Spell, check: Grant Taylor one of 40 to advance to final round in national bee

Lubbock speller Grant Taylor is moving on to the finals of the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee after two rounds of spelling on Wednesday.

He is one of 40 spellers who made the cut after a vocabulary test on Tuesday and two rounds of spelling on Wednesday at the bee in Washington, D.C. There were 291 spellers at the beginning of the contest on Tuesday.

Grant proceeded to Round 3 Wednesday afternoon after spelling 'lilangeni' correctly in the second round on Wednesday morning. In Round 3, he managed to correctly spell 'Parisienne,' even though he has an aversion to French words.

Lilangeni is the currency of Swaziland. But Grant did not even ask for a definition before rapidly spelling it.

That wasn't the case with 'Parisienne.' He asked for a sentence using the word, a definition, alternate pronunciations, and repeats of the word in a video sent by his mother. People around his family can be heard whispering as he struggled.

"Could you please repeat the word?" Grant asked the announcer after he heard it. "The language of origin is French, isn't it?"

"It is," the announcer said, to a sniff from Grant.

"We were all hoping he would not get a word from French. It is his nemesis," his mother, Jennifer Taylor, said via text after the third round. "But he killed it."

After he spelled the word correctly, but in an uncertain voice, he threw his hands in the word when he was told it was correct.

The 14-year-old eighth-grader from Lubbock Christian School advanced to the national bee after he won the 66th A-J Media Regional Spelling Bee in March. It's his second time competing at the national bee.

Grant will be in the finals on Thursday at 9 a.m. CDT, which will be broadcast on ESPN 2. The conclusion of the bee will be broadcast live on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday.

ESPN 2 is available in Lubbock on channels 36 and 236 on Suddenlink; channel 143 on DISH; channel 209 on Direct TV; and on 35 and 721 on NTS.