NYT Spelling Bee

[cathwen]

I am stuck at Beta/127.  Ab_grp, I am in awe of your 138! 

I know there must be other words in there, but darned if I can find them.  But on the brighter side, I did find a word that I've missed two or three times in the past.

[Parasaurolophus]

Phew! Got to genius in the end.

[Langue_doc]

Phew indeed. Missed nonagon and boba--I've seen the former in more than one puzzle.

Stuck at amazing with one pangram which was my first word.

clouds and squeakier

Lucky you, ciao_yall. We don't have Spring Break this year.

Good morning, and happy solving!

[cathwen]

Good morning!

Nonagon and boba were among the words I missed yesterday, too.  Also agar, agog, brogan, ragbag, and razz.  But I got baobab, which I have missed two or three times in the past, so at least there's that.

Congratulations on genius, Parasaurolophus! 

Today's puzzle is quite challenging!  I just made genius (one pangram), but I'll be amazed if I make it to Beta or beyond.

Yesterday's LB:  recoils-squeaked.. I have found a 2fer today as well.

[ab_grp]

I sort of made it to QB yesterday but knew I had a six and a seven letter word left, that one started with N (nonagon), and then the final one started with R (ragbag), so not really a pure one.  I am fine with it! Some of those were tough.  I can't believe I missed nonagon.  But what the heck is a ragbag? And I'm sure I tried that, along with every other kind of bag I could think of. 

Just got up today, so no real progress on the bee yet.  I did find the pangram but still have a couple points to genius.  Hopefully coffee will help! But have to do the crossword first.

Thanks to Langue_doc, I also got the clouds-squeakier 2fer.  I did have squeak but didn't think of squeakier, which would have made clouds probably pretty obvious, and now I see I could have just gone with squeak and had ridiculous! Looking back at my notes, I had written LRODIC S, so I had tried crocodiles, but that was not allowed.  Oh well.   I also had querulous (first contender that I thought might work), curlicues, cirques, caduceus, liqueurs, aqueous... no luck.

Congrats on the 2fer already, cathwen!

Happy solving!

[Parasaurolophus]

I always forget nonagon.

SB didn't like 'brang' yesterday--guess it's too dialectical. I'm a few points shy of genius this morning, but did get a 2fer on LB so that's something!

[ab_grp]

I also tried brang yesterday, Parasaurolopus! Given other things they accept, I thought that might be in there.  Congrats on your 2fer!

Got to 102, so Alpha with one dang word left to QB.  Crossword done, LB letters logged to work on, time to work on sudokus.

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

SB - yeah, missed a few odds and ends yesterday. Thought I had agog and groan but they weren't checked, so must have had them recently. Brains do that, don't they? Also agog, agora, angora, nonagon, orang, ragbag, razz. Already at "genius" this morning with a pangram.

LB - recoils-squeaked. Great minds, think alike, cathwen! Really wanted to do something with dacquiri, b4ss, but we went out for drinks yesterday to an outdoor bar and I had a lemon drop.

ab_grp Wouldn't take crocodiles?

Already have a 2fer today.

Parasaurolophus Congrats! Just love that "snap" when they come together. I wish the system would do something cool when we get a 2fer, but all it does is congratulate us for getting it within a certain number of words. Don't they know what a fast crowd we run with?

[ciao_yall]

I also tried brang yesterday, Parasaurolopus! Given other things they accept, I thought that might be in there.  Congrats on your 2fer!

Got to 102, so Alpha with one dang word left to QB.  Crossword done, LB letters logged to work on, time to work on sudokus.

ab_grp, what is your solving strategy? Where do you write down your letters and words? I just take screen shots of 3fers and 2fer b4ss solutions, then go back and stare at them from time to time looking for anagrams or words that might go together in a different combo.

[Langue_doc]

Congrats on the two-fers cathwen and ciao_yall, and the QB, ab_grp. Rooting for you, Parasaurolophus

I missed brogan, but am familiar with ragbag--British English expression?

Yes, I think the NYT should keep track of the two-fers and QBs just as they keep track of the crossword successes.

Made it to QB and got a two-fer. Three of the words in the bee are unfamiliar, one I got by mistyping a word, another by playing around with the letters, and the third by typing a word that I've assumed was a proper noun, just for the heck of it. I'm too lazy to look up the meanings.

[ab_grp]

Ciao_yall, the R and O were on the same side, so I couldn't do crocodiles.  I still have yesterday's up on my phone and just checked.  L and E were also on the same side.  That's just the word that I saw when I looked at what I had left.  As for my strategy, which clearly isn't that successful, I still have a ton of notepads with some empty pages from when I managed people and had one notebook each.  So I've been using those.  I just first write down the "tough" letters of the day to keep track of them.  Then I write each contender on a line, then its last letter, the remaining letters, and the first letter of the contender, so I can try to either start or end with the contender letter.  Sometimes when I have a couple of those lines I can see which I could put together, or it suggests something to me, like which letters I am having trouble getting into words at all.  I kind of like having the notebooks full of historical records, plus I never hand-write anything anymore, so it's good practice.  But you guys always get the 2fers, so don't listen to me! And congrats on your 2fer!

Congrats on your QB, Langue_doc! I hope I can get the final word.  Congrats on your 2fer!

I sometimes wonder if the NYT folks will ever happen upon this thread and put our achievement levels into practice...

[ab_grp]

I'm back, and I got a 2fer.

Perhaps more importantly, I just listened to a podcast episode featuring Sam Ezersky (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/couple-of-geniuses/id1542545100#episodeGuid=Buzzsprout-8218074  it's the March 26 episode, the 100th one).  This podcast focuses on the bee (hence "Geniuses", I suppose)! The current day's is available to subscribers only, but past ones are open.  If you want to listen to Sam talk about the bee, I would skip to 15 minutes in.  The part before that is what I guess they usually do, reading off their word lists to see what each other has.  I would avoid that the day of, personally, but it was kind of interesting to hear what they missed.  Here are some Sam highlights that I thought were interesting:

- He never syncs the pangram up to current events.  It has happened once with furlong the day of the Kentucky Derby, but that was an accident.  He has vetoed pangrams if they are too hot topic or might cause solvers to wince.

- There has never been an S because it would make word lists too long, but there could be someday.  There is also never ER in the puzzle, because which RE- and -ER words would be accepted would be arbitrary [well, I think we all agree some of it is arbitrary anyway, including NON-].

- ING is a recent addition

- He is looking at adding DORADO.  He noted that he doesn't want to have too many of anything from one category or background that would be an advantage or disadvantage, like every fish or every bird.

- And maybe most exciting, he can see the data on solving and can see the QBs and said it's a very, very small number!! Eeee!!! I wonder if he saw our own Langue_doc's double QB!

Just thought some of this might be of interest.

[cathwen]

Congratulations on QB, Langue_doc!  And you, ab_grp, on Alpha+!  That is super impressive, because I think this is a very difficult Bee.  At least, it is for me.  I am one point short of Beta.  Grrr!

Parasaurolophus, congratulations on your 2fer! 

Ab_grp, I just saw your message about the podcast!  Thanks so much for alerting us to that. 

[ab_grp]

Cathwen, I agree that this is a tough puzzle! Husband just managed to stumble onto QB, so at least I know the first letter of the word I'm missing, but no luck so far.  Good luck!

[Langue_doc]

Thanks for the info and the link, ab_grp. Good luck to you and cathwen on the bee which is a tricky one today. I happened to find the last three words by finding that the sequence of letters I entered were in fact words accepted by SB.