One of the best days for me in May of 1977.
As a child, I was absolutely intoxicated by words. Not just the ordinary, pedestrian ones — I mean the labyrinthine, tongue-twisting, sesquipedalian marvels that felt like verbal acrobatics. I collected them the way other kids collected trading cards.
I didn’t just know the longest word in the English language – pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis — I reveled in it. I made sure to memorize it at the age of 8, savoring each syllable like a procession: pneu-mo-no-ul-tra-mi-cro-scop-ic-sil-i-co-vol-ca-no-co-ni-o-sis. Twenty-three letters? Please. That was merely a warm-up. This beefcake carried 45 letters, and it denoted a coal miner’s lung disease, which was even better since it also appealed to the medical nerd portion of my personality. I wanted words with gravitas, with architectural complexity.
My mom recognized early on that spelling wasn’t just a skill for me — it was a vocation. When I told my mother that there would be a major spelling bee at the end of the 6th grade year, she took it upon herself to quiz me daily in order to fortify my chances of taking home the coveted title and medal. Every afternoon she would sit across from me at the kitchen table with a list. Not pedestrian little morsels like “apple” or “chair.” No. She would lob in “chiaroscuro,” “defenestration,” “antidisestablishmentarianism.” It was our ritual — my daily lexical calisthenics in preparation for the apotheosis: the 6th-grade spelling bee.
And when that day came, I was incandescent with anticipation.
One by one, students were shot down, failing in their efforts to deliver impeccably spelled words, until there were only two of us left: Martha Phelps and me. Martha Phelps was supremely confident, practically effervescent with self-assurance. Then she was given the word facetious. I remember thinking how deliciously ironic it was, because it contains all five vowels in order. She began: F-A-C-E-I-O-U-S… and stopped. Smug. Triumphant.
Except.
Except there was no t.
Mrs. Mackenzie — stately, unflappable — adjusted her glasses and said, without saying a word, turned to face me.
Mrs. Mackenzie repeated the word: facetious.
The room shifted. Martha’s smile curdled.
Oh, I had been waiting for this.
F-A-C-E-T-I-O-U-S.
Each letter placed with surgical precision. The t nestled perfectly where it belonged — the quiet hero of the word.
And just like that, victory. Not by accident. Not by guesswork. By devotion. By daily drills at the kitchen table. By loving words enough to memorize even the absurdly magnificent ones.
I didn’t just win with facetious. I won because I understood that words have bones and ligaments and hidden symmetries. And I adored every single one of them.
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