Nigel Hayes

Nigel Hayes

Find Your Writing Niche: Nigel Hayes and Words

While writing a story to promote the Adult Spelling Bee in Brunswick County, N.C., I learned that Nigel Hayes, a University of Wisconsin basketball player, has the reputation at press conferences for using difficult words to spell. After Wisconsin defeated Kentucky in the NCAA Final Four Basketball tournament, he used the word “logorrhea.”

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines logorrhea as excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness. Hayes has said he uses difficult words to spell “Just to give the stenographer a hard time.”

His parents say that growing up, he was an avid reader, and his father said, “If it were up to him, he would’ve walked around with a Thesaurus all day.”

Other young men can improve their vocabulary and spelling by following in Hayes’ footsteps. Among the unusual words he has used are:

  • Cattywampus
  • Onomatopoeia
  • Soliloquy
  • Zephyr
  • Xylophone

A Google search calls up a myriad of stories. One is at

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2015/03/31/final-four-nigel-hayes-wisconsin-ncaa-tournament/70726866/

 

Article By: Jo Ann Mathews

I published three ebooks in 2020: Women and Adversity, Honoring 23 Black Women; Women and Adversity, Recognizing 23 Notable Mothers; and Women and Adversity, Saluting 23 Faithful Suffragists to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. These books are meant to be study guides for all students from grade school through college to help in choosing topics for assignments and to learn more about these noteworthy women. Go to amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and goodreads.com to learn more.

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