Wisconsin Spelling Bee 2010

My friend Jeff Kirsch, who beat me to win the 2004 Senior Spelling Bee and who has had an impressive run since then as a spelling coach in WI, emailed me a list of non "Spell-It" words used at the recent WI championship. His student/player, Andrew Grose, won this year and should do well in Washington DC early in June. I will be pulling for him.

This essay lists the "off-list" words used in the WI bee. Most students use the "Spell-It" materials to prepare. Spell-It consists of about 1150 online words put out by the Merriam-Webster company. I will present the "off-list" words and then comment on a few. I define a few or give some linguistic "hints," too.

1. dandiacal--think of a dandy or a fop. Adjective.
2. tramontana--literally it is "beyond the mountain"- a NNE wind.
3. varus--means "angled inward"-- toe, knee, other body parts.
4. pleonasm
5. shanghaied
6. landau
7. myelopathy
8. distinguo--see below.
9. crotalic
10. floribunda
11. alation--"ala" is the Latin word for wing.
12. neossoptile--see below.
13. estragon--the same as tarragon
14. monadnock--taken from the mountain in NH.
15. phantasmagoric--sounds "Poe-ish," doesn't it?
16. luddite
17. entotic--a rare word; see below.
18. animus
19. bloomsbury--an early 20th century reading circle in England.
20. nictitant
21. oracy--competence in oral expression. Only coined in 1965.
22. pithecological--OED says this is an "obsolete nonce word"
23. ptyalagogue--see below.
24. verism--coined late in 19th cent. to describe art/writing style
25. sinistra--"sinister" is Latin for "left" or "left-handed."
26. apotropaic--amulet or other thing warding off evil spirits
27. floccillation--rare word. Picking at bed sheets. Syn. carphology (from Greek karphos--meaning "twig, straw"). Interesting is that in the main entry for the word in the OED, it appears as "floccillation," but when defining carphology, the OED has "floccilation." Another OED error! The double "l" is much better attested.
28. iridescence
29. franglais. A sort of portmanteau word.
30. holarctic. The entire northern region, describing flora/fauna.
31. satsuma
32. nummular--"nummulus" is Latin for coin or small coin. The "Creeping Jenny," in many gardens this time of year, is the "Lysimachia nummularia." Look at it again. You see coins...
33. xylophilous
34. reboation
35. omoplate. See below.
36. crebrity. Means "frequent," but "frequent" doesn't mean what you think it means. We think of "frequent" as something that happens often. That is only a recent meaning of it. The older and more "literal" meaning (derived from the Latin 'frequens') is "crowded." Milton could speak of the demonic forces ready to begin their conclave at the end of Book I of PL as being "frequent and full" (i.e., in close formation). The earliest definitions of "crebrity" in English, such as Blount's Glossographia of 1656, has a definition including both the notion of "often" and "crowdedness. "Crebrity: a multitude, oftenness, manifoldness."
37. instauration. People miss this word all the time. It is in the title of Francis Bacon's famous 1620 work, the Great Instauration (i.e., restoration, renewal).
38. philtrum. The furrowed area between nose and upper lip. This essay of mine introduces you to other parts of the head, such as the cilia, palpebra, ectocanthion, nares, pogonion. Always more to learn...

A Few Comments on Some Words

I only have space/interest in commenting on a few words. Pore over them, and you may just never miss another spelling word! I wrote these words in an email to Jeff and other people who keep up with each other in spelling things:

1. I didn't realize that "entotic" (derived from "en"--inside and "otos"--ear) was coined more than 130 years ago. In the sentence where it was first used, the author contrasted it with "entoptic" phenomena... Ah, another word for us!

2. "Distinguo" relates less to continuo than to the many Latin words, derived from law in significant numbers, and other human endeavors. It is a first person singular verb form ("I distingush"). We have similar terms as "scripsit, pinxit," etc. to describe "s/he wrote/painted," but here is one of the few 1st person Latin terms that has come our way. Its natural home is in philosophical discourse.

3. "Ptyalagogue." Note that David (Dave Riddle, the 2005 National Senior bee champ) spelled the word "ptyalogogue" but Jeff spelled it, in his list, as "ptyalagogue." Indeed, this word, I think, would be the bane of many spellers. Normally, in constructing an English word derived directly from the Greek, an "o" is used to link syllables. Thus, David's word. But here we have a "clash" of principles. "Ptyalon" is "spittle" or "saliva" in Greek, but the word to "bring forth" is "ago." In this case the "a" trumps the "o." So, it is "ptyalagogue." Another similar word is "sialagogue," something that causes spittle to come out. A similar word is "andragogy" (pedagogy for adults). Jeff, you might have Andrew learn "aretalogy" (if he hasn't already), which is formed on the same principle. Most people would tend to spell it "aretology.." In this case it is the last vowel of the underlying word (Greek word for virtue) that rules.

4. A word about "omoplate." The Greek prefix "omo," without more, can either be pronounced "homo" or "omo" (it depends on the breathing mark above the first letter, either an omicron or omega). In this case it is "omo"--an omega with a soft breathing sound appears in the Greek. "Omos" means "shoulder." The word "plate" renders the Greek "platos/e/on," an adjective that means "flat." So, the "platypus" is something with a "flat foot" (the "pus" is a weird form of "ped/pedis" which means "foot"). So, "omoplate" means, literally, the "flat part of the shoulder" or the shoulder-blade. I am glad for David's interesting observation about the various ways to pronounce it. In Greek, the word "platos, plate, platon" (adjective) is a two-syllable word. It is, thus, "plat-os, plat-e." Therefore a "Greek" pronunciation of the word is "o mo PLAT ay" while most English-speaking people would read the "plate" as our monosyllabic word. Actually, the word "omoplate" is very old in English. The OED even calls it "obsolete." Except, I guess, for spelling bees!

5. I couldn't help it...while I was in the OED doing some research on "omoplate," I had to let my eyes wander to one word below it--"omoplatoscopy." It is defined as "divination by the shoulder blade." I don't know who did this or whose shoulder blade they used (I hope it was that of an animal!--Tylor first mentions it in his great 1871 anthropological survey), but it is one of dozens of "scopy"-terms that could be studied. Indeed, the OED gives a synonym for "omoplatoscopy"--"scapulimancy." They are the same, but the first is derived from the Greek and the second from the Latin. My favorite one like this is "ichthyophagous/piscivorous" (note the "o" in the Greek-derived word) identity.

6. Only one word here on the interesting and strange-sounding word "neossoptile." It is derived from "neossos" (young bird) and "ptilos" (down or feather), and thus means "any of the soft or downy feathers of a young bird." The OED tells us that it often is contrasted with "teleoptile," which is "one of the later or mature feathers of a bird."

Thanks to Jeff for leading me to these thoughts. Now, to two Seattle Spelling bees from 2010.

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