Why is the 'Spelling Bee' named??? What does it means??

bee


Origin: 1768





Because they were sociable and busy as bees, when people got together to work or play in early America that is what they called it. The Boston Gazette and Country Journal in October 1769 reported that ';Last Thursday about Twenty young Ladies met at the House of Ms. Nehemiah Liscome, here, on purpose for a Spinning Match: (or what is call'd in the Country a Bee).'; There were bees for neighborly work like sewing, quilting, knitting, and paring; plowing, chopping wood, husking corn, raising barns, painting, and roofing. For entertainment there were singing bees and even kissing bees.





';Everyone has heard of the 'frolic' or 'bee,''; explained one author in 1837, ';by means of which the clearing of lots, the raising of houses, the harvesting of crops is achieved.'; In 1846 another wrote, ';They came cheerfully to the 'bee,' and after the usual amount of eating, drinking, swearing, and joking, the house...was raised and covered in.';





Thanks to the orthographical oddities of English, one kind of bee has persisted to the present day and become a formal national competition: the spelling bee.Why is the 'Spelling Bee' named??? What does it means??
According to Wikipedia, ';The earliest evidence of the phrase spelling bee in print dates back to 1825, although the contests had apparently been held before that year. (The etymology of the word ';bee'; in this sense is unclear. Historically, it has described a social congregation where a specific action is being carried out, like a husking bee, or an apple bee.) A key impetus for the contests was Noah Webster's spelling books. First published in 1786 and known colloquially as ';The Blue-backed Speller';, Webster's spelling books were an essential part of the curriculum of all elementary school children in the United States for five generations.





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