Anurag Kashyap with the winner's cup at the 2005 U.S. National Spelling Bee
Posted on 05/11/2006 12:22:04 PM PDT by Incorrigible
BY VICKI HYMAN
This year -- in June, in fact -- millions of Americans may be exposed to odontalgia, vivisepulture, xanthosis or succedaneum.
The spelling bee, that quaint American folk tradition turned high-stakes Ironman for underage etymologists, has hit the big time. ABC plans to broadcast the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee live in prime time for the first time. Code red for logorrhea (excessive wordiness).
Orthographers may one day look back on this as the golden age of competitive spelling. In the last six years, spelling has spawned a well-regarded 2000 novel by Myla Goldberg called "Bee Season" (made into a film last year starring Richard Gere), the 2002 Oscar-nominated documentary "Spellbound" and last year's upstart musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," which moved to Broadway faster than you can spell "prospicience." This month, the movie "Akeelah and the Bee" has charmed critics and filmgoers alike.
It's ironic that this coincides with the elevation of digital communication, which values speed over accuracy and has popularized slang spellings, like "skillz" and "kewl," and an increasing reliance on text-checking software, including the all-powerful spellchecker (which, not incidentally, did not recognize "prospicience," the winning word in the 2002 bee, but did approve of "kewl").
"Students don't even recognize mistakes," complains B.J. Ward, a poet who teaches composition and literature at Warren County Community College in Washington, N.J.
He had just graded a paper on which the student apparently didn't know how to spell "minute," but the spellcheck was more than happy to oblige with a suggestion. He quotes from the paper: "John and Ted went into the bathroom for a full two minuets."
Spelling, sadly, is no different from basketball or soccer: For many Americans, it's purely a spectator sport.
ESPN initially recognized the genuine theater in competitive spelling in 1994, and the footage proved popular, these unlikely athletes in neat polos and chinos, sweating and straining over "smaragdine" and "syllepsis," tripped by "trichotillomania," felled by "flammulated," conquering with "coelostat."
"It's children versus the dictionary, and it's very dramatic because it all hinges on a single incorrectly uttered letter," says bee director and former competitor Paige Kimble, who lost the 1980 championship because of an improper "s." (She took the title the following year.)
To coincide with the 2006 Bee, the publisher Rodale will release James Maguire's new book, "American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds" ($24.95), which offers a fascinating history of spelling bees (in 1877, an informal orthological contest between two women devolved into a wrestling match and jail time after an ill-considered "I told you so").
Maguire also profiles former bee champions and up-and-comers.
"Spelling, at this level, is about far more than recitation," he writes. "It's about understanding how the language is built, and how the history of English created this eccentric patchwork called modern spelling. It's about all the skills that further literacy: voracious reading, a sprawling vocabulary, even knowledge of grammar."
Says Kimble: "Good spelling is almost a personality trait. Good spelling communicates to people that you're intelligent, that you're well-educated, that you care about detail and quality in your work."
Good spellers, it stands to reason, have high verbal SAT scores. But a study at the University of Pittsburgh found that programs that check spelling and grammar actually resulted in sloppier work by "verbally armed" students because they put too much trust in the software.
When Microsoft's spellchecker finds a word it doesn't recognize, it displays a list of similarly spelled words with the most likely match highlighted. It does offer a caution: The contents of the list are determined only by spelling, so any instances of terms that seem inappropriate in context are completely coincidental.
There are about 200,000 words in Microsoft's lexicon, selected for frequency of use and pulled from a range of historical, governmental, cultural, academic, professional and personal resources. To include more words would make the program less effective, a company spokeswoman says, emphasizing that the text-checking software is just a tool.
Surveys conducted by the National Commission on Writing, established by the College Board, has found that a third of employees in America's blue-chip companies and a third of state government workers have below-standard writing skills. Remedial writing training costs state governments about $250 million a year and corporations $3.1 billion.
It's not just spelling; it's grammar, punctuation and overall clarity, or lack thereof, combined with the decline of proofreading.
Phil Jamieson is the president of www.ProofreadNOW.com, which has 150 language experts on staff to service marketing and ad agencies and other companies. He offered up this example, written by an employee of a major investment banking firm about computerizing doctors' offices: "The patient arrives at the physician's waiting room with an automated kiosk."
Darcy Gioia is the associate director in charge of scheduling, placement and testing for the Rutgers Writing Program, which provides instruction to more than 11,000 students each year. She believes students are becoming better readers, but they do rely on spellcheck too much, and she especially dislikes programs that automatically correct common errors. She's often struck by the inappropriate use of apostrophes, as in, "He see's the pretty bird." There's an in-joke among her colleagues: "It's English as another language."
Retired college professor Michael Strumpf, who co-wrote "The Grammar Bible: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Grammar but Didn't Know Whom to Ask" (Owl Books, $18 paperback) and who started the first national grammar telephone hot line, says that proper expression has been in decline for decades and worries about the influence of television. He says he just heard a meteorologist on a major news network proclaim that flooding was bad in one area, but in another area, "it was worser."
And while we're on the subject, let's consider the influence of reality television. Once upon a time, trained writers put words into the mouths of actors. Now, anyone with enough ambition and self-delusion (and not nearly enough pride) can become, if only briefly, TV stars. The English language may never recover.
"Reality television has in common with instant messaging and chat-room speak the lack of craft, the lack of contemplation," Ward says. "You're not only learning the mechanics of bad language, but imprecise language becomes acceptable. You're not really using your vocabulary like a scalpel anymore. More like an oversized mallet."
REWRITING MASTERPIECES
The beginning of Charles Dickens' classic "A Tale of Two Cities" -- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" -- is considered one of the greatest opening lines in literature.
Microsoft's grammar checker considers it a run-on sentence.
Certainly text-checking software has saved many a writer from embarrassing typos, repeated words, incorrect subject-verb agreement and passive voice. It flags possible problems by performing a comprehensive analysis of the text, focusing on the types of problems that are more frequent.
Feed it some Faulkner and it would probably implode.
Here's a sampling of the opening sentences of some of literature's greatest works, followed by advice from Microsoft's automated language arbiters:
"Call me Ishmael." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick."
Flagged: Ishmael. Not in dictionary. Change to "Fishmeal."
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." -- Franz Kafka, "The Metamorphosis"
Flagged: Gregor. Not in dictionary. Change to "Groggier."
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. -- Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice."
Flagged: Man. Gender-specific expression. Consider replacing with person, human being or individual.
"A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter."
Flagged: Grey. Consider greys. Subjects and verbs must agree in person and number.
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." -- J.D. Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"
Flagged: Entire sentence. Consider revising. Very long sentences can be difficult to understand.
May 10, 2006
(Vicki Hyman is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. She can be contacted at vhyman@starledger.com) \
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Eye kin spill just fien.
Kewl!
Anurag Kashyap with the winner's cup at the 2005 U.S. National Spelling Bee
It's too late. I'm already here! :-)
Pnig.
Spelling okay
This is a great thing! Heretofore all our spectator entertainment has been dollar-soaked quiz shows, multi million dollar sports prima donnas jumping around a playing field and various other pointless and non-edifying spectacles.
At last we can view role models, albeit young ones, that can push our thoughts and ambitions in a more productive direction.
I know I'm going to be ridiculed here. I'm always funniest when I try to be serious.
The spieling police? R u cereal? FR say dis spieling be okay. U gotta problem, spieling police?
That is exactly what I was going to post. But you got it at Post #2. u ar quik!
It is all about self-esteem in our government run, socialistic educational system; not, individual academic excellence.
I was a spelling bee habitue through my public-school years. My mother says they were hair-raising for her, but I seemed to like 'em just fine.
(For the curious, the furthest I ever got was in sixth grade, where I took fifth in state.)
I'll admit that I am a spelling snob. I am NOT a good speller. I have never been a good speller. However, the importance of spelling correctly and the perception it gives is something I did learn. I have a Follett Vest-Pocket 50,000 Words Divided and Spelled right here by the computer. I use it a lot along with a dictionary. Most of the time I am looking at a word that I actually did spell correctly but for some reason it looks wrong.
I cannot stand getting letters from "professionals" with obvious spelling errors. Do these folks not even have someone proof their work before it goes out? In my case the letters have come from teachers and pastors and it is just horrifying.
Now, I can't wait for my children to get old enough to diagram sentences so I can relearn some sentence structures that I have forgotten also.
I know first hand, working in the public school system here: Whole Language Curriculum has ruined our children, Spiral Math Curriculum has done the same with math!
European Union's Official Language
New EC Regulations
The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish": --
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil sevants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.
By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
http://jewel.morgan.edu/~salimian/humor/humor_046.html
There are many skills that have been critical to prospering over the course of the existence of mankind. These include hunting, tracking, farming, weather forecasting, fighting off attackers, etc. Most of these have declined in importance with the advancement of society. Not every person needs to be able to sew their own clothes, or grow their own food, or fight indians.
Spelling, at one time, was a critical skill to communicating effectively. Using a PC, spelling is less important. Creating an intelligent final product is far more important. Spelling is only important in support of this goal. One, who is not a great speller, can still create intelligent documents if he knows how to effectively use technology. The effective use of technology may be a more valuable skill that the basic skill of spelling.
Einstein may have been a genius, but I bet I could clean his clock when it comes to writing SQL. What is considered important is constantly changing.
An average writer who can make great use of a web site, search engines, site links, and other communications technology will likely be able to communicate with millions more people than a great writer with NO technological skills.
This would be a great one to start with.....
Did it run on that long?
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