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Indian-American wins National Spelling Bee

Nupur Lala, a 14-year-old who never met a word she would not look up, yesterday correctly spelled 'logorrhea' to win the National Spelling Bee.

''I would read different books and whenever I found a word I didn't know, I would write it down and look it up later,'' Nupur whose parents emigrated from India said clutching her gold trophy cup after a victory leap.

Nupur defeated 248 other spellers, ages 9 to 15, to win $ 10,000, encyclopedias, two airline tickets and computer software. Her winning word, ''logorrhea,'' means pathologically excessive and often incoherent talkativeness.

''I was just praying I would get a word that I knew,'' the Tampa, Florida, eighth-grader said, attributing her victory in the 12th round to her parents' drilling, divine intervention and her natural affinity for word sleuthing.

''This time she was very determined,'' said her father, Parag Lala, a University of South Florida computer science professor.

Nupur also plays the violin, swims and serves on the student council at her middle school.

She beat David Lewandowski, an Indiana 14-year-old who misspelled 'opsimath,' a word describing a person who learns late in life. He misspelled it as 'o-p-s-o-m-a-t-h' instead.

AP

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