lymphopoiesis indeed!

I said it before and I'll say it again, spelling bees are a joke!

All of the words I've been hearing are words that no intellectual would ever use in a month of Sundays. Why should people have to learn words that they would never, ever have to use outside a spelling bee?

There are plenty of tough words that are around us every day - or at least, around college level readers - that would serve just as well, and which it would be of some benefit to learn.

And I"m not just saying that because I don't know ANY of these words! The only word I've recognized so far, let alone been able to spell,  in an hour of listening,was CARYYATID.

Still, there's a monetary prize at the end of this (I mean, the spelling bee I'll be attending in August) so it's worth it to try, and good practice for next year. But really!

The commentators are giving tips to the viewing audience, which I do find helpful. For example, if you're supposed to spell a name that is a suit of armor, but comes from the Greek, then you know that the "f" sound in it will be "ph" as in CATAPHRACT.

So there are spellings of sounds that are unique to each language - French, German, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Greek, Latin, etc. etc. so if you have no clue what a word means, if you know from what language it comes, you can try to spell it by knowing what letters they use to make certian sounds.

Still, I am not sanguine for my chances for August.

CANELONE.

I've always pronounced it caneloni....

Oh, wow, I was so off. CANNELON.

Phui!.

This is going to be tough!

I'm watching the national spelling bee. Of the first 5 words...I could spell 1!

Sadly, I haven't had a chance to do any studying at all for the spelling bee I'll be attending on August 11. I did like one day, a week or so ago, and then things have been just to busy.

Hopefully I can get one task that has been dragging me down done today, then I've got 3 months to cram, cram, cram.

Well, it will be a good experience for me this year, if I crash and burn (though I'm confident I'll make it through the written rounds, which seemed to have the "easy" words) before getting the tough words in the verbal rounds.

And with a year to study, I should be able to win it all next year!

Swimming Pool Scrabble

From Toddler Approved: Swimming Pool Scrabble
A few hours each week I take off my "mom hat" to teach water aerobics. One of my goals when teaching this group of adults is to try to incorporate a little fun (while still working hard) into each class. Today I'm sharing one of my class favorites, (Swimming Pool Scrabble), and showing how to make it age appropriate for your children.

Supplies Needed: sponges, scissors, permanent marker

Cut sponges in half. Write letters on each sponge (we only put letters on one side, but you can easily make these "tiles" double sided to give you more spelling options).

Throw the "scrabble sponges" in the pool, then swim to collect all of the pieces. Both of my children are still learning to swim - so instead of making it a competition, we worked together to collect all of the pieces, or would take turns swimming out to grab a letter.

Once collected - play an age appropriate game of scrabble. With my 3 year old, we worked on putting the letters in alphabetical order, and finding the letters that made up his name - with my 5 year old, we'd see how many simple words we could form using the letters she had collected.

Throw them back in and start over again.

In addition to being a fun and active way to play with letters, this game provides an excellent way to improve stroke technique/efficiency (by having to reach for the letters) without seeming like "swimming instruction".

Let's begin with ZZZ

ZZZ - sound that imitates snoring. "Let's grab some ZZZ's."

ZYZZYVA - a tropical weevil
(And in the serendipity department, some folks in California - writers and artists, have a quarterly magazine called ZYZZYVA. http://www.zyzzyva.org/

You can't hear it pronounced at Dictionary.com, but they share this pronunciation guide:  /ˈzɪzəvə/ Show Spelled[ziz-uh-vuh]

According to Wikipedia:
Zyzzyva is a genus of tropical American weevil often found in association with palms. It is a snouted beetle. "Zyzzyva" is the last word in many English-language dictionaries.
The yellowish weevil is no longer than an ant. It was first discovered in 1922 in Brazil, and named by a Irishman Thomas Lincoln Casey, Jr. An entomologist at New York's Museum of Natural History thought that, because there was not a Latin name or Brazilian name associated with this weevil, it was probably named Zyzzyva as a practical joke to place it in a prominent ending position in many guides and manual

3 months to learn 3,000 words

Okay - my aunt is gone. The sheet rock guy who has been taking 8 weeks to fill 4 simple holes did not show up today, much to my dad's disgust, so I dare to hope that he will finally tell the guy to forget it. Then my dad can finish the job in about 4 hours instead of the 4 weeks that it would invariably take this guy. As it is, I finally have my floor back.

Anyway, what this means is I will now be able to work exclusively on my blogs - my income - and my word learning itinerary - as I've got a spelling bee AND a scrabble tournament to study for. The Spelling Bee is on August 11, the Scrabble Tournament on Sept 1-3.

I'll be posting my study progress here in the days to come.

It's not supposed to rain while you're on vacation

I'm sitting in a cabin up near Mount Rushmore with my mom and my aunt...and it's raining!

So we're playing Scrabble.

We'll be leaving for home early tomorrow, as its a 5 hour drive and we're seeing a play at 7.30...but I'll try to post at some point, on matters relevant to this blog!

Saturday I should be back to my old routine.

Again, thanks for your patience.

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.


My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.


So I'll be posting back here Thursday.


Thanks for your patience.

Wishing You a Very Scrabble Wedding

From Wedding Bee Blog: Wishing You a Very Scrabble Wedding

Lately, I have come across some weddings with cute Scrabble-inspired details. Although it doesn’t seem to be the newest concept out there*, to me it definitely seems fresher than Mason jars, bunting, and chevron stripes.

{photo via Jean Tsai}

I don’t know whether Scrabble details will be for us or not. But how can I decide if I don’t know the options? Let me count the ways…

Photo accessories:

{photo by Stephanie Ann via Style Me Pretty}

{photo by Will Pursell}

Jumbo tiles

{photo by Alyssa Shrock}

Fancy a game at your wedding?

{photo by Melissa Diep}

Cufflinks

{photo by Orange Girl Photographs via Style Me Pretty}

Invitation:

{collage by me, photos via Handmade}

Table numbers, escort cards, and place cards:

{photo by Scott Stater via Style Me Pretty}

{photo by Sarah McGee}

{photo by Jeff Wallace via Green Wedding Shoes}

{photo via Style Unveiled}

{photo by Stacy Jacobsen via Style Me Pretty}

Cake:

{photo via Sweet Things}

{photo via Cake Central}

{photo via Sweet Things}

Favors:

Scrabble coasters

{photo via Intimate Weddings, including how-to}

Scrabble four-letter magnets in a box

{photo by Julie Wan via Project Wedding, including how-to}

Which Scrabble detail do you like best?
*I have a slight hunch that Scrabble might be the chevron stripe of a few years ago. Many posts about Scrabble are from around 2009.

I'm gonna make my own Scrabble bee!

The more I've been going through my Scrabble dictionary and spelling books, the more irritated I'm becoming about what I have to learn for this August spelling bee.

First of course there's the kid's spelling bee. Now, kids in school should be learning stuff that will help them find jobs and get through life. So why in the world do they have a spelling bee that necessitates that these kids learn words that they will never, ever, ever use - even if they were Sheldon Cooper the physicist, they would never, ever use these words in any setting outside a spelling bee.

So such spelling bees are useless.

What they should do - and what the AARP spelling bee should do, is have contests featuring real words that the average, well-read person should know. And if the rounds keep piling up, then the way to solve it is to ask the speller to explain what the words mean, or use 'em properly in a sentence - something useful....!

I have the same feeling about Scrabble tournaments. How many people don't go to scrabble tournaments because they know they'll be beat by all these strange people who know words that no one ever, ever, ever would use in any setting other than at a scrabble table?

Time to remove foreign words that aren't "loan words" at all, words like "airt". Name me one American who has ever used the word "Airt." I was reading today about school kids in some town in Florida. Last year, 80% of the kids who took English tests for No Child Left Behind, passed. This year, because the grading is tougher (kids this year are expected to no how to properly capitalize words, spell words, and make coherent sentences) only 30% of kids passed.

The teachers are blaming the tests. The tests put too much stress on kids, they say, and *they* have to spend too much time giving tests instead of teaching. (I have to ask myself, what are they teaching????)

This is very frightening - we are the United States of America, supposed to be the best country on earth because of our political system and because of "plain ol' American know-how" - and our kids are steadily growing dumber, not smarter.

And the only solution our teachers can come up with is to stop giving tests to kids because that just puts too much stress on them? What happens when they have to enter college - no tests then, either? How about when they have to get a job? (Always assuming there are any jobs for them to get.)

Scary, scary.

The learning continues: Psychedelic

I would have sworn "psychedelic" was spelled "psychadelic", but I would have been wrong.

Use Dictionary.com's pronunciation function

Many years ago, I visited the house of a friend from work. She had lots of books on her shelves, of which a couple were written by Thomas Aquinas. I remarked on this, but pronounced his name Aq-kee-nus.  My friend corrected me. A - kwine-mus.  Her husband immediately took her to task - don't correct her.  I didn't understand his concern. If I pronounce a word wrong, I want to know it. I wasn't some teenager who'd get all bent out of shape, I was a grown woman.<P>

(That's the problem with message boards. Someone uses a word incorrectly, you tell them the proper use, and they get all upset and accuse you of being the "grammar police" when what you're actually doing is trying to prevent them from making a fool of themselves if they use that word at a public meeting, in front of an employer, etc.<P>

So I immediately told the husband - "no, it's okay, I need to know the proper pronunciation."  (Although truth to tell, I've never said the name Thomas Aquinas to anyone since then!)<P>

I have a large vocabulary, but  I've never heard 90% of the words I know pronounced. I've acquired all these words by reading them. <P>

So of course when I'm at this spelling bee, I have to know how words are pronounced, or I won't know how to spell them!<P>

Take for example ACELDAMA.  I always thought it was ass-ell-dah-ma. But according to the Pronunciation Recording at dictionary.com, it's pronounced uh-SELL-duh-MUH. ACHENE is pronounced uh-keen. ACHIOTE is pronounced aw-chee-OH-tee. And so on.<P>

Assault on the Bee

Turns out, the Aug 11 Bee prize is only $1,000 for first, $500 for 2nd, and $300 for 3rd. I had read the news report from last year's bee, and that was the one for $5,000. So they must have lost a sponsor between then and now.

Still, $1,000 is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is $300. I'd be happy with that.

Books I checked out of the library yesterday:

Barron's Spelling The Easy Way
Improving Your Spelling
I Always Look Up the Word Egregious
Better Spelling in 5 Minutes a Day
1001 Commonly Mispelled Words

I don't know that any of these will do me any good. These are for people who need help with "average" spelling, if I may call it that. I have no problem with that. I have an excellent memory and an excellent vocabulary.

The book I need is the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary,. edition 11, which I ordered last night. That's the book from which all the words will be taken for this Bee.

On the other hand - I have always had trouble with "connoisseur" - but I've got that down pat now. And "reconnaissance." Two Frenchy words!

Busy days...

In order to do well at the Spelling Bee on Aug 11 - I want that $5,000! - I have to study a couple of hours every day.<P>

I'm not worried about the polysyllabic words that they'll be asking during the written test - those I can handle. But its those unfamiliar words that they'll be using during the oral portion - those have got me worried. Anything over 10 letters, if you're trying to visualize it and spell it in your mind phonetically...what happens if you lose your place? Since you can't write it down to make sure it "looks right" - tragedy may ensue!<P>

My plan is to work for an hour first thing when I get up, and another hour before I go to bed - at a minimum!

Spelling Bee - August 11, 2012

I have a chance to win $5,000 on August 11 - that's the day of the AARP spelling bee here in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

I decided to sign up after going through a few of the words on the bee's sign up page - they're spelled phonetically and you have to type in the actual spelling, and it tells you if you're wrong or not. SO they were all easy and I got them all right, so I thought, "heck, I'll go for it."

So I gout out my credit card and sent in my $40 fee.

Then I came across the links to the PDFs of teh 2011 and 2010 spelling bees. The bee is in two parts - several rounds where you apparently write down the words, and then everyone who gets past those rounds goes to the Oral rounds.

And once again the writing down rounds had easy words. And my heart was singing. Then I got to the Oral rounds, and my heart fell to my toes. Not a single recognizable word.

I'd intended to go through the Scrabble dictionary from now until August 10, but now I'm thinking I'll have to abandon that and go with an actual dictionary instead, because most of those words were much longer than the 9 letter words in a Scrabble dictionary.

But $5,000 is nothing to sneeze at. I will have no problem with the easy words - college level English. IT's the hard words - the chemistry and scientific words, etc., that I've got to start studying.

Also there will be the nervousness factor. I assume that if I make it to the Oral rounds, those will be held with us standing up in front of microphones, in front of an audience, with no ability to write a word down to see if it "looks right" - we'll have to spell it right the first time.

And hopefully I won't get nervous and "choke."

I had expected the spelling bee to be easier than the Scrabble tournament. After all, a great deal of winning at Scrabble is luck - getting the right tiles throughout the entire game. Whereas at a spelling bee, it's just your knowledge that comes into play.

But they've just got to use these words that no one has ever heard of, just like in Scrabble. That's so stupid, IMHO. There are thousands of hard-to-spell words that people would use in their day-to-day lives, that it would make sense for them to learn, to make learning them for a spelling bee worthwhile. Instead we have to learn these multi-syllabic words that we'll never use anywhere else than in a spelling bee!

Ah, well. The die has cast. The money has been sent. I'll have to do my best!

Spelling Bee in Cheyenne

I don't normally look at those newspapery things in grocery stores or liquor stores (where I go to buy cheap Pepsi, mark you, not liquor!) but someone had suggested that I advertise my Scrabble tournament in that, because it was free.

So I picked up an issue and there were lots of interesting Community Events in it that I circled and will attend throughout the next couple of weeks... but I also saw an advert for the AARP Annual Spelling Bee to be held in August.

The entry fee is a bit steep, $40, but I think I'm going to go for it. They've got a website where they give you phonetic spellings of words and you're supposed to spell them for real, and I did pretty well. They were all "real" words, that anyone with a large vocabulary might know, as opposed to those stupid words that are asked on kids spelling bees, that no one has ever heard of .

So, I think I'm going to give it a try.

This Spelling Bee is an annual event hosted by the Wyoming AARP, and I tracked down their website and asked them if they'd like to partner with my Scrabble Club. It makes sense, doesn't it? Good spellers would naturally like to play Scrabble...

So, we'll see what happens....

Meet a local legend: Scrabble expert Robin Pollock Daniel

From The Star: Meet a local legend: Scrabble expert Robin Pollock Daniel
Toronto’s Robin Pollock Daniel is indeed a local legend. As North America’s highest rated female Scrabble expert she spends many hours perfecting her game. On Monday, she’ll be a guest player in the Scrabble With The Stars, a fundraiser for The Performing Arts Lodges, which helps members of the entertainment industry living at PAL Place, a residential complex in downtown Toronto.

For information, visit www.scrabblewiththestars.ca.

Q: Most people would likely call it a “word” game. Do you agree?

A: Words are involved but: to me at least: it’s more about math. Scrabble has just so many dimensions. It’s visual, it’s spatial it’s massive. The game’s inventor, American Alfred Mosher Butts, was an architect.

Q: How did you discover the game and how long have you been playing.

A: My mother always played crosswords so I’m sure part of it comes from that. But when I was in my 20s,I was in the hospital for a while and I would play with a friend. When I got home a neighbour who played heard I was getting interested and that’s when it really took off.

Q: How do you become an expert?

A: I love the game, so that’s a start. But simply learning words is a big key. You don’t have to know what the word means, but you do have to know that it’s an acceptable configuration. I can tell the level players are at just by looking at their boards. Casual players use the tried and true three and four letter words but “expert” competitors will be stringing together eight, nine often 10 letter words. It looks like the board is being covered in spider webs as the long configurations spread up and down. Tiger Woods gets all the attention and money but Scrabble players put just as many hours into their game going to websites and such.

Q: How often do you compete?

A: Well, there’s a competition somewhere every weekend but right now I’m focusing on family life and I may just got to four or five a year. It’s always a great time. There’s actually an entire Scrabble community where everyone knows everyone else. We’re very close and we even get involved in matters outside of Scrabble. And yes, there are Scrabble widows and widowers like every other pastime where some get so involved in travelling and practising they lose contact with their spouse. At the same time, there are lots of couples where only one plays and their partner comes along for the fun and socializing.

Scramble for Scrabble

From the Toronto Sun: Scramble for Scrabble
It’ll be a triple-word score at Scrabble With The Stars Monday, with Canadian celebs laying down tiles alongside some of the world’s top Scrabble players — all for the benefit of Toronto’s Performing Arts Lodge.

The 8th annual gala benefit at the Arcadian Court on Bay — in which public-spirited civilians and businessfolk pay to play — helps fund Toronto’s PAL, a celebrated retirement residence on the Esplanada for Canadian artists, actors, musicians, etc., who don’t generally reach retirement age with much of a nest egg.

This year’s event proceeds will specifically be directed toward an assisted-living care projects for aging performers with health issues.

VIP players this year include Gordon Pinsent, Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath, Naomi Snieckus, Air Farceur Alan Park, Dave Broadfoot, Canadian be-bop drum legend Archie Alleyne, Jennifer Dale, MacHomer star Rick Miller, cast members from War Horse and hosts Jeanne Beker and Barry Flatman.

As well, world champion Joel Wapnick and top-ranked North American female player Robin Pollock Daniel, will be on hand to auction off their skills.

Typically they attract bids of $1,000-plus to stand over shoulders and suggest plays.

More info at scrabblewiththestars.ca

A A A A L T and a blank

I just picked up a book called The Complete Blank Book. It is a humongous book which lists all the letters you can get - 6 of them, with a blank, and the bingos (or Scrabble O's, which I prefer to call them) that you can spell with those letters.

So, what Scrabble-Os can you spell with a blank, 4 As, an L and a T?

Easy.

ATALAYA (the blank being a Y).

And what does it mean?

Well, according to Dictionary.com it doens't mean anything.

In Spanish, it means "watchtower." (Alta being high, and laya presumably meaning watch.)