HARD SPELLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 6

HARD SPELLS.

Those who listen-in are bo accustomed to hearing the words of experts that it is quite refreshing and amusing to hear broadcasters make a mess of things (says a London correspondent). And quite a large proportion of the undergraduates of Oxford and Harvard, who competed last month before the mierophones in the firet trans-Atlantic spelling bee, made a surprising mess of things. It ie easy to overrate the importance of the Ability to spell—many distinguished men, literary men among them, are without it —but it was somewhat unexpected to find so many clever young people, on the education of each of whom at least a. couple of thousand pounds has been spent, completely stumped by words in general eirculation. "There is," as Chaucer wrote, "so great diversity in English and in writing of our tong." The teams were eight aside—six men and two girls in each; 30 seconds was allowed for each attempt; a mistake was greeted with a blow on a gong, and America pipped the Old Country after a most amusing 45 minutes by 2S pointe to 24. The list of words wae interesting and worth trying out on the family circle. Here it is: Beatitudes, upholsterer, nomenclature, haemorrhage, spareity, scarcity, fugues, loneliness, tartan, labyrinthine, indefatigable, indkpeusable, obeisance, crustaceous, baboon, antediluvian, antiquate ? denizen, eorollary, '■ velocipede, obsequies, omnivorous, daguerreotype, longevity, gherkins, nrulligatewny, anonymity, concomitant, pusillanimity, parallelogram, palfreye. braggadocio, peregrinate, ■bivouacked, brochure, anomaly, aniseed, isosceles, pettifoggery, gamboge, trachea, sesquipedalian, alembic, coracle, supervenient, genetics, truncheon, trunnion, flumbeau,' occipital, furze, battalion and embarrassment.