I have never considered myself a good speller.
I know it sounds weird coming from a writer, but many writers I know would admit the same thing.
Although I always did well on spelling tests in school, I never thought or considered myself a good speller.
While I was covering the Monroe Intermediate School spelling bee last week, I was reassured that I in fact am not the best speller.
This took me back to the spelling bees I participated in as a child. Needless to say, my room was not filled with spelling-bee trophies. Nope. Not even a single one. I can at least be happy that I made it to a spelling bee at school, but that was about it. I could spell words when I wrote them, but if you asked me to spell it out I couldn’t.
During those spelling bees, if you got a word wrong, you were sent back to class. At least, that is how I remembered it. However, that recollection doesn’t sound right. It must have been a few words wrong before being sent back to class.
I just remember being nervous and misspelling a couple of easy words that everyone knew I knew. When they asked if I had gotten them wrong on purpose, I just laughed and said “ya,” when in fact I just got too nervous and spelled them wrong. Yep. I choked.
Some of the students at the MIS spelling bee were noticeably nervous, but they tried their best to spell the words right; and I was impressed.
Some of the words those kids were asked to spell I had not even heard of.
Yet, some of competitors were able to spell them correctly, which left my mouth wide open in amazement.
With each round, the words continued to get harder. Some of the words I had a problem with included, noctambulist, ignominious, mellifluous, synecdoche, obstreperous, Bhangra and souchong.
Not only did I learn how to spell these words, but I learned what they meant; and so I will pass this information on.
Noctambulist is someone to walks while they are asleep, also known as sleepwalker.
Ignominious means deserving or causing public disgrace or shame.
Mellifluous is used to describe a voice or words, it means sweet or musical, pleasant to hear.
Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which part is made to represent the whole of vice versa.
Obstreperous means noisy and difficult to control.
Bhangra is a popular music and dance from the Punjab region.
Souchong is a type of black tea from the Fugian province of China.
I must admit, when I heard some of these words at first I had a look of “What?” on my face.
This was quickly followed by me guessing at how to spell it and looking it up on Google to see how close I was.
Sometimes I was spot on, but other times I was so far off I had a hard time finding it online.
This just made it even more clear that although I have come a long way in my spelling, I still will not be winning any spelling bees anytime soon.
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