You may ask, "What does choir have to do with the spelling bee?" It may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me. You also may ask, "What do you learn from choir that relates to the spelling bee?" There is a lot for me, especially that I am a member of a world-renowned choir here in Utah, and we wear costumes from all over the world.
That may make a whole lot of sense now! You see, we sing international music. Languages we sing are English, French, Latin, German, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Russian, Macedonian, Romanian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Czech, Dutch, Samoan, Tongan, African languages, Cambodian, and a whole lot more (plus pop, musicals, classical, etc). Whenever we're learning a song, I study the word patterns and pronunciations. There are these German words heilige, meaning "holy", nacht, meaning "night", freude, meaning "joy", and schein, meaning "shine", we have in some of our songs. Words at the Bee, have these words in them.
Here are some:
heiligenschein
nachtmusik
schadenfreude
gegenschein
German is my favorite etymology to study, but I know French better. Latin is great also, that I knew almost every word in our Latin songs, "O Aula, Nobilis" and "Dixit Dominus". My favorite song ever, is "Le Ciel a Visite la Terre". Ciel and visite are words in Webster's Third.
Choir is such a huge impact on my spelling bee career, that there are several other spellers in it. I would love for our choir to perform at the National Spelling Bee one day.
Word of the Day (yesterday)
tilleul \tuh-yuhl\ [Latin to French] a pale greenish yellow
Today's Word of the Day
tiralee \tiruh-lee\ [imitative] succession of musical notes (as in a bugle call)
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