jqs's definitions

orthographalaria

n. 1. the phenomenon of excitement or anticipation in relation to one or more competitions based on the correct spelling of a word, known as "spelling bees"; also known as "spelling bee fever"; 2. the experience of such excitement during the course of months, usually in the winter and the spring, when students prepare for and compete in spelling bees, advancing from preliminary and local levels to (e.g., school, district) to more advanced (e.g., county, regional), culminating in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

As the spellers and their parents and families awaited the beginning of the spelling bee, the electricity of the "group experience" of orthographalaria crackled throughout the television studio.

by jqs March 10, 2010