/donate. Plus, you get regular livestreams with me and my collection of reference books, inside scoops into the making of this show, watchalong parties, and the company of your fellow Allusionauts in our delightful Discord community. AND you’ll also be keeping this independent podcast going.

This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with Martin Austwick of palebirdmusic.com.

Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk about your product or thing on the show, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by:

• Understance: comfortable, stylish, size-inclusive bras and undies. Shop the range and learn about your own branatomy at understance.com.
• Squarespace, your one-stop shop for building and running your online empire/new home for your cryptic puzzle that takes months to solve. Go to squarespace.com/allusionist for a free 2-week trial, and get 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code allusionist.
• Bombas, whose mission is to make the comfiest clothing essentials, and match every item sold with an equal item donated. Go to bombas.com/allusionist to get 20% off your first purchase.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.