I am interested as to whether or not you agree with Eric Zorn about his distaste for spelling bees: link He says:

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And yes, the finalists will all be highly disciplined and otherwise accomplished students. But I always wonder why we settle for what amounts to a free-throw contest to crown our word-nerd champion when we could have a veritable NCAA tournament. I refer to a vocabulary bee — an event that requires contestants to define and understand the subtleties of rich words in our language, not simply put their letters in correct order.

I think kids learn to love words from spelling bees, and surely they learn their etymologies and definitions. What do you think?

Hard for us to comment over here. In th UK they are pretty much unheard of.

Not entirely unknown, Bob. Do you remember Hard Spell, a televised spelling bee from 2004-5? I didn't enjoy it very much, as it seemed to put undue pressure on the children involved. They're certainly not a British tradition, and it may be significant that the BBC has never revived the format.

Interestingly, though, it seems that the first ever televised game show in Britain was entitled Spelling Bee, way back in 1938! (I can't pretend to have known this - it came up on a Google search.)

I'm not sure if such tests teach children about etymologies and definitions - as any Scrabble player will tell you, it's possible to know how to spell a word without having the faintest idea what it means. I don't really see much use in being required to spell a lot of words whose meaning you don't know and which you're unlikely to ever use.

And why "bee" anyway?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Guy Barry,

And why "bee" anyway?

From the AHD online (link) "A social gathering where people combine work, competition, and amusement: a quilting bee." Quite possibly an Americanism.

Extending Z's thought, since bees are seen as busy animals, a human "bee" suggests activity.

I don't see the point of spelling bees. Being able to spell is not a measure of intelligence. Lots of good writers are bad spellers. I'm not convinced that kids learn etymologies and definitions along with the spellings.

If any of you had seen Akeelah and the Bee, you might feel differently. While it's a movie, I do think it has a germ of truth to it: Link.

To know how to spell such different words, the kids need to know the nuances of their etymologies (i.e. Greek vs. Latin), and that was made clear in that movie. The students often ask about the etymology, and that will give them a hint. And of course, for those of you who have watched spelling bees here in the U.S., you know that the definition of the word is a big part of it.

I certainly don't agree that spelling bees are useless because we have spellchecks, as Eric seems to indicate, but maybe there is a bit too much emphasis on the spelling, rather than the words. Yet, I think in the log run this gives kids an in-depth knowledge, as well as a love, of words. So it can't be all bad, now, can it?

Well I haven't seen that movie, and I've never seen a spelling bee. Let me put it this way: I don't see the point in memorizing the spelling of a bunch of words - but it sounds like spelling bees are more than that.

But I don't see the point in learning etymologies either. As much as I love etymology, knowledge of etymology is irrelevant for knowing how to write.

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Originally posted by Geoff:
Extending Z's thought, since bees are seen as busy animals, a human "bee" suggests activity.

According to this article, the origins of the term are unconnected with the insect, although it may have influenced the later development of the word:

"Bees got their name by quite a roundabout route. The Middle English word for a prayer was a 'bene', from which we derive words like 'benefit'. This migrated to 'boon', with the meaning of 'a favour granted'. The English Dialect Dictionary, 1905, records the country term 'boon' as meaning "voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbours, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc".

Migrants from England to the USA would have taken the term 'boon', which was also spelled 'been' or 'bean', with them. Communal activities were an essential ingredient of survival in frontier America and the word would certainly have been called on there. The imagery of the social and industrious nature of bees was sufficient to change 'beens' into 'bees'."

Guy, it looks to me that the insect is very much connected, bees being a boon to farmer and food fan alike.

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Originally posted by Guy Barry:
According to this article, the origins of the term are unconnected with the insect, although it may have influenced the later development of the word:

I'd like to see their evidence. They seem to conflate bene and boon, two words with different meanings. I'm skeptical that boon could also be spelled been or bean.

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The Middle English word for a prayer was a 'bene', from which we derive words like 'benefit'.

No, bene is from Old English bǣn, and benefit was borrowed from Anglo-Norman (as in French bienfait).

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This migrated to 'boon'

No, boon was borrowed from Old Norse bón - which is cognate with bene, but English bene and boon had no semantic merger with each other, at least according to the OED.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

quote:

I don't see the point of spelling bees. Being able to spell is not a measure of intelligence. Lots of good writers are bad spellers. I'm not convinced that kids learn etymologies and definitions along with the spellings.

Oh well. We'll have to agree to disagree with this one, goofy. I stated my case above and won't repeat it.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Oh well. We'll have to agree to disagree with this one, goofy. I stated my case above and won't repeat it.

And I responded, so I wont repeat my response either

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Well I haven't seen that movie, and I've never seen a spelling bee. Let me put it this way: I don't see the point in memorizing the spelling of a bunch of words - but it sounds like spelling bees are more than that.

But I don't see the point in learning etymologies either. As much as I love etymology, knowledge of etymology is irrelevant for knowing how to write.

I appreciate good writing, but I am not convinced that makes spelling and etymology useless. To me that's like saying that understanding multiplication is irrelevent to understanding trigonometry. While true, it doesn't negate learning multiplication.

I watched the national spelling bee on television. It is a bit boring, but you absolutely see how they use the language of origin, the definition, and the use of it in a sentence to help them figure out the most likely spelling: if it is not one of the words they memorized. They have some extremely complicated words at the national level as well.

You can also see that, at their level, most of them have a rich appreciation of language.

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Originally posted by Tom:
I watched the national spelling bee on television. It is a bit boring, but you absolutely see how they use the language of origin, the definition, and the use of it in a sentence to help them figure out the most likely spelling

I concede that knowledge of etymology can help you arrive at the right spelling. I'm just not sure how useful that it outside of spelling bees. Of course I'm all for people learning more about etymology, but I think something like a vocabulary bee might be a better way to do it.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

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I concede that knowledge of etymology can help you arrive at the right spelling. I'm just not sure how useful that it outside of spelling bees.

It's like anything else, Goofy. It's what you do with the information. Yes, you could just learn the etymology for the boring reason to win a spelling bee. However, most kids or others (Wordcrafters?) do it because they love words and want to learn about language. So, yes. It could be a boring humdrum, but so could anything else from engineering to teaching to nursing to brain surgery. It's all what you make it.

Welcome Tom! How did you hear about us?

Thank you for the welcomes goofy and Kalleh.

Kalleh, another guy mentioned that he had seen this site and provided the link. I came and thought I would join and see if I liked it. I am not a writer, nor an etymologist, but I have developed an interest in words and language as I have grown older.

Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
It's like anything else, Goofy. It's what you do with the information. Yes, you could just learn the etymology for the boring reason to win a spelling bee. However, most kids or others (Wordcrafters?) do it because they love words and want to learn about language. So, yes. It could be a boring humdrum, but so could anything else from engineering to teaching to nursing to brain surgery. It's all what you make it.

What I meant was: in spelling bees you can use the etymology to arrive at the right spelling. I don't think that using etymology for this purpose is useful outside of spelling bees.

But let me be clear: I think everyone should learn a bit about etymology. One reason is it's endlessly fascinating. Another reason is, once you know about the drastic changes in sound and meaning words have undergone, you might be less uptight about the language changing.

Really? What about this then? Link

I don't think my statements contradict each other. You don't need to know etymology to understand the meanings of words, or to use English grammar, or to write well. I think etymology is great because it can help you understand how language changes, but that's a separate issue.

Funny talking about this in 2 different threads (my fault!). With understanding meanings, I think you are right (though I am not sure as I think about some of the medical words we use). With grammar, you are right. However, it does help with spelling.

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Originally posted by goofy:
You don't need to know etymology to understand the meanings of words

No, but it can certainly help, particularly in the case of words derived from Latin and Greek. For instance, a poster on another forum recently claimed that an "odontophile" was a person who has sex with teenagers under the age of consent. As I immediately spotted, it's actually someone who has a sexual fetish involving teeth!

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Originally posted by Guy Barry:


No, but it can certainly help, particularly in the case of words derived from Latin and Greek. For instance, a poster on another forum recently claimed that an "odontophile" was a person who has sex with teenagers under the age of consent. As I immediately spotted, it's actually someone who has a sexual fetish involving teeth!

Good point. But proceed with caution, because etymology can hinder as much as it can help. For instance, "miniature" has nothing to do with making things red, but it's from Latin "miniare" (to make red). "Dilapidate" has nothing to do with throwing stones, but it's from Latin "dilapidare" (to throw stones). 1000 years ago "silly" meant "blessed". "Nice" meant "ignorant". "Wife" meant "woman". "Deer" meant "animal". And so on.

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Originally posted by goofy:
For instance, "miniature" has nothing to do with making things red, but it's from Latin "miniare" (to make red).

Well I never knew that! Confirmed by this site:

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1580s (n.) "a reduced image," from It. miniatura "manuscript illumination or small picture," from pp. of miniare "to illuminate a manuscript," from L. miniare "to paint red," from minium "red lead," used in ancient times to make red ink. Extended sense of "small" (adj.) is first attested 1714, because pictures in medieval manuscripts were small, influenced by L. min-, root expressing smallness (minor, minimus, minutus, etc.).

It shows how false etymology can have a significant effect on the meanings of words. One of my personal bugbears is "fortuitous", which comes from the Latin word for "chance" and which I was taught means "accidental". However, because of its resemblance to "fortunate" it's far more often these days used to mean "lucky" or "happening by good fortune".

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Guy Barry,

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Originally posted by Guy Barry:
"fortuitous"

I didn't know that the earlier meaning of the word was "accidental". Interestingly, Latin fortūna is related to fors "chance".

My favourite examples of words changing because of folk etymology are shamefaced (earlier shamefast), crayfish (earlier crevise), kitty-corner (earlier cater-corner, earlier still quatre + corner), hangnail (earlier angnail, as in "tight, painfully constricted").

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Originally posted by goofy:
I didn't know that the earlier meaning of the word was "accidental".

It's still the primary sense of the word as listed in most dictionaries. This is what this site has to say:

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In its best-established sense, fortuitous means "happening by accident or chance." Thus, a fortuitous meeting may have either fortunate or unfortunate consequences. For decades, however, the word has often been used in reference to happy accidents, as in The company's profits were enhanced as the result of a fortuitous drop in the cost of paper. This use may have arisen because fortuitous resembles both fortunate and felicitous. Whatever its origin, the use is well established in the writing of reputable authors. · The additional use of fortuitous to mean "lucky or fortunate" is more controversial, as in He came to the Giants in June as the result of a fortuitous trade that sent two players back to the Reds. This use dates back at least to the 1920s, when H.W. Fowler labeled it a malapropism, but it is still widely regarded as incorrect.

I generally avoid the word because of its ambiguity.

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kitty-corner

Unknown on this side of the Atlantic - I see it means "diagonally opposite". Quite a handy usage since we don't seem to have a single word for it, although I don't see the relevance of cats myself

"It's a shame," said her hub to a mourner.
"She should spend and I truly did warn her
Her grave was too cheap
Not too wide but real deep
So the casket's put down kitty-corner."

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"Dilapidate" has nothing to do with throwing stones, but it's from Latin "dilapidare" (to throw stones).

Apparently there are ill-informed pedants who insist that a dilapidated building can only be made of stone because of this.

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Originally posted by Guy Barry:
I generally avoid the word because of its ambiguity.

MWDEU has a lot of examples of real sentences with fortuitous, none of which are confusing or unclear. MWDEU cautions against using the "lucky" sense, not because it is ambiguous, but because you might "catch a little flak".

Potential ambiguity is everywhere, but that's what context is for. Do you also avoid put down because of its ambiguity?

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Originally posted by goofy:
MWDEU has a lot of examples of real sentences with fortuitous, none of which are confusing or unclear. Potential ambiguity is everywhere, but that's what context is for.

If I mean "accidental", I say "accidental"; if I mean "lucky" or "fortunate", I say "lucky" or "fortunate". I don't see any point in using a potentially ambiguous word when there are commoner unambiguous ones that do the job just as well.

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Do you also avoid put down because of its ambiguity?

"Put down" is an everyday expression, whereas "fortuitous" comes from a more elevated register. I try to use everyday words wherever possible and only resort to the more elevated vocabulary if I think it'll make my meaning more precise. In my view "fortuitous" is a word that does the opposite.

Reviving a thread

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My favourite examples of words changing because of folk etymology are shamefaced (earlier shamefast), crayfish (earlier crevise), kitty-corner (earlier cater-corner, earlier still quatre + corner), hangnail (earlier angnail, as in "tight, painfully constricted").

Just today I read in the Chicago Tribune a reference to a building being "cater-cornered from the church." I had heard of "kitty corner" and "catty corner," but not "cater-cornered." Have you?

There are lots of alternative spellings. See DARE.

I had no idea. I did find cater-cornered on the bottom. Around here most people say kitty corner or katty corner.

We say diagonally adjacent.