Can I have a different spice, please?

There was no repeat champion of the Frank Seale Spelling Bee this year. B was ready to go. This morning he woke up and said in Nacho Libre voice, "I want to weiin!" He had studied, but sometimes it just doesn't go your way. He made it easily down to the final 10 of 35, and was smelling certain victory, right up until the point when the caller said to him, "cinnamon." My immediate thought was, "He knows this," since I had called that word out to him before and he spelled it correctly. But then my very next thought was, "OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" when he paused with uncertainty and then asked for...a definition? And then a sentence? With B, if the spelling isn't out there in 2.3 seconds, it's probably not coming out right. I think he froze. And as he was standing there frozen, in my head I was begging for there to be a great disturbance in which they would feel led to give him a new word. A new spice, even....oregano, cilantro, cumin. But there was no great disturbance, and out came an unsteady, "C-I-N-A-MMON." His dream of a rematch with Amy Cho and somebody named Patel will not come to fruition, until maybe next year!