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Faizan Zaki, the winner of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee, took home the prize with his successful spelling of éclaircissement. As he typed out the letters on an "air keyboard," the audience was probably left wondering, "What is this word?"
Our investigation of this word reminds us that suffixes can create various word classes, like nouns. We'll compare Latin and French infinitive endings and take a look at infixes, including the inchoative. Finally, we'll take a look at an interesting IPA symbol and some of the features of vowel pronunciation like frontness, roundedness, and nasals. As we investigate, we'll discover what questions are legal for spelling bee contestants.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
One of the questions contestants are permitted to ask the judges is a word's definition and its use in a sentence. See, those spelling bee contestants understand what we already know--a word's spelling is related to far more than just its pronunciation or sounds.
An éclaircissement is "an exposition or elucidation of something that is unclear" according to the Collins dictionary entry. Although the Collins entry did not provide a sentence, James Madison did in an 1810 letter to Thomas Jefferson:
"...the question of whether Mr. Hooe was entitled to a lamb that was born after a shipment of sheep arrived in the United States, considering that he had been promised a lamb only if one was born during the voyage. I have not yet come to an éclaircissement with Mr. Hooe."
This word is a noun, as you may have elucidated from its structure. Contestants are also allowed to inquire about a word's part of speech/word class.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
See, the <-ment> suffix is from the Latin -mentum, a suffix added to verb stems to show the noun that results. For example, encouragement is the result of encouraging someone, and a replacement is what you get when you replace someone.
éclaircisse + ment
Perhaps you are wondering if there is an element in the structure of this word that is related to the éclair, a popular pastry found in my local donut shop? These long thin cream-filled pastries with chocolate on top are favorites of mine.
éclair + cisse + ment
Of course, I'm not sure what a donut has to do with making something confusing more clear? Let's take a look at an etymological dictionary to find the history of this word.
You will not find an entry for this word in Etymonline. As a backup, I'll use the entry in Wiktionary. There, we learn the word has its origin with a French verb éclaircir, "enlighten, clarify." Clicking on that link, the entry for that verb has an ancestor in the Latin claricare.
If we scroll down a bit further, under the heading Conjugation, the entry explains that it has an infinitive ending in
It also said this conjugation has an infix <-iss-> (the dashes on either side of my notation indicates something must come prior to and after the element.) We do not really have infixes in English except in slang. Someone may agree by saying "Well absofreakinglutely," but there's some debate about whether that's really not an infix, but a case of tmesis instead.
Regardless, let's follow that trek of <-iss-> by clicking on the link. Aha! This entry says that the origin of this element is the Latin inchoative infix <-sc-> that we see in words like tumescent and adolescent.
é + clairc + isse + ment
Before we start looking at whether or not this word is related to the donut, you may be wondering why I used the French etymon to arrive at the English base rather than the Latin one. If I removed the Latin infinitive suffix from claricare, I would have
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
Spelling bee contestants are also permitted to ask for a word's language of origin. This is because a word's history plays a large part in grapheme choice. The Frenchness of this word not also hints at the spelling of that prefix, but also at the spelling of the suffix as well.
Etymonline may not have an entry for our spelling-bee-winning word, éclaircissement, but it does for éclair. The word for this pastry came to us in 1861 for a word meaning "lightning." It had its origins in the Latin clarus, "clear" and the
The word is a shortening of éclair au chocolat, and the name may come from the resemblance of the cream being piped into the layers of choux pastry to a bolt of lightning. Or it could be because they are "eaten in a flash."
Regardless, our base has a clarus like declare, clarify, and the name Clara.
English etymological relatives include clearing, clearly, and clearance. French relatives include clairvoyant and the name Claire.
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
Spelling bee contestants are permitted to ask if there are alternate pronunciations of the word. However, contestants must keep in mind their 90 second time limit, as time spent asking and answering questions counts. No questions are permitted in the last 15 seconds.
The American pronunciation listed in the Collins entry is /eɪklɛʀsisˈmɑ̃/. The prefix declare and clarity. However, what is the IPA symbol corresponding to part of our suffix?
This symbol, /ɑ̃/, is for the "open front unrounded nasal" vowel. The frontness of a vowel has to do with how far or back your tongue is placed. The roundedness refers to the shape of your lips. A nasal vowel is a vowel in which air escapes through the nose. It is not something we have in English but appears in French pronunciation. For this word, think of it as you pronounce the in father, but with your tongue up higher and a puff of air through your nose.
The suffix maison or baton.
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Next Steps
What concepts from this investigation can we explore next to learn more about the English orthographic system?
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Our suffix <-ment> may create nouns from verbs? What are other words with this suffix? What verbs form their base? Are there other uses for the suffix <-ment>? |
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The Latinate inchoative infix <-sc-> shows up in other words common in English. You could gather a list of those with your students. |
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There may be other "pastry" or "baking" words that might have interesting origin stories. I mentioned choux pastry above. What about the éclair's close relative, the Long John? What about the word doughnut itself? |
Thirteen-year-old Faizan, last year's spelling bee runner-up and this year's winner, did not ask the questions about meaning, function, or language origin as we did here. Instead, he slowly began, then smiled as recognition came across his face and advanced quickly to the correct spelling of the word, the trophy, and around $50,000 in cash and prizes.
This year's Bee was the 100th anniversary. The winner in 1925 correctly spelled gladiolus to win the bee. Past winning words we've investigated include moorhen, psammophile, and abseil.
This reminds me. June 6th is National Donut Day. Doughnut? The change in spelling there may be another investigation! Perhaps with a few éclairs and a coffee?
Stay curious,
Brad
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PS. An inchoative verb is a verb referring to the process of beginning or becoming. The Latin verb tumere, "swell." becomes tumescere to indicate the "swelling" is beginning. In Germanic languages, the suffix
PPS. If you want access to the investigations of those past Scripps spelling bee winning words, along with 200 other word investigations from past newsletters, join the community.
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