Spelling bee

[magid]

Actually, more like a spelling test. Yesterday afternoon, I went to try my spelling fu with 18 others, to see who'd get to be on the spelling team our company is sending to a fundraiser for adult literacy next month.

I did ok, a bit above average (mean, median, and mode :-). There were 26 words, each starting with a different letter.

What were the words? They're listed below, arranged from most often spelled correctly to least. And no, I didn't get the last one. I can spell it properly in Hebrew, though.

url
lovey-dovey
hibachi
claque
muntin
xyloid
novercal
inveigle
pterodactyl
scherzando
quisling
whisht
gutta-percha
blancmange
voussoir
exophthalmic
onomatopoeia
joual
ailurophile
dyspnea
yapok
kylikes
ferule
thalweg
zizith

Comments

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Is that last word tzitzit? Interesting transliteration, if so, but there must be multiple acceptable spellings of it in any decent dictionary, nu?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the word, but apparently there's one official spelling in the official dictionary they use.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

well, march right on downstairs and smack 'em around till they correct the spelling!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, I did put the correct Hebrew spelling on my sheet, but no one seemed to count that...

Transliteration is a tricky thing. Using the 'th' at the end is an older accepted scheme that is unlikely to be chosen as an ideal these days, but once something's in the language one way...