NYT Spelling Bee

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

I had the same LB solution.  I swear fabulist was just part of a solution not too long ago.  Congrats on your 2fer today, cathwen!

Yeah, Sam wasn't kidding about today's bee.  I'm at 302, so only 89 more points to go (ha... so easy!).  Hey, only 49 little points to Alpha.  I have no idea how many pangrams I have now, maybe four at least, but not six.  I may have to write a program to figure that out.  But two more pangrams would definitely help with the points.  I need a break, though.

As for yesterday's, I remembered taiga from social studies class in middle school, but I rarely ever see it anymore for whatever reason, so probably easy to miss.  Ragtag is at least better than ragbag, but it and ratatat are both still annoying entries.  As far as what they accept, it is so inconsistent that it's hard to figure out why one word is in and another is not.

Congrats on breaking your streak, Parasaurolophus!

Happy solving!

[ciao_yall]

Broke my streak and made it to genius. Phew!

Here's an extra shot of dopamine for you!

[cathwen]

OneMoreYear, what SB accepts and rejects is sometimes frustrating.  I also would expect ratatat to by hypenated; I only got it because I missed it a few days ago. 

I finally made genius, but still "only" four pangrams.  I do not have higher aspirations today (and I do have some grading to get to), although I'll probably get back to it from time to time to see if I can eke out any more words.  But I'm happy with genius, which was enough of a slog.

Ciao_yall, I don't know why I got taiga but not ragtag!  I remembered the word from a sixth grade (!!) geography lesson that involved taiga and tundra.  Funny the things that pop back into your mind—things you hadn't thought about in decades and decades.

I wonder if there were other LB answers?

[ciao_yall]

SB - That's gonna be a slog. I think I have 2 pangrams and am still at "nice." Yeah, yeah...  It wouldn't take natto.

LB- Already have a 3fer so hope a 2fer is nigh. @cathwen,there is a letterboxed solver online which I pop into from time to time when I get really stuck. It doesn't take everything the official puzzle takes, and vice versa, but it shows a lot of possible solutions.

[Langue_doc]

All familiar words so far. Try combinations and permutations.

309 so far, but have to "work" on real work.

Ratatat keeps occurring quite frequently on the bee.

[ab_grp]

Got a 2fer!

We haven't gotten back to the bee yet (in a few, probably), but at least there is no E! I agree, no unfamiliar words so far.

[Parasaurolophus]

Halfway there with one pangram. It's gonna be a slog, though.

[ciao_yall]

2fer!

Bee is a slog. I think I have 3 pangrams so far. Still at "great." Still bitter about natto.

ETA: 4 pangrams, "amazing." Gonna be a while.

ETA^2: 6 pangrams, still "amazing." Beyond this point, there be dragons.

[ab_grp]

Congrats on your 2fer, ciao_yall!

Last break, I got to 323 points, 8 more words to go.  When the lists are really long and have long words, I copy my found words out of the web interface and put them in Excel to count the numbers of letters per word, which helps somewhat.  This morning I wrote a dumb little program that takes that word list and counts the number of pangrams I have.  Getting lazy I guess? So I do have four, currently.  I figured I'd better find out rather than continuing to hunt down pangrams that weren't there.

[ciao_yall]

Tipped into "genius" with a few easy words.

Done for now.

@ab_grp I have 51 words, 273 points and I think 6 pangrams. How do you have 323 points and only 4 pangrams? Must be a lot more non-pangram words.

[ab_grp]

Ciao_yall, congrats on getting all the pangrams! I am up to 336 points and 61 words.  So, 5 words left, but 2 are pangrams, 2 are fairly short.  Five words and 54 points! Husband has found all six pangrams but has 10 words to go.  He's at 334 points.  It is kind of a crazy mix.  We should be taking another break soon, so hopefully I can figure out the pangrams I'm missing.  Argh.

[Parasaurolophus]

I've made it to four pangrams and 222 points. I've slowed down a fair bit at this point, however.

[cathwen]

 Ciao_yall, congratulations on finding the six pangrams!

307 points, 55 words, just found a fifth pangram.   Argh!

[ab_grp]

Finally found the other two pangrams.  I thought I already had one of them, but it is so hard to keep track of such a long list.  Now I'm at 369 with three words and 21 points left to go.  Congrats on all the progress! This is a long one!!

[Langue_doc]

If I'm stuck after getting to genius, I take a look at this site https://www.nytbee.com/. I found all 20 4-letter words, but am still missing several 5 and 6-letter ones.

If you scroll down to Haven't I seen these words before?, you'll see ratatat listed.

ETA twofer!