LINGUIST List 14.1248

Sun May 4 2003

Media: NYT: Films: Spellbound

Editor for this issue: Steve Moran <stevelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Karen Chung, Media: NYT: Films: Spellbound

 There's a review in the April 30, 2003 online edition of the New
York Times on the new movie "Spellbound"; in the same issue there is
also a feature on the kind of real-life spelling-bees that inspired
the movie:

(1) Move Review: 'Spellbound': Tense. The Children Are Tense. Tense.
 by A. O. Scott

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/30/movies/30SPEL.html?8mu

(2) Kids Versus Dictionaries (and Each Other)
 By Sylviane Gold

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/movies/27GOLD.html?pagewanted=1&8mu

 I especially enjoyed this anecdote (from (2)):

 ...Usually, their partner is a parent. Gale DeGideo looks
dolefully at the camera and laments that in working with her daughter,
April, she encounters so many words she can't pronounce. On the phone
from Ambler, Pa., Ms. DeGideo recalled being so mired in
tongue-twisting arcana that she didn't recognize the word "episode,"
turning it into "eePIZZodee." April figured it out anyway, and they
laughed for 20 minutes.


 Karen Steffen Chung
 National Taiwan University
 http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/
 http://www.topica.com/lists/phonetics/