Corporate Spelling Bee

First Literacy’s Corporate Spelling Bee, the first in the nation, gives business leaders an opportunity to improve the literacy levels of our current and future workforce. It’s an opportunity for building team spirit with an internal spelling bee, corporate cheering squads to support the spellers, and a chance to take home the Corporate Spelling Bee Champion Cup for the year.

The Corporate Spelling Bee is a great evening of fun, food, and philanthropy. Greater Boston businesses and service providers like Eaton Vance, K & L Gates, Cabot Corporation, Deloitte Touche, IBM, Citibank, Cambridge Trust, and the Bank of New York Mellon field teams of spellers to compete for the Championship Cup. Attendees are treated to drinks, dinner and a few hours of entertaining competition that make an enormous and ongoing difference in our communities.

Emcees who have facilitated the Spelling Bee include: Josh Binswanger, former lead anchor at WBZ-TV and host/producer at the History Channel, Robin Young, host of WBUR’s Here and Now, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Car Talk Guys, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President Paul Guzzi, media personalities Marjorie Clapprood and Susan Wornick, Senator Alan Simpson, William Bulger, Boston Globe columnists Ellen Goodman, Bob Ryan, and Joan Vennochi.

Sponsorship is an investment that provides an unparalleled return because adult literacy prepares determined adults to move into the workforce with the English and essential skills needed in the 21st century.

The 2011 Corporate Spelling Bee

Photography by: Ed Malitsky

Congratulations to the team from Eaton Vance Investment Managers, featuring members Jessica Katz, Will Pannella, and Suzanne Lambert, which won the Bee by correctly spelling the word "tatterdemalion." The second place team from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, featuring members Raul Consunji, Monique Domian, and Irene O'Dowd, made it interesting correctly spelling 24 of the 25 words used in the Championship Swarm. Examples of the words used this year are:

Preliminary Swarms one through six:

peekaboo
filibuster
sfumato
doohickey
firnification
coccyx

Championship Swarm:

caryatid
valetudarian
tenebrific
zugzwang
foozle

Winning Words:

2008: lacinia A slash, as in a leaf or petal. The vibrancy of the new hybrid was increased by its petals’ lacinia.

2009: terpsichorean Of or relating to dancing. Merce Cunnigham is a terpsichorean marvel.

2011: tatterdemalion A person wearing ragged or tattered clothing; a ragamuffin Ragged Dick is a typical Horatio Alger character; a tatterdemalion who turns out to be a hero.

Our thanks to all the teams that participated in the 2011 Corporate Spelling Bee!

American Stock Transfer Company
Bingham McCutchen
Boston Business Journal
Boston Financial Data Services
Boston-Power
Cabot Corporation
Cambridge Trust Company
The Cavan Group
Citibank
Connell Limited Partnership
Corderman & Company
D. F. King
Deloitte Touche
Eastern Bank
Eaton Vance
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
IBM
INX
J. P. Morgan Chase
K & L Gates
Natixis
Jones Lang LaSalle
Nixon Peabody
Office Environments of New England
Peabody Office Furniture
Shawmut Design and Construction
State Street Corporation
StoneTurn
SunGard
Verizon
Williams Lea