2005 National Spelling Bee, Essay 19

Let's begin with narcohypnia. The Greek prefix narc or narco means "numbness" or "stupor." Thus, a narcotic is a drug which relives pain, allays sensbility and produces profound sleep. Narcolepsy is a condition characterized by a compulsive tendency to fall asleep--derived from "stupor" and the Greek word for taking or seizing. Narcoanalysis is psychotheraphy under sedation for the recovery of repressed memories. We can see the term--stupor for purposes of analysis. Thus, narcohypnia is defined as the kind of numbness or stupor we feel when awakening from sleep (hypnos). I don't know if we could also use the term to describe the numbness felt when we know we are asleep but feel that we would be powerless to move if someone were to break in on us. In any case, it is a good word. "The teen's narcohypnia seemed to last a good deal of the day.."

Ok, let's now dispose of a few very quickly. A fruticetum (fru di CEE dum) is a collection of shrubs grown for ornament or study, as in a botanical garden (like an arboretum, but for shrubs). Arcology, another word of rather recent coinage, is a combination of architecture and ecology; hence it is a design theory that takes ecological realities into consideration. This leading website on the theory and practice of archology (the concept was introduced by Paolo Soleri in the late 1960s) says that "Archology, architecture and ecology as one integral process, is capable of demonstrating positive response to the many problems of urban civilization, population, pollution, energy and natural resource depletion, food scarcity and quality of life." Only thing is, I don't think it has quite made it to my home town.

Something suffrutescent has a base that is somewhat woody and does not die down each year. We can't just leave the word there without comment, however. Actually, we return to the linguistic field of the one of the preceding words. A frutex is a shrub. Therefore something "sub" "frutex" is something at the base of or beneath the shrub. The "ence" is the noun ending suggesting a certain quality of a thing. When the prefix "sub" combines with a word beginning with "f," the "sub" changes to "suf." Hence we understand the word as meaning somewhat shrubby at the base. A suffrutex is a very small shrub. Something suffruticose has the character of a suffrutex--something small with a woody stem.

I think there might be a great tendency to misspell this word like this: suffratescent, on the analogy of suffragette, which is much more familiar to us than suffrutex. But suffragette is derived from the Latin suffragium, an ancient voting tablet. We don't really know why a suffragium was a voting tablet, since the word suffragio is a "hock bone" of a horse's hind leg, but some have suggested that a broken piece of this bone may have been used in voting. We know, for example, that ostracism, (vote to) eliminate a person from a community, is derived from ostraka, a shell or potsherd. We also know that the word psephology in English is the study of election returns, where a psephos is a pebble used for voting in ancient Greece. This is far more than you bargained for, but it should help you distinguish the suffru-type words from the suffra-type words.

Something graveloent is of rank or fetid smell, while obtumescence really means the same thing as tumescence--swelling. I am reminded that oblanceolate means about the same thing as lanceolate (sharpened), and so that little prefix "ob," (Latin for to, toward, against, before, over, completely) is frequently used as an intensive. Then we have cyclolysis which is derived from the two Greek words meaning "circle" (a cyclone is something that moves in a circle) and "destruction" or "loosening" (the Greek verb luein). Thus, cyclolysis is the process of a cyclone's "decay" or "unwinding."

Conclusion--Cancellous and Laparoscopy

I can't believe we are almost to the end of Round 4. These two words stand before us. Both are easy to spell, but I want to take a moment to take each "apart" for us. A laparoscopy is an examination of the "loins or abdomen." The Greek word laparos means the "side" or the "flank," and therefore we have words such as laparectomy (a cutting out of a portion of the intestine at the side) and laparocele (cele is derived from the Greek word kele, meaning "tumor"). A laparocele is a hernia at the flank or side of the belly. The instrument used in a laparoscopy is a laparoscope. Now it is a tube for insertion into the vagina or stomach cavity. By reading the first two attestations of the word laparoscope we are introduced to yet other words. I will try to conceal my zeal (or at least to contain it) by only mentioning these words briefly. From 1855 we have: laparoscopium, name of instrument for ascertaining the condition of the abdomen under disease; applicable to the stethoscope (i.e., "chest"scope) and the plessimeter." The plessimeter is the same as the pleximeter, and is defined as an object or device (originally a small ivory or bone plate, but now the examiner's finger) interposed between the patient's body and the plexor in the "technique of mediate percussion." Just imagine a physician testing the reflexes of your knees. The finger he inserts between your knee and the thing that strikes it (another finger?) is the plessimeter/pleximeter. The Greek word plessein means "to strike."

And then, the second sentence has this: Laparoscope, a special form of trocar bearing a light by means of which the peritoneal cavity...can be inspected." What is a "trocar?" Well, it is derived from the French trois (3) and carre (side), and is a surgical instrument consisting of a perforator enclosed in a metal tube or cannula (can't have too many words!), used for withdrawing fluid form a cavity.

This is enough for one essay. We will have to cancel cancellous. And in those last two words hangs a tale.

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