Hear me sing...

My crowning moment in spelling came last month at the Williamsburg Spelling Bee season two finals. Ever since beginning my participation in this event, I had hoped that one evening I would be asked to spell onomatopoeia. This is a hard word to spell, but so familiar, as a hard word, that most people who attend the spelling bee know how to spell it. Yet I had never heard it given out at the bee and wondered if it was even on the word list.

But that night, with the Good Morning America cameras rolling and a reporter from German public radio taping I was handed the word...

...and I was able to sing it. To the tune of Old Macdonald. This I had learned as a freshman in high school. As my friend and I crammed for the daily vocabulary test in English class, he searched for any and all possible mnemonic devices that might help us remember the spellings and definitions of words. With onomato...etc. he realized that it fit the above children's tune, a song that is practically an ode to onomatopoeic words.

Better yet, the German reporter included it in her bit and you can listen to it here

I can't yet, since my computer isn't making any sounds today. Let me know how I fare.

I am inordinately proud of this. I owe it all to Mike French.

~A