More Words You Won't See on 6/17 Bill Long 5/30/06 One of the
rules at the National Senior Spelling Bee, which will take place
this year in Cheyenne on June 17, is that no word of multiple
spellings will be used. I suppose they do this so as to remove
all possibility of confusion, which often reigns when you hear
words that sound like so many other words you think you know. In
any case, this method gives the false impression that there is a
proper or standardized way to spell words in English. I will
examine four perfectly good words briefly here which have two
spellings each in the Collegiate. The are socage/soccage;
sockdolager/sockdologer; somber/sombre; and spandrel/spandril.
Of course they won't be used in the Bee, and so I am sort of
"wasting my time." But sometimes you never are more productive
as when you think you are wasting your time. The word,
pronounced SOAK age, brings us into the world of English
feudalism. Socage (or soccage, though the OED only has the
former) is a form of land tenure. Tenure