See 'n Say is like a spelling bee in reverse. The idea is to have fun while improving spelling, reading and writing skills. Instead of taking turns spelling words that a presenter carefully pronounces, defines, and illustrates with an example, participants are given a word to read aloud. Their task is 1] to pronounce it in the most grotesque manner possible, guided by whatever rules of regularity English spelling might be supposed to have (and thereby making learning more zestful and full of fun) and 2] to give the standard pronunciation. Additionally, participants may be asked to define the word and give an example of its use.
Examples: indictment, as indiktment and inditement, epitome as epi-tome (rhymes with home) and uhpitomee, psoriasis as p-sorryassis and sore-eye-iss-iss. (Syllables with the strongest stress are underlined when there may be any doubt.) Pretend that you are a foreigner trying to figure out the double-o of book, blood, boom, for example, and getting it wrong. Participants may be required to explain their logical pronunciations. A simple matter. "I'm pronouncing the ow of cow as in show, the ngs of singing as in finger, the th of that as in think and vice versa (Waddaya think o' that?), and for gnu, the gn of magnet and the u of up; also, the b of bet as in debt and the tt of matter like the dd of madder, because that's the way people say it at least half the time. (Hey, it does't madder!)"
The most common vowel of English, known in phonetics as schwa (from Yiddish schwa, meaning weak, and always weakly stressed) can be spelled many different ways in standard English spelling. When initial in a word, it may be pronounced formally as in up, informally as in open. For sociolinguistic reasons, in proper nouns it will be indicated always as in up with a phonetic symbol like an inverted v rather than an inverted e. Thus, for example, America is written phonemically* with the first vowel rather than the second one. In practice, of course, it may be pronounced either way.
Any number of persons can participate, organized into two or more teams as seems best, given the number of participants and the space available. The words may be presented on large flashcards which can be reshuffled for subsequent use or (in schools) displayed on a screen by overhead projector or written large on chalkboards or whiteboards. Everyone present should be able to see them, just as all get to hear them in spelling bees. To avoid a lot of cutting, the 8-1/2" by 11" pages available for free downloading (See below.) may be placed in a 9" x 12" envelope and each of the 3 words with accompanying phonemic transcription may be pulled up until visible. After each response, the page may be pulled up again until the phonemic transcription and a definition are visible, facilitating an evaluation.
In formal contests, judges would be assigned to present the words and evaluate the performance of each contestant. Informally, one person may show the top (next) word as participants (including the presenter) take their turn responding. Participants may take turns displaying the words, if desired. The pronunciation standard is General American English (G.A.) Limeys, blokes, etc. may refer to a dictionary where necessary. A pronunciation guide is given below. It may be well to print out enough copies for each participant to have one. To print it out separately, click here.
A recommendation: Do not follow the general practice in spelling bees of having contestants drop out. If two teams are competing, instead of dropping out, a participant who fails to respond accurately just takes his (her) place with the opposing team. When the game is over (as determined by an interval of time (half an hour, an hour) or after a given number of words, then the winning team is the smallest in number. Otherwise, a list of names can be made and one point jotted down after each correct response. If a particular "mispronounciation" is exceptionally outrageous, points may be given for that. Extra points may also be given for definitions and proper use in a sentence. Just have fun and improve your verbal skills while at it. Have fun scoring each other, too.
For practice in phonemic notation, participants may be asked to transliterate the words on a whiteboard or piece of paper. Their work can easily be checked against the transcriptions given and points may be alloted for good work. Regional and even idiosyncratic articulations may be adjudged acceptable. <Either> as "eyether" "eether" or "eyether," for example.
To generate a proper level of enthusiasm, participants may opt to boisterously sing The NuSpel Song. The words and sheet music are available at www.nuspel.org/nuspelsong.pdf. The tune (Du, du liegst mir im Herzen) can be played back by clicking on the title.
*A phoneme is a set of phonetically similar sounds (allophones) taken to be the same by native speakers of a language. Allophones generally assimilate to other sounds in two ways: manner of articulation or point of articulation. For example, except in careful speech, <has to> is pronounced as "hass to" (hassta). By contrast, <has done> would never be articulated as "hass done." In this instance, voicing (vibration of the vocal cords) is involved. Phonemes /t/ and /s/ are voiceless (no vibration); phonemes /d/ and /z/ are voiced (vibration). When /s/ of <has> precedes /t/ it assimilates (becomes similar) to the /t/ in terms of manner of articulation, becoming voiceless. Thus, English phoneme /s/ has two allphones, [s] and [z].
English /n/ is alveolar (tip of tongue touches alveolar ridge or gums). English eng (as in sing) is velar (back of tongue touches the velum or "back of mouth"). English /k/, as in <come>, is a velar sound. In careful speech, we may pronounce <income> as "in come," but informally it becomes "ink come." (The /n/ assimilates to the /k/ in terms of point of articulation.) So two allphones of English /n/ are [n] and "eng." The above symbols are presented in graphic form (.jpg), inasmuch as ordinary internet fonts have no such letters. This, of course, makes discussions of this sort somewhat awkward.)