“Beautiful”, “embarrassed”, “patience”… America’s top spelling searches by state, according to Google

(quote)

Beautiful, bougie and all the other words Americans still can’t spell, state by state Around the time 12-year-old Ananya Vinay of Fresno, Calif., triumphed with “m-a-r-o-c-a-i-n,” the people in her home state struggled with “b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.” The following year, when 14-year old Karthik Nemmani of McKinney, Tex., bested his opponent with “k-o-i-n-o-n-i-a,” Texans really wanted to know how to spell “s-u-p-e-r-c-a-l-i-f-r-a-g-i-l-i-s-t-i-c-e-x-p-i-a-l-i-d-o-c-i-o-u-s.”

The Scripps National Spelling Bee starts Tuesday, pitting 565 contestants age 7 to 15 against each other to spell words they will likely never use in a sentence. Back also is Google with its list of America’s top spelling searches (it was previously called America’s most misspelled words).

Google says the list is based on the search phrase “How to spell . . . ” but does not say when the searches were made nor provide additional context for the searches, so we are left to our own imagination.

For example, why are people from so many states searching “How to spell beautiful”? It’s been a common top word in the past three years. In 2019, a “beautiful” belt runs from Virginia through the Carolinas and Georgia into Florida. “Indict” in Louisiana seems ominous. What about “independence” in North Dakota? Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious appeared in 2017 and 2018 only to fall off entirely this year. Hawaii went from “grateful” in 2018 to “Hawaii” in 2019. The District simply had “enough.”

The full list for 2019 is below.

Alabama: niece
Alaska: preferred
Arizona: patient
Arkansas: family
California: beautiful
Colorado: favorite
Connecticut: neighbor
Delaware: veterinarian
Washington, D.C.: enough
Florida: beautiful
Georgia: beautiful
Hawaii: Hawaii
Idaho: embarrassed
Illinois: beautiful
Indiana: activities
Iowa: loose
Kansas: committee
Kentucky: ninety
Louisiana: indict
Maine: guess
Maryland: heart
Massachusetts: grey
Michigan: amazing
Minnesota: especially
Mississippi: fifteen
Missouri: definitely
Montana: comma
Nebraska: delicious
Nevada: appreciate
New Hampshire: recess
New Jersey: grey
New Mexico: patience
New York: bougie
North Carolina: beautiful
North Dakota: independence
Ohio: favorite
Oklahoma: February
Oregon: phenomenal
Pennsylvania: pneumonia
Rhode Island: message
South Carolina: beautiful
South Dakota: jewelry
Tennessee: intelligent
Texas: beautiful
Utah: important
Vermont: benefit
Virginia: beautiful
Washington: grey
West Virginia: eleven
Wisconsin: opinion
Wyoming: tear

(unquote)

Image courtesy Washington Post / Google