The winning word at yesterday's Scripps National Championship Spelling Bee was "guerdon" -- a word that means "something that one has earned or gained." You may be unfamiliar with that word, but know some of its cousins, like "payment," "prize," "award," "reward," or "payoff."
You might also know words like "booty," "recompense," or "accolade." Perhaps, you have run across "jackpot" or "windfall" or "trophy." Note that I italicized the word "guerdon" because it is as unfamiliar to me as Sanskrit or the language of cave drawings.
In fact, I tried to spell about 10 of the "Championship Round" words during yesterday's bee by listening to them and the "clues" about country of origin, definition, etc. I spelled one of the words correctly, and I got only one letter wrong on another.
While misspelling word after word from my mother tongue, I kept saying to myself, "This can't be happening." When it continued to be happening, and resolutely refused to not be not happening, I got angry, thinking, "Why me? It's not fair. Webster's now publishes over 475,000 words in its English language dictionary. Why was I born into such a language." After a time, I started bargaining with my television: "Just let me get one word right. Just one freaking word." So, now, I'm depressed and at least a bottle of bourbon away from acceptance.
In the meantime, I propose the following: "BE IT RESOLVED, that hereafter, henceforth and from now on, the word misspelled by the second place finisher in the Scripps National Spelling Bee -- the second best speller at that time in the entire United States -- as he or she has just spent years studying word lists and learning prefixes and suffixes, should be subject to word murder in a ceremony to remind us all that the English language has become far too ...
... big, great, huge, wide, grand, considerable, substantial, vast, massive, immense, spacious, bulky, sizable, broad, capacious, colossal, gigantic, mammoth, mountainous, immeasurable, extensive, boundless, plentiful, copious, populous, ample, abundant, comprehensive, lavish, hefty, stout, burly, husky, heavyset, fat, swollen, bloated, corpulent, obese, herculean, titanic, monstrous, towering, tall, lofty, mighty, magnificent, commodious, enormous, cyclopean, giant, jumbo, Brobdingnagian, tremendous, prodigious, monumental, stupendous, enlarged, voluminous, overgrown, cumbersome, ponderous, gargantuan, Antaean, heroic, epic, immoderate, extravagant, astronomical, prodigal, king-sized, queen-sized, outsized, oversized, elephantine, gigantesque, monster, booming, whopping, and thumpingly humongous ...
... to be of much further use. This year's sacrifice to the obesity of the English language -- the word misspelled by the second best speller in all the land -- is "prosopopoeia," a word describing a type of figure of speech. Mind you, I do celebrate the dedication of the young men and women who became brave warriors of the alphabet and placed highly in yesterday's bee. Their charm, wit and strength on national television was beautiful to watch. In celebration of their efforts, I give them a virtual "guerdon" and a poll:
.