By Susan Harper
You can read a long way down in the dictionary, under the word “spell” before you get to anything about putting letters together to make a word. It surprises me to tell you this, but in my trusty Webster’s the first entry for “spell” has to do with magic, and the synonym offered is “incantation.”
This makes a certain kind of sense to me. Even as a child I thought there was tremendous power in words — a notion confirmed for me by the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword, although that too offered a surprise when I actually looked it up. The original quote, from a play by Edward Bulwer Lytton, says, “Beneath the rule of men entirely great / The pen is mightier than the sword,” suggesting that where tyrants reign, the pen is relatively powerless. But that doesn’t mean that words are. Even under tyrants, people talk.
Just let me spell it out
Still, I always thought that to truly own a word, you had to be able to spell it. Now I’m starting to think that’s only part ownership. You also need to know where the word came from. And “spell” comes from two places: a Greek word (apeile) that means “to tell a tall tale” and from an Old English word (spala) that means “substitute.”
From the Greek apeile come all of the notions of casting a spell, or spelling things out, and even the meaning that we have in mind when we say, “Another year of drought could spell disaster for our forests.” And from the Old English spala come the ideas of spelling someone when they go on vacation, or “setting a spell,” as my grandmother used to say (by which she meant sitting on the porch for a while), or having a coughing spell.
Once a year we get to look at spelling as a sport — because every February the Jackson County Literacy Program holds its annual Leap into Literacy spelling bee. Local sponsors back teams of hopeful spellers who get up onstage — in costume, yet! — and try to put letters together to spell words like “zoantharian” and “plasmodesma.” There’s even an audience spelling contest, plus a silent auction filled with things you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them laid out there on the table.
It’s a wonderful, wacky evening with a serious purpose behind it: supporting and helping and saluting literacy in our community. And it takes place this week, Thursday evening, Feb. 25, at the Jackson EMC building, beginning at 7 p.m.
I hope you’ll come and let yourself fall under the spell of words — just for one evening, of course, unless you just can’t rein yourself in. Bring an entourage. Amaze your friends by knowing how to spell “hoi polloi” and even “cymbidium.” Bid on something in the silent auction and amaze yourself by going home with it. Mine from last year is still on my coffee table.
So — see you at the bee?
Susan Harper is retired, lives in Commerce and volunteers at the Commerce Public Library and with the Jackson County Literacy Program.
From the Greek apeile come all of the notions of casting a spell, or spelling things out, and even the meaning that we have in mind when we say, “Another year of drought could spell disaster for our forests.” And from the Old English spala come the ideas of spelling someone when they go on vacation, or “setting a spell,” as my grandmother used to say (by which she meant sitting on the porch for a while), or having a coughing spell.
Once a year we get to look at spelling as a sport — because every February the Jackson County Literacy Program holds its annual Leap into Literacy spelling bee. Local sponsors back teams of hopeful spellers who get up onstage — in costume, yet! — and try to put letters together to spell words like “zoantharian” and “plasmodesma.” There’s even an audience spelling contest, plus a silent auction filled with things you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them laid out there on the table.
It’s a wonderful, wacky evening with a serious purpose behind it: supporting and helping and saluting literacy in our community. And it takes place this week, Thursday evening, Feb. 25, at the Jackson EMC building, beginning at 7 p.m.
I hope you’ll come and let yourself fall under the spell of words — just for one evening, of course, unless you just can’t rein yourself in. Bring an entourage. Amaze your friends by knowing how to spell “hoi polloi” and even “cymbidium.” Bid on something in the silent auction and amaze yourself by going home with it. Mine from last year is still on my coffee table.
So — see you at the bee?
Susan Harper is retired, lives in Commerce and volunteers at the Commerce Public Library and with the Jackson County Literacy Program.
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