The BBC website brings news of Anamika Veeramani, a 14-year-old Ohio girl, who has won the annual National Spelling Bee context. The word that gave her victory was Stromuhr.
At the moment of writing, if you do a Google search Define:stromuhr the results page says:
No definitions of stromuhr were found in English
The German wikipedia page does have an entry, though, and even a limited knowledge of German leads me to believe it corresponds with the definition found in the Merriam Webster Medical Dictionary:
Main Entry: strom·uhr
Pronunciation: \ˈstrō-ˌmu̇(ə)r\
Function: noun
: a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery
One advantage of the Merriam Webster on-line is that, as well as the written pronunciation guide – which is liable to corruption, or mis-display when copied and pasted as above – they give audio clips. I wonder, though, if a UK medic would use the same pronunciation.
It seems that the contestants in the Spelling Bee are not only allowed to ask for the definition and language of origin of the word they are given, but they can request the word be repeated as well as for it to be used in a sentence.
Since strom is German for “stream” or “current”, and uhr is a “clock”, “meter” or “indicator”, knowing even a little of the source language would probably make this reasonably easy to spell.
Looking back over the winning words of the last five years, we have:
2009: Laodicean, meaning lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics
2008: Guerdon, meaning something that one has earned or gained
2007: Serrefine, meaning a small forceps for clamping a blood vessel
2006: Ursprache, meaning a parent language
2005: Appoggiatura, meaning an accessory embellishing note or tone preceding an essential melodic note or tone
Only serrefine from 2007 has me puzzled, and if I was certain of the source language I might be less confused. I imagine it might be French, where serre is a “talon” or “claw” and fine would be “delicate”, perhaps “small”. If it is, it seems very clear from experience of other French words, that although the first syllable is pronounced ser, it would be written serre: once again, knowing a little of the derivation would clarify spelling and meaning.
Despite the fact that none of the words cited are in common usage – though guerdon was a part of the fairytales of my childhood – it’s fascinating to look at the variety of languages that have contributed to modern English and the mixture of etymological roots and word elements we deal with daily.
