New Spelling Champ, Sing'pore

Spelling Championship Singapore
The RBH-Straits Times National Spelling Championship 2013—supported by the Ministry of Education and the National Library Board (snacks provided by Nestle).
         Last year's final run-down of words that separated the sheep from the goats in the same Championship had been quite unknown to this native speaker. This year the selection seemed to have been less abstruse, at least for a university educated bibliophile.
         Eponymous
         Percolator
         Zephyr
         Would it be five percent of adult native speakers of English who would both know the meaning of the words and also their spelling? The winning, crucial word that proved decisive in this year's Championship was Pescatarian.
         Those conversant in Latin, Italian and astrology would have a distinct advantage. This year's young winner here needed to challenge the judges on the admissible variant spelling not once, but twice. Both the OED and Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary recorded "pescatarian". The lad however had a good memory. Politely requesting a further check with another authority, the American derivation in the Merriam-Webster vindicated the chappie. Young twelve year old still in Primary Six.