A bow to McNeal Elementary spelling champ

Cytolysis?

It's the dissolution of a cell.

It's also the word McNeal Elementary fourth-grader Anissa Murgo missed in the third-round of the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Bully for the 10-year-old on making it as far as she did.

Which is a lot farther than most of us would've gotten.

Especially me.

And I'm a good speller.

When I was a seventh-grader at St. Gabriel's School in Brooklyn, N.Y., I won the school spelling bee and represented it at the citywide contest sponsored by Scripps.

I think I advanced into the second round, but I'll never forget the word I missed on and sent me home.

Inaugural.

I spelled it inaugeral.

Never mis-spelled that word again.

You can bet Anissa will never mis-spell cytolysis again, either.