The dilemma continues over how to spell dilemma. Are there Catholic school teachers out there still teaching their students to spell it the wrong way, i.e., dilemna? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Spelling “Dilemma””
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
And the emails about the word dilemma are still coming in.
Oh boy, how many years running is this?
Oh man, so many.
We had this discussion, right, about dilemma.
Several times.
Yes, and there were a lot of people who spelled the word dilemma.
Right, not M-M in the middle, but M-N as in Nancy or not right.
Not right.
Yeah, and we’ve had a strong suspicion all along that there’s a Catholic connection.
Yeah, we did.
And that’s what we keep hearing.
We heard from Hazel Huntsinger in Kildare, North Dakota, who said she’s always been an excellent speller, but she’s always spelled the word with an N.
And she said, I was baffled to learn as an adult with spellcheck that I had been spelling it wrong my whole life.
I still double-check on the rare occasion that I use the word because it’s hardwired in there now.
And then we also heard from Maxine Leary in Montpelier, Vermont.
And she writes, finally, I realized I didn’t make up Dilemma.
I’m almost 86 years old, and I’ve always spelled it Dilemma until just a few years ago.
Had never thought anything about it.
And she said, and yes, I went to Catholic school.
And then she was a Sister of Mercy for 20 years, and she taught Dilemma.
Oh, interesting.
She said, why?
I didn’t think it was weird, but that’s the English language, I figured.
I changed about five or ten years ago, got with the program, as it were, and started using Dilemma.
I can’t tell you how happy I am in my elder years to find, yes, there was a reason,
And no, I wasn’t stranded alone on a misspelling reef out in an illiterate ocean.
Well, so Dilemma, just to be clear, some people are spelling Dilemma with an N.
Yes.
N as in North Korea, N as in nuclear missile, N as in no way.
No, no.
Instead of the double M.
Right.
Isn’t that interesting?
Yeah.
And so our theory had been that there was some textbook preferred by Catholic schools.
Yep.
And I still wonder, is there somewhere out there a school primer that continues to use the spelling of an N?
Oh, wouldn’t it be great if we could find one?
I have looked.
I actually have looked.
Have you?
Yes.
Somebody has that book in their attic.
I’ve looked on numerous full-text resources like Google Books and HathiTrust and ProQuest Historical, whatever, as well as in thrift stores.
Really?
Yes.
Every time you go to a thrift store, you look for it.
For a book that says Dilemna?
Yes.
First I look for strange slang books I’ve never heard of, and then I look for textbooks.
Is that right?
Yes.
How interesting.
And I’ve never found it.
So it’s weird.
It’s really interesting.
But it’s got to be out there.
Somebody has lessons, plans, or a textbook or something.
Take a photograph and send it to us, please.
We’re looking for the ur-source of the spelling Dilemna.
The ur-text.
The ur-text, right.
What stone tablet?
I don’t know.
Oh, that could be, right?
It’s in linear…
Anglo-Saxon, yeah.
…linear in somewhere.
I don’t know.
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I would like to put forth for consideration the two mathematical terms: lemma and lemniscate. ‘Lemma’ (a helping theorem) is, I believe, the source of ‘dilemma’, while ‘lemniscate’, refers to the figure 8 on its side used to indicate infinity. It would be pretty easy for anyone getting both words in a math class to come to the conclusion that they, and their spelling, were related. As for the Catholic school relationship: lemniscate, from the Latin ‘lemniscatus’, would have most certainly taken precedent (at least in my pre-Vatican II 1950s-60s generation) over the Greek origin of lemma.