Speller's Diary III

Page 313 (I)

Page 313 (II)

2007 Senior Bee

2007 Bee II

2007 Bee III

Words B

Words Ci-Cl (I)

Words Ci-Cl (II)

Counterpane (I)

Counterpane (II)

Words D (I)

Words D (II)

Words D (III)

Egregious/Genial

Words N-O

Words O

Words O, R

Your "Q's" I

Your "Q's" II

Your "R's" I

Your "R's" II

Your "R's" III

Words Re

Words Re-Rh

Fun with "R"

Afrikaans Words

Remora

Random Words

Words T-Z (I)

Words T-Z (II)

Words T-Z (III)

Words U (I)

Words U (II)

End of Alphabet

Superior Words I

Superior Words II

Superior Words III

Superior Words IV

Superior Words V

Superior Words VI

Insults I

Insults II

Mizpah, Mizo, etc.

Karezza

Night Before Bee

One Week Left!

Bill Long 6/8/07

Random Words from the Collegiate

With just eight days to go until this year's National Senior Spelling Bee, I find myself reluctantly returning to the Collegiate, the dictionary we use, to isolate about 300 more words that I need to make sure I have down cold. I say "reluctantly," because I have far more fun learning words as I come across them in science, medicine, health food stores and the Linnaean classification system than in the dictionaries. So, in order to wage a small protest, before listing about 100-120 words in this essay from the Collegiate, I will introduce two or three that can't be tested on next week.

Beginning with "Lampadedromy"

We have the English word "lamp," which is derived from the Greek word lampos (genitive lampad-), meaning "lamp, candlestick, torch." A lampad is a lamp. One Biblical commentator in the 19th century could write about "Him who 'mid the golden lampads went" (a reference to Christ in Rev. 5). But we also have lampadary, which is an officer in the Greek Orthodox Church who has care of the church lamps and carries a lighted taper before the patriarch in processions. Better make sure he carries a taper and not a tapir... In any case, I suppose a husband can sometimes be heard calling downstairs to his wife: "Honey, I have lampadary duties this weekend. Have you washed my shirts?" Then, we have the word lampadedromy (all of these words so far, except of course for "lamp," are absent from the Collegiate; it is as if a major drama of human life is passing by and our dictionary is sleeping). The Century defines it as a torch race in Greek antiquity. Apparently how it worked was each contestant carried a lighted torch, and the prize went to the one who first reached the goal before his torch went out. Hm..with this kind of excitement no wonder the Greeks became excellent dramatists and philosophers. The definition under lampadephoria informs us that this torch race was held in honor of Prometheus or Hephaestus, two divine or semi-divine figures who had fire not simply in their bellies, as Sam Keen would say, but in their past. Finally, we have lampadomancy, which is a mode of divination by candles and lamps. I do it all the time, just after I practice catoptromancy.

Moving Toward the List

This digression should sate me, but it doesn't. While studying today I came across the lammergeier or bearded vulture. The word is derived from the German, which means "lamb-vulture." This Wikipedia article on the lammergeier tells us all kinds of interesting things, such as how some of them are so powerful and so mean that they even have forced some people to jump off cliffs (apocryphal, in the estimation of the author of the article). In any case, they are fascinating to learn about. But...I will not be learning about them, not because they don't appear in the Collegiate (indeed they do), but because it can be spelled either lammergeier or lammergeyer, though the former spelling is four times as popular as the latter.

Some day I want to compile a list of words spelled more than one way, and try to learn about the process of how such words "morph" into "one spelling" words. Take, for example, the word pipistrelle, which is one of the smallest bat species out there. It is from the Vespertilionidae family, which helps a lot of you are asked to spell vespertilian. Vespertilian is spelled on the analogy of lacertilian. Well, back to pipistrelle. The word appears only as pipistrelle in the Collegiate. Thus, it is fair game. However, when I looked it up in the Webster's 3rd New International Unabridged, the official dictionary of the Kids Bee, I discovered it was spelled pipistrelle or pipistrel. Thus, the kids can't use it, but the seniors can. Someone ought to clear up this muddle. Google has about 8X as many "hits" for pipistrelle as for pipistrel.

One Hundred Twenty More Words

With this "off my chest," then, let me give you a list of about 120 words from the Collegiate that may cause problems. You have to decide for yourself, of course, but here goes. They are not in any particular order. Let's begin wtih the names of 21 chemical elements.

There are officially 110 elements now, even though # 110, Darmstadtium, was discovered too recently to make it into any of the dictionaries. Thus, this list above represents just under 20% of the elements. I don't think you need help on gold, silver, argon, oxygen, etc.

The Rest of the Words

Many of the following words are fascinating in their own right, deserving at least a paragraph of explanation, but that won't happen now.

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