The feat of 13-year-old New Yorker Arvind Mahankali in winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the USA received a good deal of media attention this week.

To clinch the title, he had to spell knaidel — a word unfamiliar to him since he had to ask for its definition. That is not our own accustomed spelling, kneidl being more common in our archives.

But what good Jewish mother would ever have it in the singular anyway?