Words from the Written Rounds in the Spelling Bee

The 15-16 top finishers from the 100-word morning written test in the National Spelling Bee went on to the oral finals in the afternoon. I don't have the words to give you from the oral rounds, since I was up there with 15 other spellers, but I recall some words that were given in the oral rounds. Most of the following led to errors: zerk, uraei, douroucouli, gossypol, ipecacuanha, wallydraigle, umbones, pycnogonid, ngultrum, isothiocyanate, lixiviate, wampumpeag and umbones. But here and in the next essay is the list of the 100-word morning test. It is interesting that there is a correspondence between the top written and oral finishers. Larry Grossman won both; Michael Petrina, Jr (a competitor in the kids 1958 bee) placed second in both; Scott Firebaugh and Randy Hilfman, who tied for third in the written, placed 3rd and 6th in the oral. Norman Zucker and I, who hadn't placed in the top three in the written, were fourth and fifth-place finishers in the oral rounds. This seems to be the way things generally work--Jeff Kirsch won both in 2004, Dave Riddle in 2005 and Hal Prince in 2006. The only person to break this trend was a guy named Bill Long in 2007, who handily won the written test but then bombed in the orals. I will have to talk to him sometime to see what happened.

In any case, here are the 2008 written test words, provided me by Scott Firebaugh. Scott and I are increasingly developing a friendship as we discover commonalities and questions for each other outside of spelling.

The First 25, With Comment

1. welcome--just to make us feel at home, I guess.
2. bowsprit
3. expatriate
4. translucent
5. dossier
6. inebriation. I almost misspelled this, but then I shook off my hangover (joke, everyone) and got it.
7. skep. Many missed this simple word for a hive. When in doubt, the key is often to go simple.
8. chilblains
9. tramontane. It depends on which side of the mountain you are, I suppose, but this word should cause no problems.
10. jelled. Not to be confused with gelid.
11. errant. Some spelled it as "arrant," though the latter word means "complete," and not "wandering, erring."
12. compunctious
13. liege
14. netiquette. A word we wouldn't have had 15 years ago.
15. raddled. This word rattled a number of spellers, who didn't hear David's pronunciation well.
16. primeval. I just wrote the first line from Longfellow's Evangeline on my scratch pad--if you do it, primeval is a piece of cake.
17. kith
18. besmirch. Everyone misses a word they know; one of the finalists mentioned to me how she "blanked" on this one.
19. repertoire
20. vaudeville
21. prolixity
22. rowans. I missed this word, spelling it rowens. Of course, either is correct, but the first, the mountain ash, was given to us by David. I spelled the word meaning "aftermath."
23. olefin. Trickier than it looks if you hadn't heard it before.
24. losel. This word, meaning a worthless person, could be spelled a number of ways.
25. orphrey. This word, meaning "elaborate embroidery," is to be distinguished from orrery, which was in the oral Bee.

Words 26-50

The first 25 were relatively easy. I think the widespread perception was that last year's oral test was too difficult; hence, they started out fairly easy this year.

26. purfling. Ah, lots of people missed this word, which means "to ornament the border or edges of." Hm. I wonder if the Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga Sewing Circle was influential in picking words 25 and 26.
27. spoor was next. It means a "trace," and, when I heard that word, I immediately went into my German mode for trace (spuren/spuhr), and spelled it incorrectly. Sometimes my foreign language knowledge hurts me more than it helps.
28. riffles. David and Brian didn't hear each other on this one. Everyone else heard it as riffles. Ripples of laughter arose when Brian thought it was ripples. We were secretly chucking at Brian, who otherwise is so excellent and precise in all things.
29. thwart
30. aplomb
31. insinuate
32. quidnunc. One of my favorite words in English. It is a busybody, and literally means "what now?" A gossip is always going on saying this. So, we take over the Latin and now have it in English.
33. salubrious. After the first six Princeton University presidents died shortly after becoming President of this "Log College" (including Jonathan Edwards and Aaron Burr Sr.), John Witherspoon of Scotland was called to head the school. He inquired of the trustees about the insalubrity of the climate. When once I read that story, 25 years ago, I knew I would never miss salubrious and related words.
34. pogonip. Those of us in the West have an advantage on this term--which is defined as "frozen particles formed in deep mountain valleys of the Western US."
35. sitzmark. A later speller, in the oral rounds, misspelled another German word--sprachgefuhl. I was glad to see some German this year--as was the winner, North Dakotan Larry Grossman!
36. calotte. Those French and Italian words--whether a single or double consonant is in view is difficult.
37. galloons. This one has double consonant and following vowel. Go figure...
38. rales. Lots of folks missed this. This is the "death rattle," and is pronounced "rahl" or "ral" and not "rail," which is the way I have been saying it.
39. mulct. I love saying this word.
40. bureaucracy
41. panoptic. Jeremy Bentham, the 18th-19th century British legal reformer, developed a prison in the late 18th century which he called the Panopticon--where the guards could "see all" (the meaning of the term) from their stations.
42. hydrangea
43. monocotyledonous. Its neighbor, dicotyledonous, was in the oral bee.
44. internecine. This could be pronounced at least four ways, which ended up confusing everyone, though most probably got it right.
45. atmosphere
46. pule. A great number of people missed this word, I think. Should it be formed, they thought, on the analogy of "mewl" or like "puke"? Actually, I wonder if the phrase, "puke and pule" was popular at one time to describe a whining child? In any case, p-u-l-e is the right spelling.
47. catadromous. Again, we from the NW have a great advantage in this word. Salmon, the fish that keeps getting caught up in dams, are anadromous fish. That means they "run" (dromos--the ancient Greek word for a running course) "upstream" (ana is the preposition meaning "up" or "from above"). So, a catadromousfish goes downstream to bear young. No catastrophe (literally, a "turning downward") if you miss the word, however.
48. japer. This is a confusing word, because some may have been tempted at first to spell it on the analogy of tapir, and thus incorrectly put an "i" in the second syllable. But David helped us out by saying that a japer is one who commits japery--basically a joker.
49. ombre. Not an hombre, hombre. Recall Judge Alex Kozinski, the distinguished Reagan appointee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who last week was disclosed to have had an off-color personal web site. When people went to that site this week they were told to "move on, hombre." I suppose if you had Kozinski on the brain, you would misspell this word--relating to the card game. Hope not.
50. embarrassment. None at all, if you have studied your words.

I had missed three words after the first 50--rowans, purfling, spoor. Probably a few more than the winners. The next essay goes through the final 50 words.

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