It was pure esclandre. Ever since he first kicked his chorion, the jockey had dreamed of his guerdon. It was his due, and as he adjusted his numnah and gnawed on some taleggio, he gazed westward, the sky a nacarat canvas. This would be his alone, immune from nationalization, as if anyone could Sinicize it. He knew nothing of the syndicate for which he was riding.

An aspiring writer is always curious about what will beat his spellchecker. In this case, it didn’t even know five of the seven words in this paragraph likely to baffle you and me. But they did not baffle Sameer Mishra, 13, the Indiana kid who on Friday won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

In case you thought spelling bees were obsolete, there it was, a spectacle televised in prime time. It started chronologically in 1925, and this year began with a population of 288 contestants. Nobody would know the definitions of the seven words that Mishra was breezing through on his way to the $35,000 title. But some were schooled enough to look completely unflappable as they clawed and guessed their way as far as they could get.

A spelling bee is always a challenge because it shows how many completely unfathomable words there are left in the language, only a small fraction known to you and fewer still to me. A writer makes it on a deft turn of phrase, recycling the same words repeatedly. Readers learn to become suspicious of those who try to impress us with vocabulary alone. Nobody would really actually write a paragraph like that in real life unless really launched on something, or out to win a wager worth a gamble.

Nobody from Scripps, the group that backs the spelling bee, has ever contacted us. But spelling bees often start with newspapers, which arrange to sponsor a contest at a local school. The contestants don’t have to be vetted much for a national TV appearance. How much trouble can you get into if you’re: 1) under 15; 2) not yet in 8th grade; and 3) hooked on spelling?

The 288 finalists this year were plunged into a mind-numbing tournament, which ended Friday in Washington, D.C. It isn’t a surprise that a national television network would put the finalists on air in prime time. Millions are routinely gambled on stranger ways to attract a ratings audience, and the winner this year was actually having a good time on the program and showing it.

For the record, Mishra wants to be a neurosurgeon, and beat out a contestant who stumbled on  prosopopoeia — a figure of speech in which an imaginary soul speaks. The word is literally Greek.

If you are so inclined or want to alienate someone at a party, you can immerse yourself in a study program. This may prepare you for a talent you’ll probably not need in life. But it will prove far more useful than getting hooked on websudoku.com.

Writers are supposed to know how to spell, but few do. And even fewer do as time goes by and they get addicted to spell-check programs, some of which still think “Internet” is “internment” and can spell both “whore” and “hoar” without the slightest notion of whether you’re using the right one.

The weird thing about a spelling bee is that you don’t need to know the meaning of a word, though it helps to know if it comes from another language or Latin (if you took it). Spelling is the ultimate contest in which you fake it ‘til you make it. And if you don’t, it’s like the finals of any contest. You start out with a mass of talent and end up with only one winner. You lose, but so did almost everyone else. Pay attention if you like the Cubs or (pre-2004) Red Sox.

Before ending this, we’ll know seven things we did not when we started — the meaning of seven words we’ll immediately forget. We’ll go back to the original paragraph, a butchered piece of writing meant to illustrate nothing except that seven unrelated words can be woven into anything if you try hard enough.

It was pure esclandre (a scandal about to happen). Ever since he first kicked his chorion (outer embryo or seed membrane), the jockey had dreamed of his guerdon (something earned, like a reward). It was his due, and as he adjusted his numnah (pad between horse and saddle) and gnawed on some taleggio (an Italian cheese), he gazed westward, the sky a nacarat (red-orange) canvas. This would be his alone, immune from nationalization, as if anyone could Sinicize it (make it Chinese in character). He knew nothing of the syndicate for which he was riding.

You’ll forget six of the above seven. But you’ll go on using one for no known reason.

Foreign words that occasionally drift into English usage are particularly fun. Try emboutillage, which sounds like what it is — a huge, gnarly traffic jam. You’ll probably be the only one outside Paris ever to use it.

Around here, it’s time to move on to our next esclandre.

The Usual Suspect is a founder of the Aspen Daily News and appears here each Sunday, Console, consult or berate him at ddanforth@aol.com [1]. Your notes will be private unless you ask that we print them. We’ll try to spell-check them.