Well, the shouting is over, the dust has settled, the press have dashed off to file their dispatches, and there is a new champion speller here in Wellfleet: a fellow named Robert something, an amiable fellow who has finished in the top two or three for years. It came down to the two of us at the end, and I stumbled over a perfectly ordinary and familiar word: vicissitude. For some absolutely inexplicable reason, a mystery that will haunt me for at least the next year, I added an extra ‘c’.
Oh well, life has its ups and downs, they say.
10 Comments
Vick-sissa-tude, huh?
Yeah, yeah. I don’t know what happened. I know how to spell the word.
I’m glad that that fellow Robert got a moment in the sun, though. He’s a good guy, and a fine speller.
I’m sure that next year you will regain first plaice.
Thanks, Peat.
I’ll have to show up at one of these spelling bees someday.
By all means, Kevin! You’d like it here, and I’m sure you’re a damned solid speller.
There’ll be no mercy at the Bee, however. This calamity is not about to be repeated.
Malcolm, that was just one of those little viccissitudes of life . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Oy. It hurts my eyes to look at that.
Just be happy they didn’t ask you to spell, “Angela Merkel”:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017/wl_afp/germanymuslimreligionimmigration
But what would we do without spel-chekker?