So, even though I (somehow) manage to watch the National Spelling Bee almost every year, it never ceases to amaze me how incredibly freaking good these kids are. I'm jealous, really. Even when they don't actually know how to spell a particular word, they know enough about the rules of forming words that they can piece together an almost always accurate spelling. Personally, I'm proud of myself for getting the word origin right on most of the spelling words (I swear they were all French- even the ones that weren't), though that really had no effect on my ability to actually spell them.
This year, the winning word was "laodicean", which is a Greek to Latin word with an English combining form meaning "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics". My favorite word, however, was "bouguiniste", a word that went from Dutch to French and which means "a dealer in second-hand books". Guess what I'm going to tell people I am from now on?
I can't help but wonder if there'll be another volume of stories like Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. It's a great concept for an anthology, and every one of the writers involved is a powerhouse in his of her own right, so unless they get an equal collection of stories for a sequel volume it may not be a good idea...but if they do, it is.
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