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The Bee's Knees: There's A New Spelling Champion

Snigdha Nandipati, 14, of San Diego has been crowned the champion in the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her winning word was "guetapens," a French-derived word for "an ambush, snare or trap."

A very calm Snigdha beat eight other finalists, including her last competitor, Stuti Mishra, 14, of West Melbourne, Fla. Stuti got tripped up on the word "schwarmerei."

The winner got $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 scholarship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online language course.

A group of us here at NPR (including our copy chief Susan Vavrick) watched and live-chatted the Bee. You can read our conversation below:

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