Speke \'spek\, John Hanning (b. May 3, 1827, Bideford, Devon, Eng.—d. Sept. 15, 1864, Corsham, Wiltshire) British explorer. He was a member of Richard Burton’s expedition, and in 1858 Speke and Burton became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika. On the return trip he left Burton and struck out northward alone. In July 1858 he reached a great lake, which he named Lake Victoria, for the queen. His claim that it was the source of the Nile was questioned, but on a second expedition (1860-63) he found the Nile’s exit from the lake. Speke’s claim to have found the Nile’s source was again challenged in England. He was killed by his own gun while hunting on the very day he was to debate Burton publicly.
spelling and grammar checkers Components of word-processing programs for personal computers that identify apparent misspellings and grammatical errors by reference to an incorporated dictionary and a list of rules for proper usage. Spelling checkers cannot identify spelling errors
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Spelman College ► Sperry I 1799
that result in another legitimate word (e.g., “form” typed for “from”) and are hard to use on documents that contain numerous words (e.g., foreign terms) not entered in the incorporated dictionary. Grammar checkers— which also generally check punctuation, sentence length, and other aspects of style—have been criticized for their reliance on oversimplified rules.
Spelman College Private, historically black, women’s liberal arts col¬ lege in Atlanta, Ga. Its history is traced to 1881, when two Boston women began teaching 11 black women, mostly ex-slaves, in an Atlanta church basement. Donations from John D. Rockefeller, beginning in 1884, assured the school’s growth; the school is named for Rockefeller’s mother-in-law. Spelman offers bachelor’s degrees in more than 20 academic fields. It is one of six African American institutions in the Atlanta area that share stu¬ dents, faculty, facilities, and curricula. Spelman’s alumnae include attor¬ ney and children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman and author Alice Walker.
spelt Subspecies ( Triticum aestivum spelta) of wheat that has lax spikes and spikelets containing two light-red kernels. Triticum dicoccon was cultivated by the ancient Babylonians and the ancient Swiss lake dwell¬ ers; it is now grown for livestock forage and used in baked goods and cereals.
Spence, A. Michael (b. 1943, Montclair, N.J., U.S.) U.S. economist. He studied at Yale (B.A., 1966), Oxford (B.A./M.A., 1968), and Harvard (Ph.D., 1972) and taught at Harvard and Stanford, serving as dean of the latter’s business school from 1990 to 1999. He is known for refining the theory of asymmetric information in the marketplace. His research dem¬ onstrated that in certain situations those who are better informed can improve their market return by transmitting information to those who know less; for example, auto dealers can convey the superior quality of their cars by offering warranties. For his work on “market signaling,” Spence shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz.
Spencer, Herbert (b. April 27,1820, Derby, Derbyshire, Eng.—d. Dec. 8, 1903, Brighton, Sussex) English sociologist and philosopher, advocate of the theory of social Darwinism. His System of Synthetic Philosophy, 9 vol. (1855-96), held that the physical, organic, and social realms are intercon¬ nected and develop according to identical evolutionary principles, a scheme suggested by the evolution of biological species. This sociocultural evolution amounted to, in Spencer’s phrase, “the survival of the fittest.” The free market system, without interference by governments, would weed out the weak and unfit. His controversial laissez-faire philosophy was praised by social Darwinists such as William Graham Sumner and opposed by sociologists such as Lester Frank Ward. Liked or loathed, Spencer was one of the most discussed Victorian thinkers.
Spender, Sir Stephen (Harold) (b. Feb. 28, 1909, London, Eng.—d. July 16, 1995, London) English poet and critic. While an under¬ graduate at Oxford, Spender met the poets W.H. Auden and C. Day-Lewis. In the 1930s they became identified with politically conscious, leftist “new writing.” His poems, expressing a self-critical, compassionate personal¬ ity, appeal’ in volumes from Poems (1933) to Dolphins (1994). He was better known for his perceptive criticism, as in The Destructive Element (1935), The Making of a Poem (1955), and The Struggle of the Mod¬ ern (1963), and for his association with the influential review Encoun¬ ter (1953-67). He also wrote short stories, essays, and autobiography.
Spengler \'shpeq-gbr\, Oswald (b. May 29, 1880, Blankenburg,
Ger.—d. May 8, 1936, Munich) Ger¬ man philosopher. A schoolmaster before he turned to writing, Spengler is remembered for his influential The Decline of the West, 2 vol. (1918—
22), a study in the philosophy of his¬ tory. He contended that civilizations pass through a life cycle, blossoming and decaying like natural organisms, and that Western culture is irrevers¬ ibly past its creative stage and headed into eclipse. Though
acclaimed by a public disillusioned in the wake of World War I, his work was criticized by both professional scholars and the Nazi Party, despite some affinities with its dogma.
Spenser, Edmund (b. 1552/53, London, Eng.—d. Jan. 13, 1599, Lon¬ don) English poet. Little is known for certain about his life before he entered the University of Cambridge. His first important publication, The Shepheardes Calender (1579), can be called the first work of the English literary Renaissance. By 1580 he was apparently serving the Earl of Leicester and was part of a literary circle led by Sir Philip Sidney. In 1580 he became secretary to the lord deputy of Ireland, where he spent much of his remaining life; in 1588 or 1589 he took over a large property at Kilcolman, near Cork. In 1590 he published the first part of the long alle¬ gorical poem The Faerie Queene (first folio ed., 1609), an imaginative vindication of Protestantism and Puritanism and a glorification of England and Elizabeth I. The central poem of the Elizabethan period and one of the greatest poems in English, it was composed in a revolutionary nine- line stanzaic pattern, the “Spenserian stanza,” that was used by many later poets. Of the 12 books he planned for the poem, he completed just over half. Amoretti (1595), a sonnet sequence, and Epithalamion (1595), a marriage ode, are among his other works. In the Irish uprising of 1598, Kilcolman was burned; Spenser, probably in despair, died shortly after.
Speransky \spyi-'ran-ske\, Mikhail (Mikhaylovich), Count (b.
Jan. 12, 1772, Cherkutino, Russia—d. Feb. 23, 1839, St. Petersburg) Rus¬ sian politician. After teaching at the seminary in St. Petersburg, he entered government service. He served as an assistant to Tsar Alexander I (1807- 12), but his proposed financial and administrative reforms angered the nobles, who had him exiled (1812-16). He returned to government ser¬ vice, serving as governor-general of Siberia (1819-21). A member of the state council from 1821 under Nicholas I, he compiled the first complete collection of Russian law (1830). He was given the title of count in 1839.
sperm or spermatozoon Vspor-.ma-to-'zo-onX Male reproductive cell. In mammals, sperm are produced in the testes and travel through the reproductive system. At fertilization, one sperm of the roughly 300 million in an average ejaculation (see semen) fertilizes an egg (see ovary) to pro¬ duce an offspring. At puberty, immature cells (spermatogonia) begin a maturation process (spermatogenesis). A mature human sperm has a flat, almond-shaped head, with a cap (acrosome) containing chemicals that help it penetrate an ovum. It is essentially a cell nucleus, with 23 chro¬ mosomes (including either the X or Y that determines the child’s sex). A flagellum propels the sperm, which may live in a woman’s reproductive tract for two to three days after sexual intercourse, to the egg. Sperm may be frozen and stored for artificial insemination.