Some B's and Other Words

In the last week before my senior spelling bee, I am compiling a list of 300 words that may not be completely familiar to me (and others) from the Collegiate. My first 110 or so words is here. This essay will, after some initial comments on words, present another 50 or so. My method here was to begin with a letter ("b") and find some difficult words. But, as is usually the case, words lead to other words, which made me detour to pages in the "m's" or other letters along the way. Thus, if you are looking for complete consistency, which Ralph Waldo Emerson called the "hobgoblin of small minds" (he actually defined "foolish consistency" this way), you will have to look elsewhere. Join me in the "b's."

An Initial Discovery

I tend to notice not only the spelling bee type of words when I study the dictionary, but also the words that cannot appear in a spelling bee. For example, when I was studying last year, I realized that they would never use oophorectomy in a spelling bee, despite the fact that it is a wonderful and difficult word. Why not? Well, because it has to do with surgical removal of the ovaries. Spelling bee officials are squeamish about words like this. Nor would they have orchiectomy, which is the surgical removal of one or both testes. I don't know why they can't use them. It isn't as if a guy who spells orchiectomy necessarily has no balls...

Well, they also avoid other words because of their moral connotation, and it seems to me that the letter "b" is replete with them. For example, boff (v) is defined in our dictionary as "to have sexual intercourse with." Definitely a no-no, since we know that this activity never happens. Also, they won't use the word boink, a perfectly good slang word for intercourse. Ah, the refined OED doesn't stoop to pick it up. The Collegiate says it was only invented in 1987. I can't believe that one.

Then, spelling bee officials normally also avoid words having to do with intoxication. Thus, we won't see blotto or blitzed, which are very useful and even funny words to describe someone who is intoxicated. Thus, let's put on our "staid" glasses and learn some words that they may use.

To the Lists

Let this be a narrative list of the words. First, we have barracoon, and then barracouta. The barracouta is to be distinguished from a barracuda in that the former is a elongate marine bony fist of the family Gemphilidae, while the latter is of the family Sphyraenidae. Ah, the Gemphils vs. the Sphyraenids. Like the Monatagues and Capulets; the Hatfields and McCoys. I discovered that a common name of the barracouta is also a snoek. The Unabridged clouds the water, however, by defining "snoek" (pronounced snuk) as 1. barracouta and 2. barracuda. Sometimes dictionaries just confuse. Where is an ichthyologist when you need one?

Well, we haven't really left the fish yet, for a barramundi is a "catadromous bony fish" of the family Centropomidae. It also, like the barracouta, lives near Australia. We finally leave all fishes when we run into basidiomycete, a fungus that has "septate hyphae and spores on a basidium." I highlighted hyphae because its singular is hypha (pronounced like the Israeli port city) and is a possible word to use. When I looked up hypha, I found this definition: "one of the threads that make up the mycelium of a fungus." Another great word. On the way to mycelium, I got sidetracked in the "m's" and before I knew it, I was thwacked by murre (mer), defined as any of a genus (Uria) of black-and-white alcids, esp. a common seabird. Pictures are here. My eye also fell on muscadet, a dry white wine from the Loire valley.

Then I remembered a word that a friend had sent to me. She is a medical transcriptionist and budding senior speller, and so she sends me medical/pharmacological terms that are in the Collegiate. She sent me chlorpheniramine, which is defined as "an antihistamine...usu. administered in the form of its maleate." I don't know what any of this means, but I am having the time of my life. On the way to maleate, I stumbled upon manille (ma NIL), the second highest trump in various card games (as ombre). Since I often read books backwards, this led me to malihini, a Hawaiian newcomer; malic (an acid); mallee (MA lee), an Australian eucalyptus; mamey (ma MEE), an evergreen tree from the West Indies; and maltose, a sugar. But I saw I was having too much fun with the "m's," and that I needed to return to the "b's." Here are a few more:

bathyal
battue
bargello
begorra
benzoyl
benzimidazole
bezant
bigeminy
bine
birl
bluet
bohea
bonne

battailous
baiza
barbel
belon
benomyl
berberis
bhangra
bignonia
biota
birse
bodhran
bolete

battalion
baize
barbette
berdache*
benzanthracene
betise
bidi
bigarade
biotelemetry
blucher
boehmite
boniato

Let me conclude with a comment on the word with an asterisk, berdache. Again, it probably won't be used because of its "sexual" connotation, but it is a most fascinating term. It is a transvestite, among N. American Indians (according to the OED). They derive the definition from a 1955 article in the American Anthropologist, where the authors (Angelino & Shedd) said:

"In view of the data we propose that berdache be characterized as an individual of a definite physiological sex (male or female) who assumes the role and status of the opposite sex, and who is viewed by the community..as having assumed the role and status of the opposite sex."

Here is a web site on the phenomenon. It says that more than 130 different Native American tribes had a special category of men who wore women's clothing, spent time doing "women's work" such as basket weaving and pottery, and held a spiritual role in the tribe. The fascinating institution might teach us quite a bit about our approach to homosexuality. The word is derived from the French bardache, which means "a catamite" or "cinaedus"-- words that no one uses.

Conclusion

As you see, I am having great difficulty simply giving lists of words that I ought to learn to spell. The call of the words --to investigate them and learn how they open worlds for us--is just too strong. Well, maybe if I lose this year in the Bee again, I will have another "free year" to study more words.

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