Dear Hope: Words fascinate me. They have such tremendous possibilities either for good or for evil. Quite often I encounter a word which is new to me, and I've noticed that when this happens, it is not long before I see it in print; perhaps several times in succession. Someone has said that if you use a new word correctly three times, it has become a part of your vocabulary. I like to keep a dictionary at hand.
A Spelling Bee
I never hear of a spelling bee without remembering a story from my Grandmother Kate. She was such a dramatic story teller that her anecdotes are still prize specimens in the family, still demanded for retelling, along with Mother Goose and the fairy tales by her great-great-grandchildren.
This particular spelling bee may have occurred in Ohio or in southern Illinois -- I forget whether she was a scholar or a grown-up at the time. But anyway it was a common matter to invite a competing school in for a bee, and as some noble spellers had been developed, the contests would be long and exciting. On this occasion a charming young lady stranger happened to accompany the visiting delegation and the young man teacher in grandmother's school was immediately impressed. You know the old saying, that a man assumes that his girl has all his mother's virtues in addition to all her other charms. Well, in this case he assumed that the girl was an intellectual giant as well as a beauty, and he invited her to do the honors of pronouncing the words.
The two lines formed as usual, and the young lady began with the short simple words so that the little children could be in on the fun. The lines thinned out a little, but long before the contest got into the final heat, she pronounced a brand-new word that sounded like Edge-wipe-it. The stunned spellers made try after try, combining our 26 letters in the weirdest ways and still no one got it right. They went down one after another and the bee was over before it really had begun. Even the young man teacher was so stunned that he couldn't intervene until it was too late. In those days there was never any coaching by the audience, nor help from the master of ceremonies. It wasn't good sportsmanship to ask for definitions or explanations. You either knew the word or you didn't; you spelled it right or you sat down. It was only later that any one thought it good form to inquire about this strange word, and the dimpling little pronouncer wrote it on the blackboard for all to see. She was quite thrilled that little-old-she had given out a word that put down two whole schools! It was apparently her first and probably her last intellectual triumph. Such a simple word, too -- just five letters. Ee, gee, wye, pea, tee -- Edge-wipe-it, Egypt.
Oh well, it wasn't the first time that sparkling blue eyes and shining curls and pearly teeth and dimples had missed a man. That sort of thing goes back at least as far as Cleopatra of good old Edge-wipe-it itself. -- Hope.