Yesterday’s word of Day. A young man named Pierce Dageford was in the top 89 top spellers in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee this week. Alas competitive spelling is a cruel, capricious business, commented our local newspaper. The 8th grader tripped up on the word
joskin, British slang for ‘a country bumpkin’, which, one of the judges said, probably derived from a proper name. That would make it an eponym.
“I hate, I hate, I hate eponyms” the boy responded afterword. “Whenever it’s a person’s name it never follows any sort of rule”. He continue, “I was able to figure out most of the words, but then I get the word from nowhere”. I just thought that the spelling bee contestant’s comments were interesting on very same day that the WoTD coincided. Got to love the eponyms.
