"Rollmops," a word you've probably never used or heard of, was the one that finally eliminated the only contestant from metro Atlanta from this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Monisha “Mona” Mahadevan, a 14-year-old Woodward Academy student from Dunwoody, ran into that word Thursday during the semifinal round, when she was one of 22 champion spellers still in the competition in Washington, D.C.
“She had a tricky word,” her father, Maha Mahadevan, said, one that “looks easy but is one of the German words … that’s got an exception to the rule.”
Mona said, “When I heard it was a German word I tried” to apply the usual rules on how German-root words are built, but they didn’t fit. She spelled it “rolmaps,” according to the spelling bee’s website.
“Rollmops,”if you’re wondering, is, according to the spelling bee site, “a filet of freshened salt herring rolled up with pickle or onion and skewered and then pickled in a spiced marinade.” Probably not what will be served at the banquet Friday night for the spelling masters, which the Mahadevans planned to attend.
Mona said the bee was “a real learning experience” and she made some friends there. Her accomplishment in making it to the next-to-last round, she said, is to “really not talent at all.” Rather, she got there by “hard work.”
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