NYT Spelling Bee

[ciao_yall]

GOT THE 2-FER! Thanks Langue_doc for the hint. I don't think I would have gotten it.

I would have hinted something about a good place to play with one's ding-a-ling... Chuck Berry fans? Anyone?

If it hadn't been for the darn same side thing I would have had HIBISCUS-SOLVENT.

[Langue_doc]

GOT THE 2-FER! Thanks Langue_doc for the hint. I don't think I would have gotten it.

I would have hinted something about a good place to play with one's ding-a-ling... Chuck Berry fans? Anyone?

If it hadn't been for the darn same side thing I would have had HIBISCUS-SOLVENT.

You're welcome; I'm on the kindle, so can't type your name.

The Chuck Berry phrase sounds like his Christmas song. I can hum the tune and these words, but can't recall the rest.

Congrats on the LB.

I just finished tomorrow's crossword. Interesting list of expressions including a British one that I haven't heard in a while.

ETA Your reference to playing with the ding-a-ling made me laugh. Sounds lewd.

[ciao_yall]

GOT THE 2-FER! Thanks Langue_doc for the hint. I don't think I would have gotten it.

I would have hinted something about a good place to play with one's ding-a-ling... Chuck Berry fans? Anyone?

If it hadn't been for the darn same side thing I would have had HIBISCUS-SOLVENT.

You're welcome; I'm on the kindle, so can't type your name.

The Chuck Berry phrase sounds like his Christmas song. I can hum the tune and these words, but can't recall the rest.

Congrats on the LB.

I just finished tomorrow's crossword. Interesting list of expressions including a British one that I haven't heard in a while.

ETA Your reference to playing with the ding-a-ling made me laugh. Sounds lewd.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NiAD17wpEY

[ciao_yall]

SB - Yesterday would NEVER have gotten the panagram, even with hints. Oh well, on to today's. Got the panagram first go, and now stuck on "amazing." Looks like a short one today.

LB - Looks like the official solution! And got a 2fer on the second try.

I may not be the Queen Bee of this thread, but at least I'm a form of lowbrow entertainment.

[ab_grp]

I was trying to hint subtly toward yesterday's pangram with the way of words comment (which was sincere but also a sort of clue).  I think it's one of those words that either pops out of you or is hard to ascertain.  They happen to all of us! And lowbrow entertainment is always welcome in my book.

I was so close with LB yesterday and should have asked if I could run some contenders by one of you.  I had vestibule(s) as my main contender but couldn't figure out the second (kept trying en- something).  I also had hibiscus, biscuit(s), nebulous... Oh well! Hopefully today will work out better. 

Got to within 7 points or so on the bee today but have to go to the program to see about the last word(s) and get closure on that.  There is a nice long word that should be accepted given other similar accepted words that is not in there, and a dumb one that I think should also be considered for acceptance given the other dumb ones accepted.  At least I finished today's easy sudoku yesterday when it changed to the new puzzle, and I started the medium puzzle, so a little less on the puzzle agenda for the day.

[Langue_doc]

LB will be the death of me today. Found some contenders for the first word, but still three-fers so far.

SB a couple of dishes/drinks, three plants/trees and a word that I've used only in the plural.

I got to QB by playing around with the letters. I got the drink, not knowing what it was, because I tried a word from my high school biology/zoology class that referred to a circulatory system part.

Congrats on the two-fer. Thanks for the YouTube link-- I'd always associated this tune and the words with Christmas.

Grrr! Am on kindle which keeps correcting me thinking I should congratulate you on Twitter.

[ab_grp]

We were missing two words in the bee.  One we definitely should have gotten, and I had tried something similar but missed the obvious.  The other is definitely a word I know but not one I probably would have found unless I was just messing around with letters.  I had tried that approach but had not found that word.    I think that might be the one you were referring to, Langue_doc.

No real luck on LB yet, but I haven't had much time to focus on it.

[Parasaurolophus]

...'epilog'? Really? Is this some weird American variant?

[Langue_doc]

Merriam Webster accepts it as a less common variant; also accepts 'prolog'.

I hate these abbreviations!

[ab_grp]

I was a little surprised when epilog worked!

[ab_grp]

Wooha! Just got a 2-fer, finally, after trying many contender words.  That was a fight to the finish!

Somehow I managed to finish the hard sudoku today in a half hour after needing an hour to do the medium.  In each case I ran into a conflict at some point and used the "Check guesses when entered" to find and delete those entries and then turn the feature back off.  That's the best I can do at this point.  I am getting better at this, though.  I need to be able to do it more quickly so that I don't have to keep coming back to it and forgetting where I was each time.  I'm still confused about why the sudoku puzzles set to today's yesterday afternoon even though they supposedly set at 10PM ET.  They haven't set to tomorrow's yet.

[Langue_doc]

Not sure if this is your question, ab_grp, but the weekend crosswords and sudokus are available at 6 PM or so unlike the ones on weekdays which open up at 10. ETA: they open up early on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Congrats on the two-fer.

Ciao_yall, thanks for the hints. I think my first word is probably the same as yours, but not my second one, which is a rather long one, and sort of related to yesterday's pangram. I couldn't figure out what that hint meant; I kept thinking of rebels!

I used to be able to do the medium sudoku from the Windows game pack, but haven't looked at it in a while. I do the NYTimes sudokus but have the setting on "Highlight conflicts" because I do these and the mini crossword before retiring. This is more of a brain clearing activity than a puzzle. Sometimes the next day I reset the puzzle and try to solve it without the hints. With the hints I can do the medium anywhere between 7-10 minutes, and the hard around the same time. There have been occasions when the medium took longer than the hard to solve.

I was a little surprised when epilog worked!

I've given up getting upset at what passes for acceptable words and expressions these days. I have Grammarly on my computers which corrects not only my emails but also every single sentence on Canvas. I've also learned to look up what I think are incorrect or non-standard words in student assignments because these are now acceptable. I've been meaning to keep a list of these words, but have not gotten around to doing so. Incidentally, Grammarly also keeps correcting my postings here as I'm typing this.

[Langue_doc]

Pugilist and thrown!!! Gah! I had growths initially, but then found grownup and philologist.

Today's SB was quite easy, and the pangram a delight (this is not a hint). Woke up around 4, tackled the SB, got to 87, then went back to sleep. Yesterday I found cava because I remembered the two vena cavas from my high school class, and civvy by playing around with the letters. I am familiar with civvies but didn't know that there was a singular form. I knew pica, but guessed piccata.

The crossword was so easy that I completed it before retiring last night.

[ab_grp]

Not sure if this is your question, ab_grp, but the weekend crosswords and sudokus are available at 6 PM or so unlike the ones on weekdays which open up at 10. ETA: they open up early on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Yep, thanks! That helps to know.  When I looked it up, it just said they come out at 10 PM ET, so I must have missed the part about weekends. 

I was trying to hint at pugilist with the fight to the finish comment.  I also had growth(s), and plinth, whorl(s), shogun(s), photon(s), rhino(s), etc.  Finally got pugilist and then was so excited to see thrown! Ciao_yall, what solution did you find?  Haven't looked at today's yet.

For the bee yesterday, I was hoping cavatappi would be in there.  We missed cava, which I am okay with, but I couldn't believe we missed papacy.  I think I tried papacity or something stupid like that. 

I think we had today's bee pangram before but with a different center letter.  It might be one of the first my husband and I had come across when we started playing earlier this year.  We are still about 6 points away from QB.

I also have "highlight conflicts" on for sudoku, but I don't turn the check answers feature on unless I get a conflict, and then I don't feel like erasing everything or trying to backtrack for the harder puzzles.  But I try to turn it off right away.  I also use the check puzzle feature for the crosswords (only when doing archive puzzles because I don't want to lose my streak).  But I think once you turn that on, you can't turn it back off.  I'll have to see if that's true.  Anyway, it's nice to have the easy crosswords at the start of the week so that there's more time to spend on other puzzles as needed.

Langue_doc, you are ahead of the game today, sounds like!

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

SB - Yesterday made it to "genius" on my own. Not sure I'll see QB until I learn the funky words that NYT uses... that said, I should have gotten all the ones I missed. But by "genius" I'm ready to move on to other things.

LB - Yesterday I got GROWNUP-PLINTHS.

On to today's puzzles...

ETA - after a coffee refill...

SB - Achieved amazing, no panagram yet.

LB - would have a 2fer if it wasn't for the darn same side thing...

Perhaps more coffee?