S-E-S-Q-U-I-P-E-D-A-L-I-A-N. Sesquipedalian. Given to the use of long words. Also describing long words. Also describing itself. I wish it were a more accurate descriptor for myself.
I went to the Lyric Stage Company production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee two weeks ago, and it reignited my lost spelling-bee glory. Imagined glory, at least. To quote Marlon Brando, I coulda been a contender. (Of course, Blogger's spell check program dashes its red underline under "coulda" the moment the fingers type it. It's challenging me: "Are you really serious about spelling?")
One of the best aspects of Spelling Bee, the musical, was how it entered the audience. From the thrust stage and volunteer audience spellers to the trophies hanging around the exits, I felt almost immersed in the spelling competition. What would it have been like to compete in this rigmarole bee, where I might face a word like either phylactery or cow? (The judge's sentence: "Please spell cow.") What if I had gotten sesquipedalian? When I looked the word up online, I realized one of my e's should have been an i. It's always the vowels that trip me up. No trophy today.
Nor in third grade, the first year I remember our class participating in the spelling bee. You rarely hold on to the answers you get right when you're growing up, only your mistakes. Like when I had a test with the word "transparent." Choosing between pictures of a rather masculine-looking mother and a window, I settled on the woman. Maybe I was ahead of my time. But though confident in my spelling skills, acing vocabulary quizzes every week except for the zucchini incident, I never made it to the top. A minor victory in my third grade class led to my shot at the school-wide bee. They held it in my kindergarten classroom. Perhaps that's why I choked on valorous. When I asked for the definition, I imagined a mountain valley, replete with lush gardens and running waters. Two l's later, the buzzer binged.
Fourth grade remains a mystery. We lined up and one by one took our seats; my return to the school bee was eclipsed. In fifth grade, I got knocked out early, like a boxer who forgot which glove was which. "Waistband," the teacher called out. I was smart enough to know it was a compound word, but the meaning completely slipped my mind. You couldn't call for definitions in the class round--only in the bigger leagues. As I clutched my hands in cruel irony around my waist, I spelled: W-A-S-T-E. Was the word really wasteland? Had I misheard?
Needless to say, I wasted my elementary school years. And sixth grade too, where I made the fatal mistake of skipping a letter and trying to go back for it. I knew hurricane had two r's! Or maybe it was tsunami. A disaster either way. Then came seventh grade, and I needed to prove my mettle. Maybe harder words would get my wheels cranking. Round and round they went at first; I moved into the school-wide bee on account of carousel. Side by side with good friends and good spellers, I lasted five rounds. The person before me started jeopardize with a g. Rookie mistake. When my turn came, I saw what a fool I was for gloating. My word (whatever it was) also ended in -ize. But I had been so gobsmacked by the unfortunate g that I didn't listen to the end of his word. Now here I was, bouncing back and forth between -ize and -ise. One's British, one's American. I was somewhere in the Atlantic, on the verge of glory or grief.
I never reached a higher echelon of spelling. Even though I chose the s over the z, the four remaining seventh-graders all crashed and burned. Though I find vowels much trickier, that's the third way I'd lost the farm on consonants. Unlike in the musical, there was no juice box awaiting me. Just a certificate for best speller in the grade, tied five ways. A valorous end, I guess.
Words I looked up while writing this: Sesquipedalian. Phylactery. Waistband (just in case).
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