Article in the local paper:

Dictionary peculiarities derail area spelling champ

It then goes on to list words that spelling bee contenders missed. None of the words listed were recognized by the Microsoft Word Spellchecker. I thought I would share some with you.

grok

bodhran

werowance ~~ no link, Onelook doesn't recognize this one either! Can anyone find it?

"Werowance:
Powhatan word for a petty chief; usually at the village level."


I found this entry in Google.

Edit: Jerry, you and I were looking and posting at the same time! GMTA!

Uh...Jerry? Where'd your post go?

I would think that spelling bee words would have to be in an accepted dictionary. Otherwise, you could use words like (here it comes again.....) "epicaricacy." Do they have spelling bees in England, by the way?

You can't beat a B O D H R A N



Grok is an open source natural language processing library written in Java.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Do they have spelling bees in England, by the way?

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No, but we know what they are.

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Originally posted by jerry thomas:
You can't beat a bodhran.

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No, because the best way of playing one is with a Stanley (boxcutter) knife.

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Originally posted by pauld:
No, but we know what they are.

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Well, some of us might.

Blessed if I know...

Bear, a spelling bee is a group of kids (as far as I know it is always school kids and never adults) who compete in spelling words. The competition usually starts in the kids' schools, then goes regionally, and finally nationally. I was in one once. I got to regionals, but unfortunately lost on an excrutiatingly easy word: "cinnamon". Arnie would say that's because I didn't learn my Latin!

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Arnie would say that's because I didn't learn my Latin!

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The Latin is cinnamomum, which knowledge I suspect would only serve to confuse.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Bear, a spelling bee is a group of kids ... and finally nationally.

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Ah. Now you've got television, I suppose

"Grok is an open source natural language processing library written in Java." Yes, but that seems to be as a proper name, capitalized.

There's another usage. "Grok is a slang verb sometimes used by geeks roughly meaning "to understand completely". The term originated in Robert Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is used by a man raised with Martians and literally means 'to drink'."

I remember that book fondly. Does that mean I'm a geek?
And where does geek come from, anyway?

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Kalleh: "words would have to be in an accepted dictionary. Otherwise, you could use words like (here it comes again.....) 'epicaricacy.'"

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Who's doing the recognizing? I'd say the dictionary in which 'epicaricacy' appears merits recognition. Or at least, merits it more than the various on-line private dictionaries, which however useful they may be, are not vetted.

Besides, I like epicaricacy, so I want it to "count".

Me, too, Shoe! I say that we on this board go forth using "epicaricacy" whenever we can to bring it back into the dictionaries!

Those of us who are henceforth sworn to using epicaricacy at every opportunity can derive a lot of pleasure from the thought that others must be suffering untold misery by depriving themselves of the joy of knowing the proper label for practicioners of epicaricacy.

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Originally posted by shufitz (June 8):
Who's doing the recognizing? I'd say the dictionary in which 'epicaricacy' appears merits recognition. Or at least, merits it more than the various on-line private dictionaries, which however useful they may be, are not vetted.

Besides, I like epicaricacy, so I want it to "count".

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Rule 4 from Contest Rules of the 76th Annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.: "Words shall be selected from the 2003 edition of Paideia, the Additional Words section of the Books I and II of the 2003 Sponsor Bee Guides, and from Webster's Third New International Dictionary and its Addenda Section, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster".

There are also links to suggested rules for local spelling bees and to the 2003 Audio Paideia. Why don't you email them at bee@scripps.com and suggest that epicaricacy be included?

Tinman

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Why don't you email them at bee@scripps.com and suggest that epicaricacy be included?

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Thanks, Tinman. I did just that.

Aha! I got an answer; now we just have to get it into Webster's. Anyone know how to do that??? If we were in Google, think of how many hits there would be for that word!

Thank you for your recent message, and your suggestion concerning the word
"epicaricacy." We will forward your suggestion to our Word List Manager for
review.

Please note that all words on Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee word
lists can be found in Webster's Third New International Dictionary and its
Addenda Section, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster Inc. Webster's Third is the
official reference of the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.

That might not be so easy to do. Usage determines whether it's included in a M-W dictionary. And usage is shown by the number of citations you can provide. I can't find the word in the OED, so I don't know where you will find citations. Here's M-W's contact information. Good luck.

Tinman

Do the citations have to be written, or can they be in Google?

The citations need to show someone using "epicaricacy" in a sentence. Scouring newspapers, magazines and books is a common way to find them. I suppose if you can find the word used in an article on the internet you can cite it. It should be dated and verifiable. Here's an article that should qualify. Check the last sentence.

Tinman