The last time the author will use the word “éclaircissement” again
A COLUMN By Kathryn Ross
Words have been my stock and trade for many years, so I looked with interest when I saw on the news report about the winner of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee and the word he spelled to win.
“Éclaircissement” was the winning word for Faizan Zaki a seventh grader from Dallas who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, after last year having come in second place on the big stage. Faizan, 13, showed little hesitation as he spelled “éclaircissement” as the final word to win the title of national spelling champ.
I looked at the winning word with interest. I had never heard of it, and I wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce it and wondered what it means?
In today’s world. I no longer have a dictionary. If I want to look up a word or find a synonym or how to spell a word, I just type it into a space on the computer and I don’t have to say the alphabet 10 times while thumbing through the pages of a dictionary to find the right section.
It turns out “éclaircissement” means what I was doing, “clearing up something that was obscure.”
I’m a terrible speller. All those days standing next to my desk in grade school in Mrs. Graves, Geffers’, Larson’s or Brewster’s classrooms and competing in a spelling bee (I never got far) were torture. I was quick to sit down and spend the rest of my time doodling while the more brilliant in my class correctly spelled the words given to them. Remember those spelling tests where you had to print the correct spelling? I wasn’t at the top of that list either.
Things got really bad after college, after I took literature classes in Old English and Chaucer and in Middle English. They really messed with my spelling. To this day, I can’t keep gray and grey straight and I Invariably confuse gate and gait.
Words have always held a special fascination for me. There are some words I try never to use like “hate.” It is a mean word. I get annoyed that the meaning of some words have changed. It means something totally different to have a gay old time today than it used to. I‘ve always liked the word gay. It sounds like its original meaning. What is frustrating is that my very own computer won’t let me write certain words, because it finds them abhorrent. That is kind of hard since I’m a member of the Nathaniel **** Museum (see that is what it does).
I hear words like a melody the way others hear notes. I may not always know the correct combination of letters, but I always hear the music. I once looked up a word in the dictionary strictly by its sound. I’m glad I learned phonetics.
When a phrase or sentence or a combination of words sounds right, then I write it – like blue jeans faded soft or a velvety night sky. Those words blend together and paint a picture in the imagination of the reader. For me the art of writing is like the art of painting. I create pictures with words rather than with paint.
One of my dearest friends, Betty Sweet, was an artist. Sometime in my youth between college and jobs, while I was still somewhat fancy free, Betty and I would travel to some remote field or other countryside site and she would set up her easel and paint. I would find a rock or log and take out my pen and notebook. We would spend hours there, her painting and me writing. It was our own version of “En plein air” art decades before it became a current trend. I miss those days. I miss my friend Betty, who passed away a couple of years ago.
Back then, it wasn’t important if the brush stroke or the color was off or if the word was spelled right. One small part didn’t matter because it was the whole work that was important. I don’t know why I write the things I choose to write about. It is whatever strikes my fancy, my interest, or whets my curiosity – three ways of saying the same thing.
I just hope that this explanation serves as an éclaircissement as to why I write, and you can be absolutely sure I will never, like algebra, use the word éclaircissement again.
Kathryn Ross is a veteran writer, columnist, and reporter based in Wellsville NY. She is read by thousands each week in Western NY. You can reach her anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
