The Medina sentinel. [volume] (Medina, Ohio) 1888-1961, 1915-12-31
SPELLING CONTEST STICKERs.

The official lists Of words for the
state spelling contest to be held under
the auspices Of the state department.
Of education at Columbus, June 2,
have been sent out to county school
superintendents over the state, conse-
quently for the next six months many
youngster will burn the midnight Rii
while cudgeling his brains to keep
those little demons, Of which each
word is composed, in their proper pos
itions; for even the poorest speller
knows how hard it is to keep j and e
in their proper relations, to say moth
ing Of deciding whether to double the
| in Colossal" and colleague, wheth-
er Separate" has e or a following the
p, and whether stupefy is blind or has
an in it.
The contest this year will be con-
Quoted along different and more SEN
sible lines than last, and no eleventh
hour list of words, some Of which are
never met outside the covers of Web
ster's Unabridged will be sprung upon
faithful band OF spoilers who have
faced for hours the successive assaults
of an even dozen of high-brows who
have hurled difficult words at them
from every conceivable point of van
tage. Nay, nay. This year the con-
test will consist of three distinct parts
first 100 words to be written by the
contestants; second, printed list OF
100 words spelled phonetically which
the contestant is to write according to
the dictionary; third, a printed list of
100 words part of which are spelled
correctly and part incorrectly; these
the contestant is to write correctly.
Easy task, you say. Well mebby so,
mebby so.
That second list, for instance, will
probably contain such phonetic spell
ing as, vetoe, unsivilized, trunkated
tadpoal, sizzers, sithe, spazm, bias
feem, conseed, arye, kubberd, konshus
anekdote, kolera, vaxinate, zeffer, ETC.
Sort O. mixes 'em up, don't it?
Now let's try the third kind; glance
over the following and tell which are
correctly spelled and which are not;
cloroform, buccaneer, chickery, shar-
ade, canibal, centipede, convaless, sis
tern, polish, rebuttal, sardeen, segre.
gate, obeesance, pompadoor, sauser
sepulcher, rosin, searum, quizical
quintet. Look at them hard and ther
tell how many of them you could spell
with certainty if your life depended
on it. Some of US would drop deae
before proceeding very far through
such maze. Now you will under.
stand about those demons we spoke o1
earlier in this article. They are kline
O. impish, for a fact.
The county contest will be held in
April or May and will be exactly like
the state contest so far as possible
Each township, special or village dis
trict will send two contestants to Me-
dina after holding local contest
These contestants may be from either
the grades or the high school. Lists
of words will be furnished by the cour
ty superintendent to any pupil wishing
to enter the contest. Many of the
schools are planning to use this list
Of words for the regular spelling class.
es in the upper grades and high schoo
Care must be taken to know the
correct pronunciation of the words, al.
so the system of diacritical marking
used in Webster's International Die,
tlonary, as the second list of word.
will be printed with phonetic spellinf
and diacritical markings.
Last year Medina county's represen
tative, Floyd Gift of Sharon township
was in the state contest up to the very
finish, but the last 100 words comint
after the all-day grind proved to,
much for nearly all the spoilers an,
the contest degenerated into a mer,
guessing contest, as most of the word
were utterly new to them. However
Claude Gossett of Hillsboro, Highlan,
county, proved the best guesser an,
won out with a percentage Of 81. |
may be of interest to the people of Me
dina county to know that the Januar,
number of the American Magazine ha
an interesting write-up of Claude Cos
sett, with brief account of Ohio
spelling contest of 1915. Indeed thi
spelling match attracted the attentio,
OF the whole country and was write
up in the papers from coast to coast
Pupils anywhere in the county de
string lists of the words to be used i
the state and county contest will mott
fy their local superintendent or prir
cipal, who, in turn, will make a reouj
sition upon the county superintendent
for the number Of lists needed. Thi
list contains nearly 1000 words, begin
ming with abattoir and ending wit
Ypsilanti. In between these two eS
tremeties are 6098 words of all dc
cruoac - l.Qp