Christine Lavin - Too Old For The National Spellng Bee lyrics

I'm too old for the National Spellng Bee But it's just as well As a kid I was a wiz at words But now it's hard for me to S-P-E-L . . . L . . . P (the P is silent) But maybe you still have dreams Of spelling those difficult words But listen to what they threw this year at those cute little brainy nerds G-R-A-N-A-C-H-E - that spells granache A wine grape grown in Southern France Probably fun to squash D-A-U-E-R-L-A-U-F – dauerlauf A long distance cross country ski race Take your mark . . . get set . . . now they're off! Clotrimazole C-L-O-T-R-I-M-A-Z-O-L-E Eew, an anti-fungal ointment apply liberally F-L-I-T-T-E-R-N – 'flittern' Pertains to the bark of a young oak tree A word you didn't expect you'd learn Sententious – S-E-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-U-S What do you think it means – Come on and guess! Yes, abounding in aphorisms – An aphorism's a tersely phrased bon mot like 'If you always do what you always did, You will always get what you always got.' (Mom's Mabley said that.) (Oh, and by the way, real French people would pronounce that "bone moe" but I come from the Nellie Forbush South Pacific school of Frenchified-speakin') C-L-O-G-W-Y-N – a clogwyn is a cliff An A-L-A-S-T-O-R (alastor) is an avenging deity Who knew they had tiffs? W-E-I-S-S-N-I-C-H-T-W-O Yes it is a German word Pronounced vi-snict-vo It means an imaginary situation Like competing in a spelling bee I must come to grips with the fact Such glory's not meant for me Last night I dreamed I was told to spell Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (that's a Hawaiian trigger fish) then I said HU-MU-HU–MU-NU-KUN . . . U-KU-A-PU-A -A – I got it right! That's as close as I'll ever get to a spelling bee In my dream last night So I'll set my sites on other dreams that I might attain Like mastering American Sign Language That's a workout for my brain And learning to knit a cable Something I've yet to do A spelling bee is out of reach for me . . . Kids, I leave that to . . .U-A-K-A-R-I - uakarai A tree-dwelling short-tailed Amazon basin monkey. It has shaggy fur, humanlike ears, and a distinctive bald face that become flushed when he is excited and jumps all over the place Look at that uakari monkey in that tree someday he might help U . . . A K A R I win a spelling bee