It’s been a full day of spelling at the Scripps National Spelling Bee over at the National Harbor, as the 278 participants compete to make it to the semifinals tomorrow.

Six-year-old Virginia local Lori Anne Madison had little trouble spelling “dirigible” this morning, reports the Post, while D.C. speller Tuli Jahan Bennett-Bose nailed “imperilment.” (Topical sentence that could be used but probably wouldn’t be if requested: “Mayor Vince Gray finds himself in a state of imperilment after giving Sulaimon Brown money to attack Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail.)

The AP’s Ben Nuckols has been on hand all day—he’s live-tweeting the early rounds—and he filed a dispatch:

Samuel Estep of Berryville, Va., also a finalist last year, spelled “tahini.”

Among the words that tripped up spellers Wednesday morning: “limpid,” “dragoon” and “maraud.” Twenty-five words were misspelled in the morning round.

Displays of emotion were mostly muted, but Reid FitzHugh of Rockville, Md., clenched both fists after getting “ocarina,” a flute-like instrument. Michael Reiner of Salem, Ohio, struggled with the pronunciation of “fete” before spelling it correctly and gave an emphatic fist pump before rolling his wheelchair away from the microphone. And Lena Greenberg of Philadelphia sprinted back to her chair and buried her face in her hands after spelling “jong,” a South African word for friend.

The scores from today’s rounds will be added to a 50-word computerized test that every contestant took yesterday, and by tomorrow only 50 spellers will remain for the semifinals.