A spelling bee championship competition was carried live in prime time yesterday by ABC TV. It made for entertaining TV, although I don’t think many people would want to watch it every week (nevertheless, expect somebody to spin this into a regular show, based on the reaction to last night’s events).

Anyway, all the stories about the show are focusing on the “winning word,” which is reported to be “ursprache.” Of-course that was the last word that the winning girl spelled in order to win. However, more significant was probably the word that tripped up her opponent, and that was: “weltschmerz.” Also of German derivation. The losing girl incorrectly began spelling it with a “v,” since it had been pronounced with the “v” sound for the German “w.” It was surprising, since this girl had been so unbelievably sharp up until that point, and then she lost out by making an amateur’s mistake.

Anyway, I was kind of taken with the definition of “weltschmerz.” It means, according to Webster’s: “mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state.”

We’d probably all do well to watch out for weltschmerz.

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