More than 50,000 people applied to participate in the event.
Paris:
Not to be outdone by a US-style spelling bee extravaganza, Paris’ most famous street the Champs-Élysées was transformed on Sunday into an open-air mass “dictation” spelathon, pitting thousands of brainy bookworms across France against each other. Have become.
Revealing a very French love affair with words, more than 50,000 people applied to take part in the event, a first in the world, in which hopefuls attempt to recite a text faithfully and without error.
Over 5,000 applicants aged 10–90 were chosen to participate in three sessions led by novelist Rachid Santaki.
With 1,779 desks on Paris’ most famous boulevard in each session, the organizers sought to break the world record for the dictation spelling contest.
In the first round, an excerpt from La Mule du Pape by the famous French writer Alphonse Daudet was read by Augustin Trappenard, a journalist from Libraries Without Borders.
There was silence when the first session began, but for 10-year-old Samson, the dictation was “very fast”. he gave up.
In his last year of primary school, top student Antoine attends school with his father and, despite being a star pupil, struggles to pay his bills.
“It was impossible! Dictation was for adults,” he said.
His father, Adrian Blind, 42, was equally relieved the session was over, saying he was “in a state of stress and anxiety”.
But retiree Toria Zarhouni, 65, was more upbeat.
“I only made two mistakes! I expected it to be very difficult,” she said.
The competition went beyond French classics, with a sports themed round read by rugby player Pierre Rabadan, and another with a contemporary flavor read by author and journalist Catherine Pancol.
Marc-Antoine Gemet, president of the Champs-Élysées Committee, which hosted the dictation during 2010, said the event went beyond dictation.
“Dictation helps us stick together. It unifies,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)