2009 Bee, Essay IV, Final Words II

The two topics I will explore here are proper names in the final rounds of the Bee and words that were already within my scope of knowledge/use. I do the latter as a sort of "benchmark" for future years. Wouldn't it be great to have as a part of your working vocabulary, of words that you not only know but can skillfully use, all the words in such a Bee?

Proper Names

I was surprised to learn that I couldn't easily find words from previous bees on the Net. Has someone removed them? If so, why? In any case, they aren't up on the Scripps website. I think it would be good to keep them there, since education, really, is the name of the game. Or is it money? In any case, I wanted to check from past years to see how prevalent proper nouns were in the past. They assumed a much greater role, I believe, in the final rounds of 2009, where at least five of them appeared. Round 7 saw Reykjavik and Anasazi. On the former, all you really have to do to learn the word is to memorize the order of the three letters in the middle--ykj. Say it over about five times, and the word is yours. Anasazi is a relatively straightforward word, even if the word is "not preferred by their descendants," according to the Wikipedia entry. Usually the Bee tries to be politically correct, so I assume they will get the hint. Of course, the Bee doesn't use terms that may have a sexual connotation (like oophorectomy), but it generally reaches pretty broadly. Round 10 had Neufchatel, a common word describing a soft, slightly crumbly, mold-ripened cheese made in Normandy, France. As if to give the English-speaking world equal time, Round 11 had Caerphilly, a Welsh cheese. All these words were spelled correctly. But then, the coup-de-grace came through a proper name in Round 15, when Tim Ruiter, of Reston VA imcorrectly spelled Maecenas. The word is the name of a patron of the arts, especially of poets, in the Augustan Age of Rome. Thus, a Maecenas is a supporter or a patron. By learning about the historical person, we might be drawn into the poetry of Horace or Virgil, and our lives might never be the same again. That is the 'hope' of words. Then, finally, a proper name won the Bee. In Round 16, Kavya was given "Laodicean" to spell. Because the Bee is held in the East, religious or biblical terms are used. Bees held in the Northwest, for example, are theologically "tone deaf," as if this area of human investigation and study produced nothing of value to the development of language in the past 2000 or more years. But the Bee uses theological/biblical terms and Laodicean is an example.

Actually, I learned the word early in my Biblical education--probably by age 18. Why? Laodicea is one of locations of the seven churches listed in the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation. Indeed, one of the verses I memorized as a junior Fundamentalist was the condemnation of the Laodicean Church in Rev. 3:16: "So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth." I liked that verse. Actually, however, my Fundamentalist mentors wanted me to learn Rev. 3:20, where the risen Christ gives an invitation to the Laodicean church, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me" (I memorized it before the NRSV version was published; thus my words reflect an earlier version). Thus, by the time I was in early college, I recall preachers galore warning star-struck and obedient-looking college students not to become "Laodicean Christians." So 18 year-olds, who were as far from being able to spell anything other than their name and a few other words, could easily spell Laodicean, for it was the kind of person to flee. Thus, if you mysteriously transported a rather dumb Fundamentalist from those years to the 2009 Bee, s/he would have been able to whisper the right spelling into Kavya's ear. Not that she would have needed the help. In fact, this just goes to show you, that unless you are quite dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge, the context of one's life will pretty much determine the words one knows. Though our speller got guayabera correct in one of the rounds, I think that any nine year old Hispanic boy who has been to a wedding knows not only what a guayabera is but how to spell the word...

Familiar Words

I was delighted that the words with which I am absolutely familiar (that is, I have used in speech and writing) were very prevalent in the final rounds (Rounds 7-16), and the words with which I had relative familiarity (from reading or general acquaintance, but not with use of the term) were also prevalent. Xebec was familiar, because I have spelled it so many times at bees; grisaille is easy because I remember reading the term in worship last Sunday in Chicago; the bulletin described the grisaille stained-glass windows. I have already spoken of wisent and reredos. All the proper names were easy. Words such as antomasia were easy, because I know my ancient rhetorical terms, and this (as well as hypallage) come from that world. A bouquiniste is simply a book-seller--familiar word. Some of the foreign words were familiar: becquerel, jacqueminot, even pogonip. Classically-derived words such as scilicet, deipnosophist (I have quoted, on this site, from a classical work so entitled), and omphaloskepsis were straightforward.

The following would have been my list of 9 most difficult words from the final rounds; I don't know, frankly, whether I would have gotten all of them. From Round 7: herniorrhaphy. From Round 8: conchyliated and derriengue. From Round 9: arrhostia. From Round 10: iliopsoas. From Round 11: amarevole, palatschinken, ecossaise. From Round 12: schizaffin. Rounds 13-16 were a piece of cake.

If I have time, I would like to review some words from Rounds 3-5..

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