OXON HILL, Md. (AP) _ When Snigdha Nandipati’s father realized she had a special talent, he began entering her in spelling bees in the third grade.
Soon she was winning them, and Thursday night the 14-year-old girl from San Diego captured the biggest prize of them all: the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
A coin collector and Sherlock Holmes fan, Snigdha aced the word “guetapens,” a French-derived word that means an ambush or a trap, to outlast eight other finalists and claim the trophy along with more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
Second place went to Stuti Mishra of West Melbourne, Fla., who misspelled “schwarmerei” _ which means excessive, unbridled enthusiasm.
