“How do I remember big words? I don’t know. I guess it’s a gift,” says eight-year-old Abysenya Gordon with the directness typical of children.

The Free Town Primary School student isn’t your ordinary grade three pupil.

Last year, Abysenya turned heads when she spelt the longest word in the English vocabulary without assistance, after seeing it just once. The 45-letter word — pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis — means a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.

This year the prodigy upped her game, conquering a much bigger word used to describe the spa waters in Bath, England. Made up of 52 letters, it is the longest word ever created that appears outside literature as of September 2013.

“My new favourite word is aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic — and it has 52 letters,” Abysenya told the Jamaica Observer.

Not long after, she hastily reeled off all 52 letters, eliciting a proud smile from her mother, Trudiann Bailey.

“My hobbies are spelling big words, reading, playing with my dolls and watching TV. And I would love to meet the prime minister one day,” Abysenya added.

“My mom wants me to be a doctor, but I want to be a CEO in the future and I want to enter the Spelling Bee competition to represent Jamaica and win,” she said.

Bailey told the Sunday Observer that she realised her daughter was able to quickly memorise “big words” and spell them as early as age two.

“She knew everybody’s name… all the family members… and all our last names are different, that’s how I knew. At that point, I realised that something is special about this child. It makes me feel so good to know that I have a smart child… a child who is really good at spelling and the big words come like nothing to her. She remembers them and I don’t know how she does it. Sometimes I can’t even call the words that she is spelling,” the Longville Park, Clarendon, resident said.

“From she was small she was able to remember and spell words like hippopotamus, elephant, crocodile, from very early. She has been spelling those words from a long, long time,” the mother explained.

She said, too, that Abysenya sometimes engages her five-year-old brother in spelling bouts.

“Sometimes she tries to teach him and him want her fi rush him,” she said laughing. “But their relationship is okay. My family is so proud of her. Everybody feels good about her. My aunty always telling people ‘Mi niece bright eenuh… mi niece bright.’ People just couldn’t believe that she could spell certain words without looking on anything. So people used to react surprised.”

Prior to Free Town Primary, Abysenya attended Whyte’s Pre-School and Kindergarten where she copped multiple awards.

For the 2019 school year, Abysenya was crowned Best Speller, Best Reader, and Most Outstanding student.

“Her last teacher told me that she was reading at a grade six level when she was in grade two, and her current teachers are always telling me that she’s doing well at school,” Bailey shared.

“I think her knowing how to spell some words that I don’t really know wows me the most. When she was around four years old I use to make videos of her spelling the words. I was wondering if it had something to do with her name, because her name is long. I don’t know if that has anything [to do] with her being able to spell big words,” Bailey said with a chuckle.

“She was telling me about the new one that she knows how to spell with 52 letters and now she is going after one with 183 letters in it. Mi cyaa even say it. Mi a tell her fi calm down and nuh bother mad before time,” Bailey added, laughing even more.

Bailey said the ultimate goal is to have her daughter be a part of the National Spelling Bee competition. She recalled being in talks with a spelling coach last year, but said the novel coronavirus pandemic disrupted the plans.

“Since the pandemic and the lockdowns you can’t really go anywhere, so that’s on hold for right now. What I want, exactly, is for her to enter the Spelling Bee, and I would love for her to win. I don’t know what the terms are… but I want her to enter because I see the potential. I see where she can make it,” Bailey said.

Asked if Abysenya has, like other children, been affected by the lack of face-to-face classes because of the pandemic, Bailey said no.

“With the pandemic and she being at home, it doesn’t really matter to her because she still does well in her schoolwork. I don’t have any problem with that right now. Other than that, it’s just hard because she has a tablet that shuts off sometimes. She really needs a tablet for school,” Bailey said.

Abysenya, though, said she is eager to return to the classroom.

“I don’t like online school. I want to be with my friends,” she told the Sunday Observer.