NYT Spelling Bee

[Parasaurolophus]

Well, I finally got to 95, so still 5 more points to QB.  And it won't take a 5-letter word that I thought of that is in the dictionary.  Blerg.  Yesterday I thought it might accept ANTICAVITY as a pangram, but no.  And that is also in the dictionary, unhyphenated.

I have a seven-letter word it won't accept, to my chagrin.

I'm finding today's Bee very tough indeed. I'm still stuck at 32 points. =p But I'll probably make it to genius just before bedtime. That's usually how it goes.


Well done to all of you who've solved it or gone past genius!

[ab_grp]

Today's bee was really like pulling teeth for me.  I should say "is" because I didn't figure out the final word yet but also haven't been back to it.  Maybe it will be like earlier in that I will switch to that app and suddenly see a word.  If you are still working at it, don't give up! There are some sort-of obscure words, or at least ones that might not come right to mind.   If anyone would like any sort of hints, please let me know.  I'll be happy to help (unless it's the word that's haunting me).  Ciao_yall, I'm not sure if I have the specific one you were looking for, but I also have a j word that might fit your needs.  Husband is also having a rough time of it today.  We will compare later, but not for a while.  Too close.

Congrats on your 2fers, cathwen and ciao_yall! Good luck grading, Langue_doc, and enjoy your crosswords.

[ab_grp]

Got a 2fer! But gave up on the bee.  Husband did not have my missing word.  And f that word!

[Langue_doc]

Good morning!

Vent: inurn? jinni? whatever these mean...

Made it to genius today. The pangram wasn't too bad, but a bit time-consuming.

LB embowel/legitimacy. Why was I thinking of embowel and disembowel? Haven't a clue, other than I confused embowel with disembowel--didn't realize until this morning that there was probably no such word as embowel and that I was thinking of disembowel when I entered the former. However, LB accepted the word, so who am I to complain?

Happy solving, all.

[cathwen]

Good morning, everyone!

Well, I gave up on SB yesterday, not even having made it past amazing.  I did get one of the j-words, thanks to a dimly remembered poem by Victor Hugo, "Les Djinns," that I read in a 19th c. French lit class as an undergrad.    I did not get the plural, jinni.  And I completely missed marijuana, the pangram!

I share Langue_doc's reaction to inurn.  Whaaat...?

Today's SB is coming along better.  I'm at genius and will keep checking back for more words. 

For yesterday's LB, I got bowel-legitimacy. So I was thinking along the same lines as Langue_doc, although not quite as luridly!  : )   As for embowel, I'm remembering La Chanson de Guillaume, in which the hero hews and hacks his way through battle, only to be slashed in the abdomen, such that his intestines fall out.  But since he's the hero of a medieval epic poem, he merely slings them over his arm and keeps on fighting.  I suppose he could have stuffed them back inside, thus emboweling himself.  Perhaps he did; it's been a very long time since I've read that poem.

I found a 2-fer for today's LB, but it seems like the kind of arrangement of letters that will yield several solutions.

[Parasaurolophus]

I guess 'jinni' is a plural of 'jinn'.

For my part, I eventually found the pangram but was nowhere near genius. Also, it rejected 'murrain'

[ciao_yall]

SB - missed jinn. Learned a new word, and a new spelling of a word.

LB - With a little help, got bowl-legitimacy which is the official solution. I had been playing with ambit-towel-legacy and gambit-towel-lacy and eventually gave up.

Happy solving!

[ab_grp]

Good morning!

Yep, inurn was the word I missed on the bee.  I was hoping it would take mirin.  Oh well.  It's a long puzzle today but a lot of letters from recent puzzles, so I at least got to 158 (no pangram yet) while brushing teeth.  Now coffee, crosswords, and further work on the bee.  Congrats on genius today, cathwen and Langue_doc!

For LB, I managed to get the official solution while playing around with it on my phone last night.  Congrats on your 2fer already, cathwen!

Have a good puzzle Monday!

[Parasaurolophus]

Made it past genius, but no pangram yet. I did find three rejected words, though: 5, 8, and 11 letters.

[ab_grp]

I thought the pangram was pretty tough.  I'm at 324 now, so 9 points to QB? But the pangram was my third-to-last word found.  I'm hoping to get the final word(s) and not have another inurn situation.  In any case, only one pangram out of all those points!

[Langue_doc]

That's an impressive score, ab_grp. I think I'm at 299 or thereabouts, and don't see how I'm going to find more words.

I remembered the various spellings of 'jinn' from the Arabian Nights stories. Never came across 'jinni' though--probably a variant of 'genie'. I have to stop speculating and look up the meaning.

[ab_grp]

Got to QB! The final word was sort of ironic.   Good luck if you persist.  I don't think this list is nearly as obscure as yesterday's.  It's a lot of words, though.

Hopefully I'll get somewhere with the hard sudoku, which I'm struggling with, and LB.  A couple contenders for the latter, but no mates yet.

[Langue_doc]

Congrats on your QB, ab_grp!

Got my two-fer, but still stuck on the bee.

[cathwen]

Ab_grp, congratulations on making QB!  I'm at 307, so at least Alpha.  Honestly, I don't see any other combinations possible--but I know they must be there somewhere! 

When I saw 'jinni,' I thought that it must be the plural of 'jinn'--a knee-jerk reaction based on Latin and Italian plurals, which of course is not the language group to which 'jinni' belongs, and it is not a plural. Actually, the opposite is true--according to Britannica, 'jinn' is the plural of 'jinni'.  We get 'genie' from that, as Langue_doc said.

And congrats on the 2-fer, Langue_doc!

[ab_grp]

Thanks! I will send bee juju. 

Congrats on your 2fer, Langue_doc!

And thanks for the explanation of jinn/jinni, cathwen! I had also thought that jinni could be the plural.