supercilious daiquiri
March 20, 2012 6:59 AM   Subscribe

Who wants to be in a spelling bee? Tricky and difficult are neither, but fiendish is a way to spend too much time. It does have quite a few words adopted into English, but everyone should know how to spell burrito.
posted by freshwater (57 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I heard "inflammation" as "information" and "eighth" as "ape". I need to get my ears checked.
posted by King Bee at 7:09 AM on March 20, 2012


Indite is spelled indict? I had no idea.
posted by omnikron at 7:13 AM on March 20, 2012


14/15 on Fiendish.

Fucking onomatopoeia. AARGH.
posted by flippant at 7:17 AM on March 20, 2012


Okay they need to provide some context to avoid problems with homophones. I was given "catarrh" but assumed they meant "Qatar." The two words have identical IPA spellings in the Oxford American dictionary, so it's not just my ears. Not that I had the foggiest idea how to spell "catarrh," of course.
posted by jedicus at 7:20 AM on March 20, 2012


Needs 'use in a sentence' or 'definition' options, as others have said, because some of the recordings of the pronunciation are really bad.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:23 AM on March 20, 2012


Yeah, I agree. I almost misheard two of them and DID mishear "wondrous" as "laundress".

Also, I apparantly have two spelling problems: Adding double consonants where there are none, and putting C where there is an S.
posted by muddgirl at 7:25 AM on March 20, 2012


I'm right there with you, muddgirl.

But I can spell "burrito" like nobody's business.
posted by flippant at 7:27 AM on March 20, 2012


Haha, the person actually said "vacuum" with three syllables. That's hilarious. "Vak yer womb!"
posted by Jehan at 7:29 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


I heard cocky. She said khaki. There's a moral in here somewhere.
posted by noyb42 at 7:32 AM on March 20, 2012 [4 favorites]


I somehow misconstrued salmon as summon, and, despite knowing better, got graffiti wrong.
posted by misteraitch at 7:40 AM on March 20, 2012


Wow, so "flaksid" was "flaccid." I've never heard it pronounced with a hard c before.
posted by griphus at 7:40 AM on March 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


I heard cocky. She said khaki.

Same thing happened to me. In retrospect I should have wondered why I was being asked to spell "cocky" on the fiendish difficulty level. Not that I would have ever figured out it was really khaki. I probably would have guessed some psuedo-French nonsense like "cocqui."
posted by jedicus at 7:41 AM on March 20, 2012


Are the US English sound samples from native US speakers? Because man, those are some bizarre accents.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:43 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


On the easier levels she said "idol" and I assumded "idle," and there was one other exact homophone I'm not remembering. On Fiendish, it turns out that "gym-kata" is not a word they're testing you on, so don't guess that.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:43 AM on March 20, 2012


12/15. I had "cloying" for "chlorine," "jincama" for "gymkhana" (I was thinking of "jicama," apparently) and "dessicate" for "desiccate."

Also, it followed up "synagogue" with "sacrilege" which was hilarious.
posted by griphus at 7:45 AM on March 20, 2012


I did better on the British version than the American. I don't know if it was growing up hearing my mother's English accent or reading too many Victorian novels or probably watching too much Masterpiece Theatre. Or theater.
posted by Isadorady at 7:45 AM on March 20, 2012


Hey, does anyone else remember all the words they've ever misspelled in a spelling bee? This is a fun game to play in bars.

3rd grade: "alley" (that stupid e!)
posted by muddgirl at 7:55 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


My first word on US English fiendish difficulty was something that sounded like 'bodgy' or 'baudgie'. When it was over they showed me 'bhaji' ("oh. of course," I said) and told me to click on any words I missed to get the definitions. I clicked and got this which informed me (though kind of obliquely, I must say) that bhaji is apparently 'Page not found' in some language other than English. This will help me in the future.
posted by komara at 7:57 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Fifth grade: Separate. I now say "a rat" every time I spell it.
posted by Isadorady at 7:58 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Seventh grade: Caffeine.
posted by griphus at 7:59 AM on March 20, 2012


I heard "anomie" where she said "bonhomie", natch.
posted by chavenet at 8:00 AM on March 20, 2012 [4 favorites]



My first word on US English fiendish difficulty was something that sounded like 'bodgy' or 'baudgie'. When it was over they showed me 'bhaji' ("oh. of course," I said) and told me to click on any words I missed to get the definitions. I clicked and got this which informed me (though kind of obliquely, I must say) that bhaji is apparently 'Page not found' in some language other than English. This will help me in the future.

It is a type of Indian bread eaten in Indian takeaways in the UK.
posted by Isadorady at 8:01 AM on March 20, 2012


Fifth grade: Redundancy. I spelled it redundundancy. In hindsight, my spelling was much more true to the spirit of the word. The judges should have waved me through.
posted by mochapickle at 8:02 AM on March 20, 2012 [4 favorites]


7th grade: amenable. I spelled it ameniable. Now I overuse the word.
posted by chavenet at 8:04 AM on March 20, 2012


Things I didn't know:

chamois is "shamwah" not "shammy"
languor is "langger" not "langwer"
eczema is "exzimma" not "exma"
"restauranteur" has no "n"
tourniquet is "turnikay" not "tornikay"
karaoke is "karoky" not "karrioky"
oeuvre is "urvrah" not "oovrah"
"dykery" is not a real word (though it should be!)
posted by Jehan at 8:09 AM on March 20, 2012


> It is a type of Indian bread eaten in Indian takeaways in the UK.

I did figure that out immediately after, thanks to a general Google search. I wasn't asking for definitions for bhaji so much as pointing out it's a strange word to have in the US English section. I mean I like Indian food, I know how to spell saag paneer and naan and vindaloo but I don't recall having ever seen bhaji here in the US.
posted by komara at 8:09 AM on March 20, 2012


oeuvre is "urvrah" not "oovrah"

Really? I've always heard it pronounced "oove."
posted by griphus at 8:10 AM on March 20, 2012


Hey, does anyone else remember all the words they've ever misspelled in a spelling bee? This is a fun game to play in bars.

The one I remember most is the Christmas spelling bee from when I was in grade 3. We got the list in advance, and we had to write down the words to the best of our ability, then go home and get our parents to help us spell them, then study them. I lost the spelling bee because I couldn't spell Rudolph.

The problem arose because my father's middle name is Rudolf, so we assumed that was the correct spelling.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:12 AM on March 20, 2012


Huh. This game taught me that "supercede" is widely considered to be a mispelling.
posted by phaedon at 8:13 AM on March 20, 2012


Huh. This game taught me that "supercede" is widely considered to be a mispelling.

I see what you did there.
posted by chavenet at 8:18 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Eighth grade. After several sudden-death matches between me and the other guy in my class who kept getting perfect scores on the written test prior to the middle school spelling bee, he finally got me on assassin. Never forget, two asses.
posted by emelenjr at 8:18 AM on March 20, 2012


Tricky and difficult are neither

So you're an idiot if you don't ace 'difficult'?
The post would be better without that.

That said, if the audio had pronounced 'mackerel' with three syllables instead of two, I wouldn't have spelled it 'macro'
posted by rocket88 at 9:01 AM on March 20, 2012


14/15 on Fiendish, with the valuable new knowledge that I have apparently been misspelling 'meringue' all my life. Well, if I have ever had occasion to spell it before, which I probably have not.

I got both 'titillate' and 'oscillate,' which reminds me:

How do you titillate an ocelot? Oscillate its tit a lot.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:14 AM on March 20, 2012


I've never heard "flaccid" pronounced "flaksid" in my life, but... there it is as the only pronunciation.

Hey, does anyone else remember all the words they've ever misspelled in a spelling bee? This is a fun game to play in bars.

There were two of us left in the regional finals. The winner would go to nationals. I only remember that it was a word no one I asked afterward (including my parents) had heard before, and the winner won with "albatross."
posted by cmoj at 9:34 AM on March 20, 2012


I've never heard "flaccid" pronounced "flaksid" in my life, but... there it is as the only pronunciation.

The Oxford American has the pronunciation as "fla(k)səd". So the hard c is optional.
posted by jedicus at 9:42 AM on March 20, 2012


15/15 on Tricky and Fiendish. Didn't seem that hard, but as others have said, the pronunciations were what made it interesting.

In 7th grade, I finished second in the county spelling bee; the word I missed was "reboant". The winner got to go the the National Spelling Bee; as the runner-up, I got a 12" black-and-white tv. That never really made sense to me.
posted by mogget at 9:51 AM on March 20, 2012


Never forget, two asses.

The worst play I ever saw in my life contained the following line. Ahem:

"Ass. Ass. Sin. Nation. Ass. Ass. Sin. Nation. Hear the ASS in there? And the SIN? And WHAT ABOUT THE NATION?"
posted by davidjmcgee at 10:36 AM on March 20, 2012


Yeah, the recordings made that tricky. I got 'fusilli' and heard something that sounded like 'cuzily', even when I played it four times. And 'heinous' sounded exactly like famous, but I figured 'famous' wouldn't be on the fiendish level.

Nevertheless, that was fun!
posted by badmoonrising at 10:44 AM on March 20, 2012


The winner got to go the the National Spelling Bee; as the runner-up, I got a 12" black-and-white tv. That never really made sense to me.

My school board when I was growing up had a spelling contest for all the ninth-grade students every year (for those from beyond North America, this would be the first year of secondary school). I won it and my prize was... an atlas. I wonder if some geography contest winner somewhere received a dictionary.

I got 999 out of 1000 words correct. I fell down on 'subpoena' because I had not yet been subpoenaed at age 12.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:33 AM on March 20, 2012


A pox on this.

I got "guard" wrong because I heard "god".

Frickin' brits... Why can't they learn to pronounce english?
posted by mmrtnt at 11:57 AM on March 20, 2012


> Needs 'use in a sentence' or 'definition' options, as others have said, because some of the recordings of the pronunciation are really bad.

Also, I would get a lot more right if those wavy lines would show up under the words while I type.
posted by mmrtnt at 12:02 PM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


I got 999 out of 1000 words correct. I fell down on 'subpoena' because I had not yet been subpoenaed at age 12.

Heh, that reminds me of the episode of Roseanne that has D.J. as the last man standing in the school spelling bee. Roseanne and Dan are on the edge of their seats. The word is announced: "foreclosure." Roseanne and Dan then smile to one another, lean back, and scene.
posted by griphus at 12:07 PM on March 20, 2012


> On Fiendish, it turns out that "gym-kata" is not a word they're testing you on, so don't guess that.

It's "Jimmy Carter", right?
posted by mmrtnt at 12:23 PM on March 20, 2012


I played the British one first and got tripped up on Qatar.

For the American version, well, I heard fajitas as mojitos, so I claim 15/15.
posted by bilabial at 1:13 PM on March 20, 2012


Aaaaand the pronunciation of Khaki slays me. I'm going to keep playing for the laughs.


(I typed cocky and it marked me wrong! I was indignant that I didn't know how to pronounce cocky.)
posted by bilabial at 1:24 PM on March 20, 2012


Some of these US English recordings are truly bizarre. It reminds me a little bit of when I started watching Downton Abbey and was beyond confused at Lady Grantham's strange accent (only later did I learn that that she is an American who has lived in Britain for 20+ years, which explains the idiosyncrasy.)
posted by andrewesque at 1:53 PM on March 20, 2012


Holy smokes that's fun, thanks!
posted by eggkeeper at 2:24 PM on March 20, 2012


Dang. Onomatopoeia. Really?
posted by Chuffy at 2:36 PM on March 20, 2012


The only ones I got right at fiendish were 'guacamole' and 'zeitgeist'.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:53 PM on March 20, 2012


I heard "anomie" where she said "bonhomie", natch.

Bonhomie! I couldn't imagine what she had said that wasn't "anomie" either.

Bhaji isn't bread, it's onion pakora. Fritters, made with chickpea flour. Lots of US East Coast restaurants offer it.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:07 PM on March 20, 2012


It wasn't "Qatar", it was "catarrh" (a severe cold or sinus infection featuring a runny nose). Who's been doing way too much research on the 19th century? Me! And the people who made up that test.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:08 PM on March 20, 2012


Strictly speaking, bhaji is a generic term meaning any kind of veg. dish that does not have a sauce (cf. curry, which has a sauce). In the Indian street food context, bhaji usually means potatoes and onions, and it's eaten with a small bun about the size of a bagel and called pau or pav -- hence pav-bhaji for the whole thing.

What it means in the "Indian take-away" context, I have no idea. Those damn Brits!

15/15 Fiendish! Including millennium.
posted by phliar at 5:17 PM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


I don't know how I came to believe that a sweet dessert was spelled the same way as a popular genre of Caribbean music, but I will never confuse the two again.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:47 PM on March 20, 2012


I never heard the pronunciation "evra" before but apparently it's a thing.
posted by gubo at 6:16 PM on March 20, 2012


Wait, that "evra" thing was supposed to be "oeuvre"? I have never once heard that, and as a former musician and former teacher of literature, I think I would have encountered it if it was a widespread Thing in the US.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:50 PM on March 20, 2012


15/15 on fiendish, and I have to say it's about a million times easier typing out the words than trying to spell them out loud, traditional spelling bee style. On the other hand, no "use it in a sentence"? No "language of origin"? That would have really made some of these easier. I'm looking at you, oeuvre.

I took 5th in the LA County spelling bee when I was in the seventh grade. I lost on a word I knew how to spell, but I relaxed and swapped the last two letters, which was a frankly idiotic mistake. My dad still tells the story of my confronting the judges with an outraged "What did I say?" after they gave me the correct spelling.

I really wanted to go to the national bee...and I really wanted the giant dictionary they give you for winning your region. I cried that whole afternoon; the lesson I took from it was apparently "never relax even when it seems like you have the game in the bag," which I guess was a good life lesson.
posted by troublesome at 8:45 PM on March 20, 2012


there is an iOS app, very fun, free...
posted by joecacti at 10:07 PM on March 20, 2012


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