NYT Spelling Bee

[ciao_yall]

Missing one word that starts with CO. The Wordplay crowd hasn't hinted the C's so I R stuck.

ETA: QB! Didn't think it was a word but it took. Woohoo.

[ab_grp]

Congrats on your QBs, Langue_doc and ciao_yall! Ciao_yall, my final word was also a CO.  I'm glad you found it!

And congrats on your second 2fer, Langue_doc! Speaking of autocorrect, my phone has helpfully corrected several texts to my husband today.  First, I asked if he was ready to be *sheared* [hair, beard trimmed], and it dropped the first E, changing the meaning quite a bit!  And just now, it decided to go ahead and correct "husband" to "has been".  Yep, my handsome has been.   I have sent some interesting ones to my daughter as well.

[ciao_yall]

I also got a very quick second 2fer. Seems to be easy these days. Usually I don't bother once I have the first 2fer but this one happened on the first try.

[Parasaurolophus]

Close today, but still struggling with the pangram.

[ab_grp]

Hope you get a big win soon, Parasaurolophus! Good luck!

[Parasaurolophus]

Whoops. I actually found the pangram this morning--it's the last few points I'm struggling with.

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Pangram and genius. I'm not sure if I'm going to get any more words.

judgement/sawing, and then adjustment/twig

ciao_yall, I couldn't give you any hints because when I'm on the kindle, I can only type basic sentences as it takes me forever just to type a sentence, and then even longer to correct autocorrect. ab_grp, sorry to hear that autocorrect practically eliminated your husband! I have to be on the computer for longer sentences, punctuation, copy and paste, and even for italics and boldface.

[cathwen]

Good morning!

My LB yesterday was judgements-sawing.   Today I found a 2fer as well.  Congratulations, Langue_doc and ab_grp, on finding not one, but two  2fers!

Parasaurolophus, I hope you got your last few points on SB yesterday!  Congratulations on QB, ciao_yall! 

Today's SB is at genius with the pangram, and that last point to genius was a struggle.  I don't think this will be a QB day. 

Happy puzzling!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

I am one dumb 4-letter word from QB! I usually get the 4-letter ones, and I am a little worried because my penultimate (5-letter) is something I have never heard of (as far as I know), and I was just typing stuff and found it.  But other than that, all the other words have been in the puzzle, as far as I can recall.  This one may have been as well, who knows.

For LB, I got adjudgements-swing and then judgements-swami, so I am not sure if they count as two or a little less.  Congrats on all your 2fers! And congrats on already getting one today, cathwen!

Thanks about my nearly has been husband, Langue_doc.  I have a bad habit of dictating texts because I hate typing on my phone (similar reason for why I almost never engage here once I'm off the computer), and I sometimes don't look at it before sending.  Especially if it's normal words that I say often! Maybe I talk funny at times.  Or it just likes to screw around with me.  Half the time when texting my daughter, I don't notice it's on the Spanish keyboard and trying to parse my English as Spanish, which often sounds very strange and ridiculous.  But, we get a laugh out of it.

There is a spelling bee group on Facebook that is very active with about 5K members (NYTimes Spelling Bee).  The guidelines don't allow for posting spoilers the day of, but some do by accident (e.g., by saying word X isn't in there, but they may not have noticed that a part of word X is in there), so I tend to avoid it during the day.  But someone mentioned something there the other day: I had felt smart by realizing that genius is about 70% of total points and then calculating the total, but duh... we also knew that amazing is about 50%, so it's even easier to just double amazing to get an idea of total points, not requiring a calculator at all.  Of course there are rounding errors, and we mostly use the nytbee site now for exact totals.  I mentioned this to husband this morning, and he had never thought of just doubling amazing either, so I guess we probably have to turn in our math degrees.  Anyway, thought that might give someone a chuckle, and I wanted to mention that FB group as well in case it is of interest.  Sometimes folks post their general strategies, and there is plenty of complaining about what's included or not.   

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

I don't have any social media on my phone, but I do have the puzzles and email on there. So I can't check the fora either.

SB - last word was coact which was kind of a wild guess. New words was toccata. Mostly others I got with subtle hints from the Wordplay blog. Maybe I'll achieve QBAM? Achieved it once!

I got adjustment-twig almost on the first try. Then later went back and almost instantly got judgements-swain.

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Pangram, genius. I found those FB groups - kind of a fun group!

Barely any progress on LB. Quite the snarl of b4ss options, eh? Did achieve a 3fer.

No LB groups online! But it's a hard one to play as a group.

[ab_grp]

Finally got to QB.  Final word has been in the puzzle several times, but I just missed it for a while.  Whew.

I have a couple contenders for LB so far, but no luck yet.  Another seminar this afternoon, so more time to try for it!

[cathwen]

Congratulations on QB, ab_grp!  My hat is off to you.  Maybe in this season I should say mortarboard (or squashy velvet tam)! 

I admit that I am stumped, even with help from the Shunn site.  My remaining three words all begin with L, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what they are.  I keep seeing words that require an N, but of course there is no N.

I haven't checked out the Facebook group yet—sounds like a good group! 

And what a revelation about doubling amazing to get the number of total points (give or take)!  I never thought of that, although it had once occurred to me to see what percentage each category was.  Then the idea floated out of my mind. 

[ciao_yall]

SB - not much new progress yet. The FB group gets all excited when they hit "genius" and I'm like geez, that's a Participation Trophy with the crowd I run with!

LB - 2fer b4ss. Tangly one today!

[Langue_doc]

The l-words have appeared in recent puzzles. As for the doubling, this is how I've been calculating the scores needed for QB--must have read this somewhere.

QB!