The Scripps National Spelling Bee - 2009 Winning Word

For those who have not yet heard, the winning word of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee was "Laodicean," which is defined by freedictionary.com as: "of or relating to Laodicea, or indifferent in matters of religion."
Congratulations to Kavya Shivashankar, the 13-year-old winner from Olathe, Kansas. Excellent job.

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On a separate note, one of the earlier words in the finals was "brachyology," which sounds a lot like the word "bracketology" of which I have previously posted.

A brachyology is defined by reference.com as: a figure of speech that is an abbreviated expression. An example is the omission of "good" in "good morning."

Sports Word of the Day - Bracketology

I have been hearing the word bracketology in the news almost nonstop of late and my linguistic mind immediately thinks about bracketing paradoxes when I hear the word. I have posted about bracketing paradoxes a couple of times in the past but I have never posted about bracketology. For those who don't know, bracketology is defined by Reference.com as, "the process of predicting the field of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, named as such because it is commonly used to fill in tournament brackets for the postseason." A bracketologist, "places teams in the tournament in the various regions (East, West, Midwest, and South)."

Perhaps a person who notices bracketing paradoxes all the time should be called linguistic bracketologist.

Additionally, another newer sports word is NIT-ology which is defined as a process similar to that of bracketology that is used for the National Invitation Tournament.