Our annual Microsoft Word vs the Spelling Bee Champions contest is on again for 2022. Word has done better than in the past but was still beaten by another extraordinary 14 year-old.
2022’s Spelling Bee Champ is Harini Logan, 14, from San Antonio TX who narrowly beat Vikram Raju a mere 12-year-old from Denver, CO. Congratulations to them both!
Here’s some words used in the final rounds of the Scripps Spelling Bee as they appear in Word 365.
In 2022, Word has done well, out of the 35 words in our list it didn’t recognize five words (the red squiggles).
The Score
Spelling Bee champs: 35
Microsoft Word: 30 in US English. 31 with UK and Aussie English dictionaries.
“Powys”, a Welsh county is recognized in the Australian and UK versions of Word’s English dictionary but not the US one.
Note: our list doesn’t have all the words from final, fast ‘spell off’. If you see a list of all the 2022 ‘spell off’ words, please let us know. Play this video to see how fast and smart both these young people are.
Here’s how Word ‘scored’ vs. the Spelling Bee champs in 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 , 2014 and 2013.
Our purpose isn’t to make fun of Word (that’s a little bonus <g> ). It does show that Word’s online dictionary isn’t the ‘last word’ (pun intended) on what’s a legitimate or correctly spelled word. In other words, just because there’s a red squiggly line doesn’t mean the word is wrong.
Microsoft Word vs the 2021 Words of the Champions
More changes for Word’s Spelling and Grammar
Zillion, Jillion and other big ‘numbers’ in Microsoft Word