NYT Spelling Bee

[ciao_yall]

Happy Sunday!

QB - needed a Wordplay reminder for jinn. Already found jinni, junco from remembering previous puzzles. Took a while to try jouncing as I kept thinking "oh, too bad I don't have a b because bouncing is a great word!"

LB - conflicts-swarm not a lot of variety yesterday.

[cathwen]

Good afternoon!

I got to QB yesterday with help from Shunn.  Jinni was one of the last words, but the very last word was cuing!  Funny how sometimes you (=I) don't see the easier ones after getting the harder ones.  Jouncing was a tough one, but I got that one fairly early on—I don't know why it occurred to me.  I think I must have heard it or read it recently.

Today I'm at Alpha.

My LB solution yesterday was the same as everyone else's.  I have a 2fer today.

Now to try the crossword.

Happy puzzling!

[ab_grp]

Made it to QB with help from Shunn for the first letter of the final word.

And I have a contender I desperately want to work in LB, but no luck yet.  Congrats on yours, cathwen!

Someone posted on the FB group about spelling bee that you can actually see the accepted word list for the day's puzzle in the web interface if you look at the page source! I wouldn't do that (though I did today because I had already gotten to impure QB), but that is an explanation for how Shunn (and others?) pulls his info and knows exactly which words will be accepted or not.  Maybe I will see if I can write a program to do that at some point to practice my programming more.  Anyway, interesting to know! 

[Langue_doc]

QB at long last. There's still the crossword.

This is my Canvas weekend, so I'm going to be on the computer and then I have to reread my book and come up with a list of discussion questions for the book group next week.

ETA: Crossword is done, whew!

As for hints, I like the SB Wordplay as that's how I found jinni (I think there were two words that began with ji-) and also how I found a couple of words today.

[ab_grp]

Yay! Congrats on the QB and getting the crossword done in time, Langue_doc! I am afraid to look at anything with commenters because it's hard to control what you see or don't.

Still no luck on LB and haven't started tomorrow's sudokus (which I can hold off on) or done Duo (which I had better do, as it's end of week).

ETA: I reread that final sentence and realized it did not make any sense! In any case, I did finish Duo, at least.

[Langue_doc]

ab_grp, I don't look at the comments, but only at the official wordplay when I'm stuck. I learned the hard way not to look at the comments as people happily post the solutions. Do check it out if you feel inclined.

No LB, but tomorrow's crosswords and sudokus are out!

[ciao_yall]

One "bee special" to get me to QB.

And... the LB solutions are weird. I bet, like me, y'all got one word and couldn't figure out another to fit with it, or had one weird letter left.

Will check tomorrow.

[Parasaurolophus]

Blah, fell just a few points short today.

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Pangram and genius so far.

Two-fer already!

Congrats on finishing the Duo, ab_grp.

Happy solving, all!

[cathwen]

Good morning!

Also pangram and genius. 

I got to QB yesterday with help from Wordplay letter distributions (a much less annoying site than Shunn, but with the same info).  Cabbie and befit were my last words, both of which I've gotten before but was just not seeing.

LB:  I had synergizes-sequoia yesterday.  I also have a 2fer today. 

Happy puzzling!

[Langue_doc]

cathwen, that's a brilliant solution, much better than the NYT one. I should have seen it as I was watching bits and pieces of Planet Earth just the other day, and thinking nostalgically of my hikes among the sequoias when I lived in that part of the country.

I had synergizes and could only find square which left the o dangling. No three-fers for me, not since I found this thread.

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

QB - with help for tibiae. Okay, another new word.

LB - with help got aqueous-synergize and synergizes-sequoia. I had a lot of 3fer with synergize but couldn't close the loop. Some examples: synergizes-square-eon, gaze-enquiry-yours, quays-synergizes-son, quois-synergize-ear...

Happy solving!

[cathwen]

I had found synergizes and sequoia separately, then realized that they worked together. 

Sequoia reminded me of a conversation my husband and I had a few years ago when we visited California*.  I had never seen redwoods and was absolutely awe-struck!  Then I wondered how redwoods were different from sequoias—after some hypothesizing, we whipped out our phones googled the answer.  I still have not seen a sequoia!

*We started in LA, visiting Youngest Daughter, then drove up the Pacific Coast Highway—which my husband had assured me would involve breathtaking scenery—to San Francisco to visit with a friend.  But, as is typical of our vacations (it has become a joke), we got nothing but rain and fog and very few good views of the scenery that he assured me was out there somewhere.  Sigh...

[ciao_yall]

I had found synergizes and sequoia separately, then realized that they worked together. 

Sequoia reminded me of a conversation my husband and I had a few years ago when we visited California*.  I had never seen redwoods and was absolutely awe-struck!  Then I wondered how redwoods were different from sequoias—after some hypothesizing, we whipped out our phones googled the answer.  I still have not seen a sequoia!

*We started in LA, visiting Youngest Daughter, then drove up the Pacific Coast Highway—which my husband had assured me would involve breathtaking scenery—to San Francisco to visit with a friend.  But, as is typical of our vacations (it has become a joke), we got nothing but rain and fog and very few good views of the scenery that he assured me was out there somewhere.  Sigh...

Like when my aunt and uncle came from France. It was so foggy they could not see Alcatraz or the GG bridge while standing right on the beach!

[ab_grp]

Good morning/afternoon!

Man, we are struggling on the bee today.  I got to QB-3 and GN4L but no Alpha, and I think husband was at QB-5, and we decided to just go ahead and compare.  Needed Shunn, I got to Alpha but still two words left.  I know the first two letters and lengths and am totally stuck!! I think my final two words yesterday were tibiae, tacet.  I guess I forgot about the latter spelling/word from previous puzzles.

Argh, was so close with LB yesterday.  There were a couple words that either left one letter (after finding a potential mate) or were ships.  I really wanted syzygy for a while but finally saw synergize and figured that was the better route as it used up more letters.  No luck at all on aqueous, and I agree that cathwen's sequoias is a better mate for it! Of course I had to look at the spelling about four times while typing that, so no surprise that it didn't occur to me yesterday.  Congrats on your 2fers today, Langue_doc and cathwen!

Langue_doc, thanks for the Duo props! I also wanted to check on which site you and cathwen are talking about.  This one: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/crosswords/spelling-bee-2021-09-06.html  with the letter distributions? It definitely is less of a pain to use than Shunn.  I guess the only thing it doesn't have is compounds.  One of the things I'm going to try to do with the page source info I found out about yesterday is to try to make other useful scaffolded metrics (like first three letters).  I figure I might as well play around with it.  Maybe I can get it to look for particular prefixes and suffixes, too.

It seems as though trying to catch particular views or scenery tends to lend itself to bad weather! A friend of mine's husband is stationed in Japan, so she finally hiked Mt. Fuji in wind and driving rain and missed the sunrise she was hoping to see.  And I guess hiking season is over soon, so that's that.  Still an incredible experience, I'm sure, but that is a shame.

Happy solving!