Guetapens

Susan Coffin · Jun 1, 2012

I love words, and I learned a new word today after hearing about the winner of the national spelling bee.

Guetapens.

I also know it's an obscure French word meaning.....

I know, but you tell me. Does anyone know what this word means without looking it up? (or did you know what it meant before hearing the definition on the news?)

alleycat · Jun 1, 2012

Nope.

Kerosene · Jun 1, 2012

alleycat said:
Nope.

I had to search google, and then try to understand what the answers meant.

Sorry, but I will never use this word by saying, writing or even quoting this thread.

Where do these people find these words?

SomethingOrOther · Jun 1, 2012

We all can invent our own hard-to-spell words, with the help of this random letter sequence generator.

ltoffgjjme (pronounced lohm--the t, f's, g, and j's are silent)

noun

1. The good feeling that accompanies drinking a cool beverage while posting on AW on a Friday night when it's raining and while lying in bed and wearing nothing more than sexy underwear.

verb

1. To implicitly give too much information about one's current state by defining a made-up word.

Susan Coffin · Jun 1, 2012

Will,

My beau Don is a word whiz, and he didn't even know what the word meant. After hearing the word on the radio, I guessed a few times how to spell it and figured it out the second time.

Susan Coffin · Jun 1, 2012

SomethingOrOther,

The random word generator is interesting. I like your new word and pronunciation.

Here is a website word people might like.

blacbird · Jun 1, 2012

guetapen n. Where one confines the guetas.

Blacbird's Unabridged Dictionary, 2012 ed.

caw

Susan Coffin · Jun 1, 2012

blacbird said:
guetapen n. Where one confines the guetas.

Blacbird's Unabridged Dictionary, 2012 ed.

caw

:

Love it!!

And, you're an English teacher, aren't you?

Drachen Jager · Jun 1, 2012

Nope, never heard of it.

I know what snarge, merkin, and transliteration mean though.

Susan Coffin · Jun 2, 2012

Drachen,

Last night I searched online for this word, but it is so obscure that I could not find it in listing of obscure French words. Since none of us had heard of it, and most people I had not heard of it either, then why was it used in a spelling bee? It seems pretty easy to spell, however, because it can be sounded out. Smart kid who won the spelling bee, though.

Drachen Jager · Jun 2, 2012

Spelling bees are arbitrary. So much luck is involved to be a winner at the top levels. I would bet that if you ran the bee ten times with the same contestants you'd have a different winner each time. Most of the words they use at the top levels are beyond obscure, I think getting the spelling right has more to do with identifying the roots of the word and good guesswork than anything. They can't possibly have memorised them

I googled 'guetapens' and the first hit was a definition. What are you using to search?

Jamesaritchie · Jun 2, 2012

I knew what it meant, but only because it's related to "ambush", which is also of French origin.

If it has anything to do with war or strategy, there's a good chance I know it.

Jamesaritchie · Jun 2, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
Spelling bees are arbitrary. So much luck is involved to be a winner at the top levels. I would bet that if you ran the bee ten times with the same contestants you'd have a different winner each time. Most of the words they use at the top levels are beyond obscure, I think getting the spelling right has more to do with identifying the roots of the word and good guesswork than anything. They can't possibly have memorised them

I googled 'guetapens' and the first hit was a definition. What are you using to search?

Well, maybe arbitrary to a small degree, but sure not much. All the contestants read tens of thousands or words and definitions, and they concentrate on the difficult, the obscure, and the unique. The training, even for very young contestants, is unbelievable. Obscure to us does not mean obscure to them. Chances are they've all read the words and the definitions. It's the ones with the best memories who win.

Stacia Kane · Jun 2, 2012

I was nine when they tested me for the Gifted program at my elementary school (of course, I didn't know what they were doing, so didn't really take it seriously, which means my playing around on the Math section kept me out of Gifted. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that).

Anyway. One of the things they did was give me words and ask me to define them. Which was easy, until they got to the word "dilatory." I'd never heard it before, and I really wanted to try, so I thought about it...

and suggested that a dlatory was perhaps a place where they stored pickles.

(A dilatory is a slowpoke/being dilatory is being slow at a task. I promise you, I have never since that day forgotten what "dilatory" means.)

Susan Coffin · Jun 2, 2012

Drachen,

I see now that the true word is gueta-pens and not all one word, at least that is the way Google has it defined. Very fun!

Susan Coffin · Jun 2, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
I knew what it meant, but only because it's related to "ambush", which is also of French origin.

If it has anything to do with war or strategy, there's a good chance I know it.

James, I figured you would be one of the people to know what it is, with having written westerns and all. I wonder if this word might be in some of the classics.

Susan Coffin · Jun 2, 2012

Stacia Kane said:
I was nine when they tested me for the Gifted program at my elementary school (of course, I didn't know what they were doing, so didn't really take it seriously, which means my playing around on the Math section kept me out of Gifted. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that).

Anyway. One of the things they did was give me words and ask me to define them. Which was easy, until they got to the word "dilatory." I'd never heard it before, and I really wanted to try, so I thought about it...

and suggested that a dlatory was perhaps a place where they stored pickles.

(A dilatory is a slowpoke/being dilatory is being slow at a task. I promise you, I have never since that day forgotten what "dilatory" means.)

Stacia, your answer for dilatory is perfect, though, and it's just the kind of things kids will say when they really don't know the answer. Makes for one of those stories parents tell everybody about too.

I have been known to be dilatory when it comes to making pickles, especially when mom tried to get me to help with the canning.

Xelebes · Jun 2, 2012

Stacia Kane said:
I was nine when they tested me for the Gifted program at my elementary school (of course, I didn't know what they were doing, so didn't really take it seriously, which means my playing around on the Math section kept me out of Gifted. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that).

Anyway. One of the things they did was give me words and ask me to define them. Which was easy, until they got to the word "dilatory." I'd never heard it before, and I really wanted to try, so I thought about it...

and suggested that a dlatory was perhaps a place where they stored pickles.

(A dilatory is a slowpoke/being dilatory is being slow at a task. I promise you, I have never since that day forgotten what "dilatory" means.)

Would it also not be an adjective for something that acts like it is dilating?

My favourite hard-to-spell word is neorxnawang, a word native to English that means paradise.

dangerousbill · Jun 2, 2012

Susan Littlefield said:
I know, but you tell me. Does anyone know what this word means without looking it up? (or did you know what it meant before hearing the definition on the news?)

I wouldn't use the word if I did know the meeting, knowing that only one other person in the universe would know what it means anyway.

Susan Coffin · Jun 2, 2012

dangerousbill said:
I wouldn't use the word if I did know the meeting, knowing that only one other person in the universe would know what it means anyway.

This would be a good call in writing today's fiction. However, I wonder if any novels set during the French Revolution use this word.

Sunflowerrei · Jun 2, 2012

I've been using guetapens in random ways since yesterday.

It's French, but I'm assuming we're supposed to use this in English as well? (I say "supposed to" because who has actually heard of this word?) Or did they just stick this into the spelling bee for kicks?

WriteMinded · Jun 3, 2012

I hope it is an improvement over gel pens.

lorna_w · Jun 3, 2012

I'd never heard of it, and I guessed wrong. probably the "pens" did it: I thought, maybe a disease like priapism. You know, "having taken six Viagra, Jean-Claude was suffering once again from guetapens."

Susan Coffin · Jun 3, 2012

Sunflowerrei said:
I've been using guetapens in random ways since yesterday.

It's French, but I'm assuming we're supposed to use this in English as well? (I say "supposed to" because who has actually heard of this word?) Or did they just stick this into the spelling bee for kicks?

Oh yes, it is a catchy word!

Susan Coffin · Jun 3, 2012

WriteMinded said:
I hope it is an improvement over gel pens.

Well, if I could "guet a pen," I would not make it a gel pen.

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