National Spelling Bee--2005

I am grateful that things go much more quickly after this round. But we still have about 25 or so words in Round 2 that entice me. Let's begin with one that is easy to spell but interesting to me from a legal standpoint.

1. Word # 214 was vidimus. It is straightforward to translate--from the Latin meaning "we have seen." Its English-language usage goes back to the 15th century to mean a copy of a document that bears an attestation that it (the copy) is authentic or accurate. It functions like the notarial seal or a "true copy" certification today in law. The "vidimus" on the copy would mean that an authoritative person has "seen" the original, and the copy was a true copy of it. Thus a vidimus was the copy containing those words. From 1502: "We will the vidimus or copy aucthentike take effect..." Then, as so often is the case, we are introduced to yet another term, synonymous with vidimus, from Blount's 1670 Law Dictionary: "An Innotescimus (i.e., we have noticed) and Vidimus are all one..." But the word could lose the sense of authentication of a document and mean an examination or inspection, as "a vidimus of accounts or documents." Well, enough fun on an easy word. Let's move on.

2. Word # 217 was aryepiglottic. The word doesn't appear in the OED, and in both the Century and Unabridged we are referred to arytenoid-epiglottic. The word was coined in the 19th century to mean the folds of mucous membrane extending from the epiglottis to the arytenoid cartilages in the throat. These are known as the aryepiglottic ligaments. Since arytenoid was also a word in this competition, you can kill two birds by patiently learning this word. Perhaps it would be helpful to know the Greek behind it. Aryter is the Greek word for ladle or cup (the aryepiglottic ligaments look like a ladle) and eidos means "form" or "shape." Thus, something arytenoid is "ladle or cup-shaped." There are so many words in English that indicate various kinds of shapes. Scutelliform means "shield or plate-shaped," filiciform means "fern-shaped" (Latin word filix means "fern"), filiform means "thread-like" or "filament-like," etc. We could go on and on....

Let's get rid of some words quickly. 3. Repoussage, word # 220, is derived from the French repousser, meaning to "press back," and means the art or process of hammering out or pressing thin metal from the reverse side. Then we have 4. Podilegous, word # 224, is a kind of weird word, since only the Unabridged has it, and it is not very well attested online. It means gathering pollen by means of a pollen brush on the legs (or feet--podes means feet). The Unabridged has gastrilegous as a synonymn for it--another word that cannot be found in any other dictionary than the Unabridged. Well, gastrilegous, derived from "gaster" (stomach) and "legere" (collect) means to collect pollen with a pollen brush on the abdomen. I think we are deeply lost here in the word of entomology, struggling, as a matter of fact, with the etymologies in entomology. The only other word the Unabridged has beginning with "gastril," is gastriloquist, which it says is synonymous with ventriloquist. Gaster is the Greek word for stomach, while Venter is the Latin word for stomach. Oh, the borrowed words from English are formed off the genitive singluar (ventri/gastri) and not the nominative. Thought you would like to know that. See how much fun it is to know a few Greek and Latin prefixes? We could, literally, almost invent the language.

Then we can rush through 5. chevrotain, word # 227, which is a small species of ruminant mammal of Asia and Africa, and 6. terebinthinate, word # 230, which is related to or containing turpentine. You know I could go into some word origins here, but I hasten on. We have 7. maquiladora, word # 238, which is a factory in Mexico owned by the US employing low-cost laborers. The word first entered into English usage in 1978, but only because the Washington Post decided to use the word. When does such a word actually become an English word? I think that question could be debated almost endlessly, but since I am a proponent of knowing all languages, I think you know where I will stand on this one.

Let's end this essay with a word that is Greek-derived. 8. Paristhmion, word # 223, has no entry in the OED, but the plural, paristhmia, appears. Paristhmia are, in a word, the tonsils. Holland's 1634 translation of Pliny's Natural History first brought the word into English: "Amygdales (which is the Greek word for something "almond-shaped") be kernils at the root of the tongue subject to inflammations and swellings..: they be called Antiades, Paristhmia, and Tonsillae." Paristhmia is the Greek word combining the preposition para, meaning alongside of or next to, and isthmos, a "neck" or "narrow passage." We can see in the latter word the more familiar English-language word isthmus. While I was in the OED on this word, my eye fell on others, such as paristhmiotome, an instrument which "cuts out" the tonsils (first attested in 1857). Indeed, the word tonsillectomy, combining Greek and Latin, has been the standard word for the operation since 1899, but the word tonsillotomy, meaning the same thing, originated in 1876 and, bingo, tonsillotome, meaning the same thing as paristhmiotome, was first attested in 1857. We have no English word paristhmiotomy--everyone probably thought that it was a bit too outre. We do have paristhmitis, identical to tonsillitis (coined in 1801), originating in 1817. I think I am getting sick of all this nosological terminology, aren't you?

Conclusion

So, let's conclude with just the mention of one neighboring word to which my eye wandered: parisology. Sometimes the homes of neighbors look much more attractive than your own, and you get to look in them, especially if they are about to move. Well, we have the Greek word parisos, meaning "almost equal," underlying this word. Thus a parison (English word) means "an even balance of clauses, syllables.." But parisology stresses the "near" part of the "equal" and really means the use of ambiguous or equivocal words. Thus, it is like the Greek word amphiboly, which is part of the historical English- language rhetorical terminology--literally "casting (the nets) on both sides"--meaning an ambiguous or equivocal word or phrase. I sure like the patient working through words, even if we have to go slowly at times. Let's continue our journey.

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