2005/06/06
Spellbound
Bound is a general English word for being "fixed." The persons and most of animals, for example, are not able to go up in the air like birds or someone with special power. We are bound to the earth; we are earthbound. If someone with dark power puts a spell on you, you will be spellbound. You may take a form of animal or you may do something strange or you may be sleeping till the spell is broken. In everyday English, even not in fiction, when you are under a power and fixed to something, they say that you are spellbound.
Spelling, in wider English, is act of reading out the word, letter by letter, or way of writing the word, letter by letter. When you spell "competition," for example, or when you give the spelling of "competition," you say the word, letter by letter, and, after that, say the sounds of the word; it will be like this: "C, O, M, P, E, T, I, T, I, O, N, competition!"
When you give a talk and the hearer doesn't get one of the words, you may say the spelling. That is a common way of getting a strange word across.
Most of the Japanese, when they do their work of learning English, put the spelling in their memory by simply writing the word again and again, without using voices. Most of the Americans at school, on the other hand, do it by saying it. They even do it as a play and competition. The name of the play is "spelling bee" or "spelling contest." They have a long history of nation-wide competition: National Spelling Bee.
In 2002, a motion picture of the eight young Americans working in the last stage of the competition was produced. It's not a picture with actors playing as if they are schoolboys. It's a documentary: a record of what it truly took place. The name of the picture is Spellbound.
| Spell is a general English word used with a sense of "talk, or word." In fiction, stories like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, a person with special power does an unnatural, but interesting, thing like making himself go up in the air, by saying a special word; that sort of power-word is a spell.
Bound is a general English word for being "fixed." The persons and most of animals, for example, are not able to go up in the air like birds or someone with special power. We are bound to the earth; we are earthbound. If someone with dark power puts a spell on you, you will be spellbound. You may take a form of animal or you may do something strange or you may be sleeping till the spell is broken. In everyday English, even not in fiction, when you are under a power and fixed to something, they say that you are spellbound.
Spelling, in wider English, is act of reading out the word, letter by letter, or way of writing the word, letter by letter. When you spell "competition," for example, or when you give the spelling of "competition," you say the word, letter by letter, and, after that, say the sounds of the word; it will be like this: "C, O, M, P, E, T, I, T, I, O, N, competition!"
When you give a talk and the hearer doesn't get one of the words, you may say the spelling. That is a common way of getting a strange word across.
Most of the Japanese, when they do their work of learning English, put the spelling in their memory by simply writing the word again and again, without using voices. Most of the Americans at school, on the other hand, do it by saying it. They even do it as a play and competition. The name of the play is "spelling bee" or "spelling contest." They have a long history of nation-wide competition: National Spelling Bee.
In 2002, a motion picture of the eight young Americans working in the last stage of the competition was produced. It's not a picture with actors playing as if they are schoolboys. It's a documentary: a record of what it truly took place. The name of the picture is Spellbound.
http://www.spellboundmovie.com/
¶ 01:05 This moving picture, as Challenge Kids, is now on the road in Japan.
http://www.pan-dora.co.jp/challenge/
