2008 Kids Spelling Bee--First Essay

At the end of four rounds 45 of the original 288 spellers, the largest group ever to enter the Scripps National Spelling Bee, remain. I am following the fortunes of the girl from ND, coached by Jeff Kirsch. Jeff, a colleague and friend, beat me (he got 1st; I was 2nd) at the National Senior Bee in 2004. Jeff and I keep up with each other; he is a determined, disciplined student of words and coach. Last year his student tied for third in the Bee; this year Catherine "Cat" Cojocaru can get no lower than 45th. In fact, if 15 spellers miss a word in the next round, then all of them will be tied for 31st. Of the 45 who remain, one is from AZ, one from AR, five are from CA, seven from Canada, one from CO, two from CT, four from FL, two from IL, two from IN, one from Jamaica, one from KS, one from MA, one from MI, one from ND, one from MO, three from NY, one from NC, two from OH, two from PA, two from SC, one from TN, one from TX, one from VA and one from WV. All can be very proud of their accomplishments. It seems, however, that I should be able to have a "market for coaching" in the NW, if I wanted one, since no one from the OR, WA, ID made it to the semifinal round. Well, let them find me...

Words from the First Four Rounds

The first round consisted of a 25-word written test. Then, in Round Two, every speller got to spell one word orally. Those who had missed more than the specified number in Rounds One and Two combined would be eliminated after the second round. Only about 85 or so spellers, then, competed in Round Three. I would like to highlight in this and the next two essays some of the words from those four rounds which I thought either were tricky or which repay further exploration. When they are considered in the context of the Bee they go by so quickly; more mature consideration of them will yield lots of benefits.

From the round of 25 words, the only four that require comment are galimatias, beignet, Appaloosa, and cacoethes. You can see the other 21 words here. From Round Two, where each of the 288 spellers got his/her own word, the following should be studied: sicklocyte, quadrifid, normothermia, geanticline, creekology, incisiform, metachrosis, tetrapterous, frabjous, fratority, androcracy, tubulifloral, movimento, pegador, thimblerig, zoism, osoberry, facticide, agrostologist, brontide, sabermetrics.

For the rest of this essay I will go through some of these.

Round One

1. Galamatias is tough, but if you realize it comes from the same root as gallimaufry, you might get it correct. Actualy is is a word that first emerged in English in a translation of Rabelais (who else?) in 1653: "A Galimatia of extravagant conceits." Galamatias means "confused language, meaningless talk, nonsense." From 1824: "Now it seemed to me that Mr. C___ had no opinions, only words, for his assertions seemed a mere galamatias." Gallimaufry is a "confused jumble, a riduclous medley." The major confusion would be whether to have one or two "l's." Fortunately this was in the written round; one error won't sink anyone.

2. A beignet (BI nyay) is, simply, a fritter. The place most famous for them in the United States is the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. Here is a picture of their famous beignet. Here is a description of other kinds of beignets, which, as the article says, are a "choux pastry" in France, similar to the Italian zeppole. Aren't you glad that you are learning the world one word at a time?

3. I put Appaloosa here as a difficult word because of the possible confusion regarding single or double consonants. Any horse lover knows how to spell it, however. It simply illustrates my point that every word is trivially simple to someone--and that ought to encourage us in our quest.

4. Finally, cacoethes probably slipped up many people but, for me, it is a simple word. Why? For two reasons. First, it is composed of two electric classic Greek terms, meaning "evil" and "manner of life" or "character" and second, it was taken over by Juvenal in Roman times and connected with a phrase cacoethes scribendi to point to the "evil" of writing a lot--something that hits close to home... Thus, it began as an evil habit. But then, Juvenal used it in the phrase insanabile scribendi cacoethes (Satires 7.52)-- a morbid propensity for writing; an itch for authorship. Addison uses the phrase well in 1713: "Juvenal terms [this distemper] a Cacoethes, which is a hard word for a disease called in plain English, 'The itch of writing.' This Cacoethes is as epidemical as the small pox." Those of us "blessed" with this mixed blessing might differ with Addison's assessment of its value..

Another phrase using the term is cacoethes loquendi, "a mania for talking; a morbid desire for gossip or speechmaking." I am sure we can all imagine people to fit the "bill" here. We also have in English cacoepy--"evil speech" or, more properly, incorrect pronunciation. It stands in contrast to orthoepy, "right speech."

Conclusion

Let's conclude with a "fun" word from the next round: thimblerig. At first this looks like therblig, the word coined by efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth in 1921 (his name almost spelled backwards), and signifying a unit of labor. But thimblerig is a "swindling game usually played with three thimbles and a pea." Well, you get the hang of it I am sure. The pea is manipulated, placed under one of the thimbles by sleight of hand, and the poor hapless guesser always picks the wrong thimble, thereby losing his shirt in the process. So, the "manipulation with cups and balls" is called thimblerig. The person who performs this swindling is called a "sharper." Ever since 1681 a sharper has been a "cheat, swindler, rogue," especially in games. A synonym from that period is shark, which is the word we still use today.

Let's continue with Round Two words.

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