Residents of Massachusetts Can’t Spell Their Own State Name

Well, this is embarrassing. In honor of the National Spelling Bee Championships, Google Trends released the top “how to spell” results for each state. While certain hard-to-spell words make frequent appearances (who among us hasn’t needed to double check “vacuum” or “pneumonia” once or twice), residents of the Bay State search for a particularly awkward word: the spelling of their own state. Yes, we need help spelling Massachusetts.

It's the #spellingbee finals! These are the top "how to spell" searches for words by state, mapped #dataviz pic.twitter.com/rjXllJfOoE

— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) May 26, 2016

You guys. YOU GUYS. It’s phonetic. We can do this. According to Forbes, Boston is the 10th most educated city in the country. Where are we going wrong? By some reports, we have the best public school system in the country. How is it possible that “learning how to spell home state” is not an early lesson? By contrast, the pair of child geniuses who tied for first place in the spelling bee spelled “gesellschaft” and “Feldenkrais” correctly, both of which, apparently, are words English speakers use. You can see the full results below, which includes the revelation that the freezing cold residents of Alaska are probably spending a lot of time Googling vacations to Hawaii. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island, meanwhile, are clearly very concerned about which of their TV shows are coming back.

Image Via Google Trends