--- title: Olympiad: the Spelling Bee — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: the Spelling Bee», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In a spelling bee the pronouncer says a word and you spell it aloud, letter by letter; one wrong letter and you are out. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Olympiad: the Spelling Bee # Olympiad: the Spelling Bee Lesson 55 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/0/) — In a spelling bee the pronouncer says a word and you spell it aloud, letter by letter; one wrong letter and you are out. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/1/) — You may ask for the definition, the word in a sentence or the language it comes from, and the origin is a real clue: words from Greek often use "rh", "ph" and "y" (rhythm), and words from French often end in "-ette" or "-ue" (silhouette, queue). - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/2/) — Most hard words hide a trap: a double letter (accommodate has a double c AND a double m, necessary has one c and a double s), a silent letter (rhythm, Wednesday), or a sound people say wrongly (mischievous has no "i" before -ous). - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/3/) — Champions break a long word into chunks and use a memory trick in their head: "one collar and two sleeves" for necessary (one c, two s), "con + science" for conscience. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/4/) — Picture Kai from Manchester groaning "We say Wenzday, it's well tricky": the old name was "Woden's day", after a god, so the "d" and "nes" are still written although almost nobody says them. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/5/) — Rhythm is spelled R-H-Y-T-H-M; it comes from Greek and has no a, e, i, o or u, with "y" doing the job of a vowel. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/6/) — Mischievous is spelled M-I-S-C-H-I-E-V-O-U-S and said "MIS-chi-vus"; "mischievious", with an extra "i", is a very common mistake. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/7/) — Conscience is spelled C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E, "con" + "science", from Latin. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/8/) — Onomatopoeia is spelled O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-O-E-I-A; it comes from Greek words meaning "making names", and it means a word that sounds like what it means. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/9/) — Silhouette is a French word spelled S-I-L-H-O-U-E-T-T-E, named after a French government minister, Étienne de Silhouette. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/10/) — Accommodate has a double c and a double m: A-C-C-O-M-M-O-D-A-T-E. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/11/) — Wednesday comes from Old English "Woden's day", which is why it keeps a "d" and "nes" that most people do not say. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/12/) — Fahrenheit is named after Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German-speaking scientist, and is spelled F-A-H-R-E-N-H-E-I-T, with "ei" as in German. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/13/) — Queue comes from French, where it means "tail", and is spelled Q-U-E-U-E: you hear only the Q, and the four letters after it add no sound. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/14/) — Necessary has one c and a double s: N-E-C-E-S-S-A-R-Y ("one collar, two sleeves"). - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/15/) — Pharaoh, the title of the kings of ancient Egypt, is spelled P-H-A-R-A-O-H, with the "a" before the "o". - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/55-olympiad-the-spelling-bee/16/) — In most bees you may ask for the definition, a sentence, the language of origin and to hear the word again; you may start again, but you cannot change letters you have already said. - ← previous: [Putting it together: reading and writing like a writer](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/54-reading-and-writing-like-a-writer/) - next →: [Olympiad: word puzzles — anagrams, palindromes, word ladders](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/56-olympiad-word-puzzles-anagrams-palindromes-word-ladders/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)