CAN YOU SPELL?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 10 (Supplement)

CAN YOU SPELL?

Some pride themselves upon their ability to spell correctly, but not many could comfortably give correct spellings of all the words in the following rhyme: — Stand up, ye spellers, now and spell: Spell phenakistoscope and knell; Or take some simple word as chilly, Or ganger, or the garden lily. To spell such words as syllogism, And lachrymose and synchronism, And Pentateuch and saccharine, Apocrypha and celadine, Lactiferous and cecity, Jejune and homoeopathy, Paralysis and chloroform, Rhinoceros and pachyderm, Metempsychosis, gherkins, basque, Is certainly no easy task. Kaleidoscope and Tennessee, Kamschatka and dispensary, Diphthong and erysipelas, And etiquette and sassafras. Infallible and ptyalism, Allopathy and rheumatism, And cataclysm and beleaguer, Twelfth, eighteenth, rendezvous, intriguer, And hosts of other words all found On English and on classic ground. Thus Behring Straits and Michaelmas, Thermopylae, Cordilleras, Suite, haemorrhage, jalap, Havana, Cinquefoil and ipecacuanha, And Rappahannock, Shenandoah, And Schuylkill, and a thousand more, Are words some prime good spellers mla* n dictionary lands like this. Nor need one think himself a scroyle If some of these his efforts foil, Xor deem himself undone for ever To miss tne name of either river, The Dnieper, Seine, or Guadalquivir.