husband usually does better than me but yeah we always seem to have at least one word only one of us got,and there are usually words both of us didn’t get
you do get better with time (especially once you memorize all the typical clusters that go together)so i usually get to genius each time and got a QB twice, which for somebody with english as a second language is not too shabby
i do wonder if this will affect my word choice overall and i’ll end up mostly using words with no S and consisting of 7 letters max lol
― scanner darkly, Wednesday, 27 October 2021 02:08 (two years ago) link
but yes no nutria wth
looking through what I missed yesterday, having fallen short of genius for the first time in a couple weeks.
Okay, I shouldn't have missed taut, intuit, aura, currant, and intuit. Fair cop, guv. Now for the gripes:
Unitarian? Like, I didn't see that word but would have thought it too much of a proper noun. Tutti? Too foreign unless it's paired with frutti in the ice cream flavor. Inurn? There was no way I was going to come up with inurn.
Sigh. On to today's selection.
― that of a giant Slor (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 27 October 2021 17:40 (two years ago) link
INURN was rank nonsense.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, 27 October 2021 21:57 (two years ago) link
i missed taciturn, inurn and circuitcircuit is the one i’m upset about not getting
interesting pangram today..
― scanner darkly, Wednesday, 27 October 2021 22:51 (two years ago) link
yeah I loled at the pangram
― that of a giant Slor (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 27 October 2021 23:09 (two years ago) link
i knew it wasn't but was really hoping DEATHMETAL would be a companion to that lol
― Roz, Thursday, 28 October 2021 10:18 (two years ago) link
fairly easy QB today
― scanner darkly, Friday, 29 October 2021 23:31 (two years ago) link
You say that but I needed to use Shunn to get there.
― Leee Tigre (Leee), Saturday, 30 October 2021 16:43 (two years ago) link
Oh, didn't know about Shunn's site. (I know about Shunn himself because he liked my Spotify playlist of songs that sample Steely Dan.)
I used the NYT's own hint page yesterday to get the last two words. For some reason, I never noticed that that page existed before a couple of days ago!
― jaymc, Saturday, 30 October 2021 16:55 (two years ago) link
They only added it recently!
― Leee Tigre (Leee), Saturday, 30 October 2021 17:12 (two years ago) link
We were 3 short of QB, and all short easy words we found earlier in the week. My brain just stops after I hit genius.
― Jaq, Saturday, 30 October 2021 17:24 (two years ago) link
the last word i got before QB was TRULY and it’s truly such obvious misses that make the puzzle interesting
didn’t know about the hints either! i do use nytbee.com to see how many pangrams there are and word counts by length
― scanner darkly, Saturday, 30 October 2021 17:35 (two years ago) link
the hints are new
― flopson, Saturday, 30 October 2021 17:40 (two years ago) link
I would like to see daily stats on which words are found most frequently.
― jaymc, Saturday, 30 October 2021 23:11 (two years ago) link
My brain just stops after I hit genius.
― Jaq, Saturday, October 30, 2021
mine too, if I even get there
― Dan S, Saturday, 30 October 2021 23:17 (two years ago) link
xxp the link in the app is new but the page has been on the nyt website for quite a while… https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/spelling-bee-forum
― just sayin, Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:18 (two years ago) link
There's a little Easter egg today when you reach Genius.
― Leee Tigre (Leee), Sunday, 31 October 2021 17:57 (two years ago) link
i missed it - what was it?
maybe i should have ARANCINI for dinner, since the bee won’t take it..
― scanner darkly, Monday, 1 November 2021 01:28 (two years ago) link
it was a witch's cap on the bee.
ARANCINI was on my mind too, since I just made it for the first time last week. it was a lot of work
― Dan S, Monday, 1 November 2021 05:14 (two years ago) link
maybe that’s why sam hates it, unlike tortoni!
5 pangrams today, holy smokes. i’ve got 4 and i’m sure i’m missing an obvious one
― scanner darkly, Tuesday, 2 November 2021 03:09 (two years ago) link
I only got three. condonation and diatonic were beyond me
― Dan S, Tuesday, 2 November 2021 03:29 (two years ago) link
well the first one quite obviously isn’t a word
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 2 November 2021 10:05 (two years ago) link
Using the hints page "grid" thingy is a literal game-changer btw.
With perseverance you can change "stuck at Amazing" to Genius and even "stuck at Genius" to Queen Bee, just by process of elimination.
For example, I was frustrated when HACKLE wasn't on the list but ultimately figured out that I needed to be looking for a six-letter word starting with HE, which ultimately turned out to be HECKLE. It's a totally different task than just staring at the letters and shuffling them hoping for a miraculous revelation.
I have mixed feelings about this. Previously if I wanted to cheat I'd go to an anagram generator / Scrabble solver, which definitely makes it too easy. The hints page is obviously allowable but I'm not sure I will get the same satisfaction / challenge after using it.
― gin and catatonic (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 13:18 (two years ago) link
I actually don't look directly at the letter counts, but I do note how many words begin with each letter? It just makes me linger longer on a letter and try to wring a couple more out of it.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 13:47 (two years ago) link
in orbit, that makes sense - also lets you know when you're going down the wrong rabbit hole (like today with EN- and UN- and ON- prefixes)
― gin and catatonic (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 13:51 (two years ago) link
fun and relatively attainable (no extremely obscure words, most four letters) 21 word QB today. i lol’d at the pangram
― flopson, Thursday, 4 November 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link
i got everything but the pangram but i did get fairly close with MEGACOCK
― scanner darkly, Friday, 5 November 2021 02:54 (two years ago) link
lol
― Dan S, Friday, 5 November 2021 02:58 (two years ago) link
I got QB yesterday but spent an embarrassingly long time 1+ points away because I was overlooking COOK.
― Leee Tigre (Leee), Friday, 5 November 2021 17:39 (two years ago) link
Yesterday I am having a tough time forgiving lunular. On the margin of acceptable is landau.
Today we have a reasonably charming pangram situation. For me, genius status arrived early at 30 words but that means a long and potentially exasperating 13-word slog if I am to pursue QB.
― gin and catatonic (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 7 November 2021 14:13 (two years ago) link
Hope that we can all get one of Sam's favorite birds today.
― A Frome of One's Own (Leee), Thursday, 11 November 2021 17:10 (two years ago) link
Not without this thread
― jaymc, Thursday, 11 November 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
I got most of them, but didn't think of noncom as referring to a non-commissioned officer
― Dan S, Friday, 12 November 2021 00:50 (two years ago) link
in 1950s manhattan everyone would have known what a noncom was therefore it’s validwhich is why WOOT is so upsetting, it exists outside the wes anderson diegesis
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 12 November 2021 09:17 (two years ago) link
i mean there are other reasons too
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 12 November 2021 09:18 (two years ago) link
I QB'd yesterday! NONCOM I got as a guess. I guessed COMMIT too, rhyming it with "comet" and thinking "this is some silly textile arts term"
― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, 12 November 2021 12:19 (two years ago) link
Thanks also to the thread title for the freebie
both husband and i got genius yesterday and got most words between the two of us except for this very common word: COMMONfacepalm
― scanner darkly, Saturday, 13 November 2021 03:53 (two years ago) link
Omg we got QB tonight! 1st time ever!
― Jaq, Sunday, 14 November 2021 02:29 (two years ago) link
i'm two words away and stumped ;_;
― flopson, Sunday, 14 November 2021 03:41 (two years ago) link
QB as well but really because i got lucky just randomly getting DOETH
― scanner darkly, Sunday, 14 November 2021 04:06 (two years ago) link
ha that was my last word as well and i only got it from the grid telling me i needed a DO 5 letter word
― just sayin, Sunday, 14 November 2021 04:08 (two years ago) link
the two words i was missing yday where TEETHE and TOOTHED. i had TEETH, TEETHED, TOOTH 🤦
surprised they didn't take DOLDRUM today
― flopson, Sunday, 14 November 2021 20:39 (two years ago) link
same
― just sayin, Monday, 15 November 2021 00:45 (two years ago) link
This got me trying to sign up for a bloody NTY games account, and something went weird. It half-did a transaction, said it errored, didnt take my money, and now I cant try again and they have the WORST "contact us" help links.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 15 November 2021 02:24 (two years ago) link
i don't know if this will help you Trayce, but if you do try again later and you have a paypal account, you should use that to sign up for any NYT subscriptions rather than your credit card.
NYT deliberately makes it difficult for you to cancel/modify subscriptions by making you call in to customer service - you can circumvent all that bs by just canceling your automatic payments on the paypal site.
― Roz, Monday, 15 November 2021 07:31 (two years ago) link
Today leans heavy on food again with CARBONARA, BARBACOA, CORNCOB
Weirdly quiet on the avian front
― weregoats of boston (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 November 2021 12:52 (two years ago) link
Thanks Roz, alas I dont have paypal :( i alredy have a NYT sub is the stupid part, and I just cant add a games sub to it. its weird, it sort of half-worked initially and I was able to access the full games site? then the pending charge disappeared and now its locked out again. Gah.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 15 November 2021 21:24 (two years ago) link
lol’d at today’s pangram. well played, sam!
― scanner darkly, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 17:15 (two years ago) link