Glorious one-liners from the Scripps National Spelling Bee

The 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee is, in a word, g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s. What's better than watching nervous, brilliant youths stand on stage in what's their culmination of years of studying esoteric words of Latin, Germanic, or, if they're unlucky, Hawaiian origin?

Two-hundred eighty-three regional champions competed Wednesday in two preliminary rounds, resulting in some excellent exchanges between the contestants and pronouncer Dr. Jacques Bailly, who won the bee in 1980 and is clearly a celebrity to many of the contestants.

Only 214 made it through both preliminary rounds and await their test scores to see if they'll be moving onto the finals. In the process, everyone provided a bit of entertainment. Some contestants were confident, some were clearly terrified, and the best were exceedingly sassy. Here were some memorable exchanges of the day:

"Before I start spelling, I just want my mom to take a deep breath for a moment," Mitchell Robson, who correctly spelled Pythagorean, joked before his turn.

When hearing his word, quaquaversal, Joshua Mason joked, "Can I buy a vowel?"

Eugene Lee spoke his mind when he heard his elaborately pronounced word: "Crikey!"

Gerardo Amaro tried to trick the pronouncer into giving him a leg up when, after being assigned the word hypsometry and asking its origin and definition, he said nonchalantly, "How do you spell it?"

Bill Gerdan's response to word risorgimento? "Gesundheit!"

While no one on stage seemed to acknowledge its pop-culture significance, the Twitterverse had a chuckle when Mary Jo Johnson was assigned the word phalanges, one popularized by the TV show Friends.

Dr. Bailly, who seemed both respectful and amused by this year's spellers, often greeted contestants by saying, "howdy," putting a smile on many nervous faces. He also offered up some humorous sentences when asked to put words into context. A sampling:

"Henry hates it when people call him bellicose, and if they had a second he would gladly say why he carries a crossbow and wears war paint whenever he leaves the house."

"Prince Harry was glad Kate did not name the royal baby Plantagenet, and instead went with Charlotte." (Paraphrased)

She thought her date was farouche before "realizing he was reading a Buzzfeed list about Disney princesses." (Paraphrased)

"Max shouted, 'Eureka!' when he finally found the channel he was looking for in the upper 500s of his satellite TV system."

"While the hotel tried to help the weary traveler, he could not accommodate his request to be hand fed grapes by room service."

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