Dumb. D-U-M-B. Dumb.

This weekend was the Scripps National Spelling Bee and, as a former seventh-grade spelling bee champ myself, I know the pressure that these kids are under.

So what the heck protesters? Leave these spellers alone!

(Also did the spelling bee somehow end up in Davis this year? People actually protest in other cities? Madness.)

I don't really have much to say about this article except for the fact that it's the dumbest thing I've heard in a really long time. But when one of your protesters is an 81-year-old dressed in a bee costume, what can you expect?

Basically these people are saying that the alphabet and the different combinations of letters that comprise words in the English language makes it too hard for people to learn how to read, write and spell. So "enough" should be changed to "enuf", "fruit" to "froot", and so on.

First off, I feel like there's a lot more than just the spelling of words that goes into someone's ability to learn how to read, write and spell. Don't demographics and the availability of resources play some sort of role? I just think that oversized classrooms, lack of materials, or, in some cases, outside circumstances that might prevent a child from even attending school play just as big of a role in the success, or failure, of a student trying to learn to read, write and spell.

In the age of texting, Facebook and now Twitter, do we really need to dumb things down for our kids even more? I've had conversations on IM with teenagers that I can't even understand sometimes. Where they said "shud" instead of "should" and substitute numbers for letters whenever possible. I can barely follow along.

Here comes my go America! speech now. This country is a melting pot and all that, right? Our language is no different. My coworker made what I thought was a great point when he said it's a combination of all the different cultures and countries that created this country in the first place. We just don't have a "formulaic" language like many others do.

Final thoughts? This is dumb. Thanks for listening.