guerdon what???

its june once again and students back in the philippines are gearing up to go back to the classrooms, make noise with their classmates, gobble up their allowances and torture their teachers.

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though i wonder how many among the millions of kids in our secondary schools - not counting the elementary students for that would be asking for the moon - would know the word guerdon, the winning word in this year's spelling bee, held last friday in washington and was won by a 13-year old boy from indiana.

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i saw the report the other day and i, myself, was shrinking from embarassment when i realized i haven't even come across any of the words that these young minds were asked to spell, correctly, to the last letter. for the life of me, guerdon whatttt???

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msn encarta defines it as "a reward or recompense" (14th century. via old french, medieval latin widerdonum "repayment", partial translation of old high german widarlon "giving back")

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hmmm... so would it be right when i say "i''m proud of my house which is a guerdon of my hard work"? beats me!
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ok, so just to torture your spelling-challenged mind like mine, here are a few more words used in this year's spelling contest, along with the corresponding definitions/origins from wiktionary, msn encarta and other web sources:
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prosopopoeia - (encarta) a figure of speech that presents an imaginary or dead person as speaking, a figure of speech in which human qualities are attributed to objects or abstract notions (mid-16th century. via latin. greek prosopopoiia "representation in human form", prosopon "face, person" + poiein "make")
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numnah - (encarta) a pad placed under a saddle (mid-19th century. alteration of urdu namdā, persian namad "felt, carpet")
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opificer - (wiktionary) a person who creates or makes something. from latin opifex
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brankursine - (webster) origin: f. branc-ursine, branch-ursine, fr. ll. branca claw + l. ursinus belonging to a bear (fr. ursus bear), i .e, bear's claw, because its leaves resemble the claws of a bear.
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cryptarithm - (google) a type of mathematical puzzle in which most or all of the digits in a mathematical expression, such as a sum, are substituted by letters or other symbols.
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empyrean - (wiktionary) the region of pure light and fire; the highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to exist: the same as the ether, the ninth heaven according to ancient astronomy. from latin empyrius, greek empyrios.

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alcarraza - (wikipedia) an earthenware container, traditionally made in spain. from the arabic word al-karaz, meaning a pitcher
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sheitel - (wikipedia) yiddish word for a wig or half-wig worn by orthodox jewish married women in order to conform with the requirement of jewish law to cover their hair.
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secernent - (wiktionary) to secrete. a transitive verb of italian origin
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etagere - (encarta) a piece of furniture made up of several open shelves, used to hold small objects (mid-19th century. french, later form of old french estagiere "scaffold")
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and do you know what was the word spelled correctly by frank neuhauser back in 1925 to win the very first national spelling bee contest? its gladiolus, meaning a widely grown plant with long sword-shaped leaves. large, funnel-shaped, growing in tall spikes. though that one is a bit more familiar.
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oh well, these words are undoubtedly big chunks of food for the brain. but i think they're just too high-faluting for me. right, ega!? hahahaha!!!