Setting the bar for the spelling bee in reverse

Remember when ‘backward spelling’ was a simple game in school which you would play at the end of class to fill up a couple of minutes before the lesson ends? In fact our parents and teachers said that backward spelling helps concentration, listening skills, vocabulary and spelling.This time-pass game is now a record breaking skill test for G Prashanth, a final year student of BSc Electronic Media at SRM University.Although this skill started as a hobby, Prashanth took it quite seriously during a competition in Class 12. “I participated in a contest where I had to pronounce the letters of the alphabet from A to Z backwards in 60 seconds. I managed in less than four seconds, and surpassed the topper in my class also,” he laughs.His days of ‘practice’ go all the way back to Class 1, when he would try his luck spelling every word or sentence that he could spot on the city’s hoardings, TV, or his text books. “I have been spelling every word in reverse from the age of 5,” he recalls. “It was without my knowledge that I have been practicing to spell words backward.” After his winning in school, the next step was to step up the challenge.Prashanth says, “After the competition, one of my close friends took me to his house and asked me to read out every word in the dictionary backward. And I did a good job,” says the 20-year-old.Not content with the laurels won at the school and college level, the young spelling champion is now out to conquer the Limca Book of Records and the Guinness Book of Records.“Entering the Limca book of records has been on my bucket list for a long time,” he says. “I have approached them directly.Once I give them few details and a press conference, I will be a spelling champion in the Limca book of Records.” Ever heard of a word that goes something like this? Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisin.If you don’t know which part to start with to pronounce it, it is little wonder — 45 letters long, it’s the longest word in the English dictionary. But guess what, tongue twister or tornado, Prashanth never seems to find a word too long.In fact, his next goal is to clinch the world record for the “fastest backwards spelling of 50 words” in an unimaginable 93 seconds! And if that’s not all, he adds, “I’m already practicing to spell Hindi and Tamil words backward. If I could do it in minimum time, then there will another record from me.” But how does he do it? “I simplify every word into two to three syllables to make it easier. For example, ‘encyclopedia’ could be divided into three syllables: En-cyclo-pedia.” After a thorough reading of the Oxford Dictionary, Prashanth picks up a medical dictionary to practice.Did he ever have trouble spelling a particular word? He grins, “Well, there is one word that I find confusing — awkward.”