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The
Daily Gyro June 5, 2006 Spelling Bee All Greek To Me "[I was] thinking that I wasn’t going to get it, because it didn’t have any roots in it that I could use. But I’m really kind of disappointed, because that word doesn’t seem like it should be all Greek; there should be a “ch” at the beginning at least, so that kind of annoys me because I should have learned it if it didn’t follow rules, but, you can’t learn everything." A much bigger deal than usual was made of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee held last Thursday. With preliminary round coverage on ESPN and live primetime coverage on ABC, America’s fascination with late elementary and middle-schoolers spelling words that spell check and most online dictionaries don’t even list had never been higher. The most fascinating portion of this program for me was the etymology of these words, and how many of them were from the Greek. Starting in Round 8 with 13 kids remaining, the number of Greek words, and trying to guess how some of these words came about, made for two good hours of television. Here were some of the highlights: Exergue - Jonathan Horton from Scottsdale, Arizona asked if “exergue” comes from the Greek root “ergon,” meaning “work.” (“Ergasia” is probably the modern Greek word most of us know.) What this root has to do with “a space on the reverse of a coin or medal, usually below the central design and often giving the date and place of engraving,” still makes no sense though. Mandilion – a loose outer garment of the 16th and 17th centuries as a soldiers cloak usually with hanging sleeves. The etymology went from Latin to Greek to Spanish to French. How do you go from one dead language to an earlier formed language that still lives today to two romance languages? I assume that the root is the same as the Greek word, “mandili.” Gematrial - of or relating to a crytpotgraph in the form of a word whose letters have the numerical values of a word taken as the hidden meaning. Greek to Hebrew. No clue. Synusia – a structural unit of a major ecological community characterized by relative uniformity of life-form or of height and usually constituting a particular stratum of that community. Again, no clue. Epityphlitis – appendicitis. Only the Greek language can come up with a worse sounding word for an already bad word. Mithraeum – an underground room simulating a cave used for rites (as initiations) of an oriental mystery cult have as its deity Mithras, the savior hero of Persian legend. Persian to Greek to Latin. Lophophytosis – a contagious skin disease of fowls cause by a fungus. It looks like lopho meaning “hill” and “phyto” meaning something that grows. The bird part seems missing. Coryphaeus – the leader of a party, school of thought, or other group of persons. Greek to Latin. Collyrium – an eye lotion. This word stumped Caitlin Campbell of Amarillo, Texas, and probably every Greek-American wondering what that word had to do with eye or the fact that it started with a “Co.” Campbell summed it up best in an interview afterwards when she admitted “[I was] thinking that I wasn’t going to get it, because it didn’t have any roots in it that I could use. But I’m really kind of disappointed, because that word doesn’t seem like it should be all Greek; there should be a ‘ch’ at the beginning at least, so that kind of annoys me because I should have learned it if it didn’t follow rules, but, you can’t learn everything.” The fact that it didn’t start with a “ch” annoyed me as well. There were no Greek words in Round 10. Syringadenous – of or relating to the sweat glands – Greek elements with an English combining form. I wish the contestant had asked them to use it in sentence. There were at least six Greek words among the 25 Championship words. Dasyphyllous – having leaves thick or thickly set. So phyllo was an easy get and reminded me of the argument I had with organizers of our Greek festival over the spelling of phyllo versus fillo. -But Americans are used to seeing it spelled “fillo.” -Well that doesn’t make it right. Psittacism – automatic speech without thought of the meaning of the words spoken. (What’s the Greek word for writing columns without thought of the meaning of the words written?) Maieutic – of or relating to the dialectic method practiced by Socrates in order to elicit and clarify ideas of others. You know it’s a Greek word when you see four vowels together like that in a row. Poiesis – the action or faculty of producing or doing something especially creatively. Three vowels in an order you rarely see. Koine – a dialect or language of a region, country, or people that has become the common or standard language of a larger area and of other peoples. Probably the same root as “koinotita” (community) or “koinonia” (communion). Tmesis – separation of parts of a compound word by the intervention of one or more words. Greek to Latin. This comes from the Greek for “a cutting.” A word starting with “tm”? Unfreakingbelievable. A footnote to the competition was that while there were no Greek-Americans in the later rounds, a Greek Orthodox priest, Fr. Mark Sietsema, Ph.D., from Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lansing, Michigan, served as the associate pronouncer for the Spelling Bee. He was the gentleman sitting to the left of the pronouncer, Dr. Jacques A. Bailly. We noticed he was wearing a collar but with no beard, the Orthodox radar didn’t go off. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before ordination he worked as a linguistics professor and as a lexicographer for Merriam-Webster dictionaries. He was the one providing the kids with any alternate definitions of words, when the contestants asked for them. Other Servings of The Daily Gyro
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