Written Test; National Senior Spelling Bee 2007

The 2007 National Senior Spelling Bee was held at the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, WY on Saturday, June 16. As usual, it consisted of two tests: (1) a written test of 100 words taken by dictation by all participants; and (2) an oral bee consisting of the top 15 finishers from the written test. Thus, the written test is a qualifying test only; none of the scores "carry over." The written test is arguably the best indicator of quality of spelling, since everyone has to spell the same words. At least two people whom I respect highly have made that argument to me, and so I repeat it here. Yet, the oral rounds test a person's "on your feet" knowledge; its chanciness reflects the "luck of the draw" of many activities in human life. By giving us three "misses" before we are eliminated, the oral rounds try to minimize the "chance" factor. This essay will review the written test. Another essay will give some of the oral round words, as well as some of the preparation words on Friday night, June 15.

Susan Hartner (Oregon) and Randy Hilfman (Washington) finished 1-2 in the oral part of the bee (hence the winners); they finished 2-3 in the written test. I think this is the first posting of the written test words. They are much more difficult than the words from 2006, where all 15 finalists scored above 90 on the test. In the 2007 test only one person (me) scored above 90. The "cut off" for the final round was 58/100 right. Here are the words. I have one caveat. There is one word I got wrong that I can't now find in the dictionary--it is word # 56. If you, from my attempt to 'sound it out,' know the word, please let me know.

The Words

1. reggae
2. coquina
3. liturgist
4. subcutaneous
5. penumbra
6. insular
7. ludicrous
8. whinge
9. meteorologist
10. bullae
11. quiescence
12. fideism
13. conciliar
14. kakemono...this, it seems to me, has been used in the National Bee in past years.
15. fortissimo
16. anodyne
17. salchow...this was in the 2007 Oregon Bee, in the oral competition.
18. exert
19. biretta
20. snickersnee
21. cornice
22. impedimenta
23. strophic
24. termagants
25. glom

After a very short break, with participants asking for pronunciations, definitions, etc., we proceeded to the next 25. People seemed to ask a lot of questions on 17, 2, 14, 12 and 10, as I recall.

26. interstellar
27. hosel
28. demented
29. cred
30. nidicolous
31. sylph
32. elide
33. occidental
34. palaestra
35. guayabera
36. peccavi
37. umbrageous
38. collogue
39. yarmulke
40. sepaloid
41. androgynous
42. puissant
43. veery....this was the first word I missed. I didn't know the bird. You can rest assured that I have looked at tons of pictures of it since then...
44. enthymemes
45. capriole
46. williwaw..I got this right because it was in the written test of the 2006 Oregon Senior Bee--where I got it wrong...sometimes, you learn.
47. wynd
48. soutane
49. execration
50. crossopterygian..this word was in the 2006 National Senior Bee. I think it eliminated one of the final four contestants last year.

We took a break at about 10:00. There were lots of questions on this round of words. People wanted clarifications of 40, 38, 34, 27, 31, 35, 48, 30 and 47. I think 47 drove people crazy because it sounded so easy to spell (it is pronounced like "wind"ing a watch). The "buzz" after 50 words was that this was a very difficult test; I, for once, felt very strong. I knew that I missed veery, spelling it "viri," but I was pretty confident I had the other 49.

If the first two rounds took us about 50 minutes, the last two rounds took about 90 minutes. Spellers were wearing down or getting frustrated, and David Lerner, the pronouncer, had to repeat himself almost endlessly. It was loads of fun.

51. velocipede
52. praenomen
53. empyreal
54. peloton. I got this wrong, spelling it with two "l's"--pelloton. Of course, I should have known it. In my research I learned that it was the 7th most popular word in 2004 on the Merriam-Webster web site lookup. The reason? Lance Armstrong, leading the pack, or the peloton. Everyone wanted to know it.
55. muezzin.
56. The word sounded like "caulms"--which is how I spelled it, and I got it wrong. I don't know what the right word is. Any suggestions? Some have written me that the word was culms. I think that is correct.
57. triskelion
58. quetzal
59. wapiti
60. presbyopia....as a Presbyterian minister, don't you think I have been accused of this??
61. yean
62. obfuscatory
63. urd
64. ailanthus
65. dysgenic
66. videlicet
67. steatopygian
68. whigmaleerie
69. digerati
70. autochthons
71. euphony
72. weir
73. dudeen
74. quipu
75. phreaker...I hadn't heard this word previously. There is a whole Wikipedia article on it. Apparently the word is derived from "phone" and "freak", and it denotes people who experiment with telephones and telephone companies.

This group of 25 words took so long because of difficulties of hearing precise pronunciations, such as with 70 and 72. I noted that word 66 was used in the final rounds of the Kids Spelling Bee this year--spelled correctly by the Canadian youngster, as I recall. We are starting to get some pretty obscure words here, don't you agree? I haven't ever seen an "urd" or "dudeen."

76. hookah. I spelled it "hooka," which is one of the two accepted spellings for the term in the Unabridged, but it is only spelled hookah in the Collegiate. Thus, we have the irony of a word that we seniors were tested on but the kids couldn't have been tested on.
77. zeugma
78. thaumaturgist
79. flagitious...a word used in a local Oregon bee a few weeks before the National Senior Bee. My friend and former law colleague, Gil Carrasco, got the word and misspelled it. I then spelled it correctly. Gil then sent me a series of emails in the next few days commenting on many things that were "flagitious" all around us.
80. xenolith
81. epergne
82. hierodule
83. annatto
84. yeuk
85. proestrus
86. sinicize
87. nacre
88. rachitic
89. ouguiya. I usually don't know my Mauretanian currency, but I happened to have studied this word just a few days before the bee, and I got it correct.
90. chaetognath
91. guiro
92. enantiomorph
93. pasquinade
94. jabot
95. phragmites
96. banausic
97. oneiric
98. eulachon
99. yogh
100. cnidarian (silent "c").

Comments? How would you have done?

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