NYT Spelling Bee

[cathwen]

Good morning!

Yesterday was a Good Puzzle Day.  I made QBABM (last word throw, oddly), and I had a 2fer.  My 2fer was the "official" one:  inchworm-muskox. 

I found a 2fer today.

I'm finding today's SB to be a bit of a slog.  I'm at Beta, but I don't know how much further I'll get.   

I have to grade the midterm exam and file midterm grades today, so I'll be pretty busy.  Fortunately, no one missed the midterm—so at least I won't have any sob stories to deal with. 

Happy puzzling!

[ciao_yall]

Morning! QBw2LL and a wild guess at wroth. And, inchworm-muskox. I found a 3fer cornrow-whim-muskox and thought it was too weird to be part of the solution. Then a friend validated that muskox was the second word. Boom.

Not started yet today, but happy solving!

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Found the pangram and made it to genius when I woke up at 4 this morning.

Last word yesterday was outre, which I've seen before.

Patted myself on the back for having found uxorious.

cathwen, that sounds like a frightening experience, especially to have a flat on a busy parkway. As for the lug nuts, my previous car, used, also needed one for removing the tires. Fortunately, soon after I got the car, an AAA guy or a mechanic showed me where it was stowed in the car (in a tiny slot that you accessed by lifting the floor mat in the trunk) and told me to remember where to look for it. That car had a lot of tire problems and most of the mechanics didn't know where to look for it.

As for my current car, after reading about your experience, I made a mental note to ask the service place tomorrow (car's getting routine service because of upcoming trips--that's another story) about the lug nut and also to check the spare tire. I could just look at the manual, but don't feel like going out in the rain and retrieving it from the car. Glad that your daughter had been safely dropped off at the airport. Thanks for asking about the dentist's appointment--they are good, but it takes a while for my body to recover from the anesthesia, even the very local ones.

Happy solving, and stay dry!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got the pangram but not to GN4L yet.  Yesterday I needed help with outro, grotto.

Congrats on your 2fers! And uxorious is another interesting word, Langue_doc! I didn't know there was a word for such a thing.

Happy solving!

[Langue_doc]

ab_grp, I always associate uxorious with King Solomon, he of the 1000 wives and concubines. The logistics is just too mind boggling.

I probably have three or four words left.

[Langue_doc]

From the NYT on how a polyglot solves the bee:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/crosswords/polyglot-solving-spelling-bee.html

[ab_grp]

Thanks for sharing the article, Langue_doc! I hope you got your final words.  And I agree about the logistics.  I think 1000 wives and concubines would be a bit much to have to deal with.  Hope you are continuing to feel better from the anesthesia.

[Parasaurolophus]

GWP.

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Pangram and genius so far. Haven't looked at yesterday's solution to see what I missed.

forking/graphics

Some of the comments in the NYT article that mirror my thoughts:

Spelling Bee needs an editor or an automated system in order to include the many common English words that are often rejected even though they are in the dictionary and are not proper nouns or words that express obscenity.
Whoever is responsible for this puzzle needs further education.

Tons of not obscure but not included words because...?

There is no rhyme or reason.  Nor raison. 

But c'mon, Spelling Bee, can we include everyday words?

Identifying a word in Spelling Bee isn't finding a word from another language that made it into everyday English.

That is because the Times staff members who support the Spelling Bee lexicon fail to include some words in the everyday English lexicon every single day.

And finally, my favorite:

Bewilderment:  You throw a random string of characters together out of frustration, hit Enter instead of Delete by mistake, and it's accepted.  WHAT?  Google it!

Happy solving, all!

[ciao_yall]

Slog to GwP yesterday. Not sure why my brain wasn't working. Did get forking-graphics for LB.

Happy solving!

Hm, it would be interesting if SB had an AI dictionary feature that would add words during the day, and keep track of ones you tried earlier so if you were the first to try OTIC but after a certain number of hits by other people it would appear in your list?

Anyway, happy solving!

[cathwen]

Good morning! 

I got stuck on SB yesterday with seven words to go.  Then it got late, and I looked at hints—they were all easy, normal words.  Sigh! 

Today I have nine words to go.  I have to go grocery shopping, then I have a 2-hour meeting this afternoon—so I'm not sure I'll finish this one, either.

As for LB, I had prickings-shofar yesterday.  Apparently there are multiple solutions this time!

Happy puzzling!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Got to GN4L but still 10 words left.  Yesterday I think morocco was our final word.  I noticed that Shunn changed things up again? Looks like the newly added prefix/suffix count is gone and replaced by the option of distribution of plurals.

No luck on LB, didn't even look at it.  Congrats on your solutions! Hopefully today will be a better day with more time in it.

Happy solving!

[Langue_doc]

QB and two-fer.

ab_grp, are these the websites you have been talking about?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum-introduction.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum-introduction.html

I finally stumbled on Shunn; this was because I had to kill time while waiting for the car to be ready. On top of the usual oil change and tire rotation, they sent me a video of the innards of my car to advise me that the car needed fuel-injection cleaning. Thinking of the road trips ahead, I agreed, and so decided to explore the links in the bee.

As for getting to genius without the four-letter words, solving the puzzle is analogous to bird watching. Just as I would mentally make a note of all the birds I see instead of noting only a certain species (unless that was my intention) I enter words as I find them as ignoring the short words would be an inefficient use of my time.

[ab_grp]

Congrats, Langue_doc! I think the links you shared both go to the same site? I was talking about this one for Shunn: https://www.sbsolver.com/archive/2022/03 (well, from there you can click on the day, but I didn't want to direct it to today's just in case). As for the GN4L stuff, I just started trying it at some point after hearing it was a thing.   It's just an added challenge.  Although, these days I have a hard enough time even getting to genius for whatever reason.  Part of it is that we just don't spend as much time puzzling in the morning or on breaks anymore. 

[Parasaurolophus]

Pangram, but thirty short tonight. It hasn't been a great day, however, so better luck tomorrow!