THE JUDGE'S COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 266, 9 November 1932, Page 16

THE JUDGE'S COMMENTS.

GOOD WORK BY PRIZE WINNERS.

CLOSE RUNNING IN WORD-BUILDING COMPETITION

Dear Boys and Girls,— . . Word building is always popular with Budget folk, and last week's competition was no exception to the general rule. Entries were heavy and the standard of .work was high. Nearly five hundred words were built up by Maxwell Milliner, but this list was almost cut in two when words not to be found in the Standard English dictionary used by the judges were pencUled out. Iris plain that this boy has the use of a dictionary that is beyond the reach of the average competitor. The spirit of these competitions is not to : encourage boys and girls to obtain the use of large, expensive dictionaries containing words that we seldom come across, but rather to get them to make the best use of the ordinary dictionaries that are within- the reach of all. Heather Graham was the first prize winner, having an original list of 368 words, with only 92 errors, which gave her a total of 276 correct words. Following very close was the work of Cecil Davison, with 272 allowable words out of an oroginal list oS 339. Freda Johnson came third or the list with 256 correct yords, being closely followed by R. J. Middle with 253. .This was indeed close running, which shows that the high standard of work was consistent with all prize winners. About a dozen entries were this week claimed by the Crocodile for various reasons". Some failed to attach Peter Pan's signature to the envelope in which their work was posted, others did not state the total number of words contained in their entries, and yet others did not keep their words in strict alphabetical order. As one glances through the English dictionary one comes upon dozens of examples of words that are pronounced the same, but have different spellings and meanings; For example £&} „„— petitors are set the 1 task of discovering i/VTm^y^ as many of these as possible. Full /yKA/ particulars of this competition are given in the announcement which V^V^,^^ appears elsewhere on this page. e*^