Normal morning, here. Cup of coffee, Wordle, and then the NY Times Spelling Bee, in which we look for all the words we can find with a set of seven letters. I start out by looking up whatever word I missed the day before. Today: ANTICIPANT. I did not know that was a word.
Most days I don’t need to look up missing words. I usually get them all. I’m pretty good at this game. I grew up playing word games. Scrabble, Anagrams, and the thing in the paper where you try to find all the words you can in PLACEMAT. We were a Word Family, and we were competitive about it. No, I can’t throw a ball.
The Spelling Bee does not include all the possible words. One fellow goes through the list his computer churns out and knocks out all the words he thinks are too obscure. This is only sensible. He wouldn’t have any fans of the game at all if he were going to include things like VIVIANITE, a perfectly good mineral, according to the highly affronted Vivian. Lines must be drawn. They can seem arbitrary.
But when you’re new at this, you’re going to find perfectly good words, especially in your specialized field, that aren’t accepted. There are whole forums on the web devoted to people whining about these slights. The consensus is it “drives people crazy,” although that’s a pretty short trip. One such complainant was scandalized at the non-inclusion of RACHITIC, which means “characteristic of rickets.” Another was similarly affronted by the exclusion of CHIRAL, which refers to a compound that is asymmetrical in such a way that the structure and its mirror image are not superimposable. I get it. Why go to all the trouble of knowing that particular wedge of information if you can’t fling it at the Spelling Bee and make it stick?
If you’re mature, you get over these things. I have learned that the Bee Master is not familiar with a whole raft of animals, birds, and bird terms. There will be no PIPPING: you can just stay in that damn egg, Junior. No ANOLE. No CAVY. No ALULA. No HOOPOE. No GANNET. No ANHINGA? Really?
They’ll take HANGUL. Important, because the writing system of the Korean language is much more compelling than a gigantic bird in plain sight in Florida.
You learn things. You need to know, apparently, that TORI and TORII are both words, unrelated except for their obscurity. In general, if you are a traditional Yamato street food or part of a rabbi’s wardrobe, you’re in. If you can navigate a deli menu from a deli anywhere in the world you’re halfway there.
If you are the sort of person who likes to be perpetually offended, this is your game. That includes you, internet dude who complained about not getting RACOON. The nurve!
So I had to look up ANTICIPANT. I guess it means expectating. Officially.
But I have to have my fun. I think it’s another word for boxer shorts. A little pair of pants to let you know that bigger pants are on the way.
No anole. Drives me crazy every time.
Oh my god – he will use ratatatat or school, but not other words that make sense! My favorite hated word, that I cannot even remember, meant an archaic hair shirt worn in the 1700s or some such year! I hated his architecture kick!
Oh yeah, that shirt. I can’t remember it either but it seems like the kind of word I should have in the old bank. BTW are there any contemporary hair shirts?
Or anticipant could mean being against participating.
Wordle had EGRET once. I was pleasantly surprised but probably got complaints and I never saw a semi-esoteric bird used in Wordle again.
EGRET is esoteric?
“The consensus is it “drives people crazy,” although that’s a pretty short trip.”
I’m stealing that!
I just give a cursory glance to puzzles like Boggle, etc. every morning. If I can get a couple words in the time it takes me to eat my breakfast, I’m like, “Okay! I don’t have dementia! Yet.
My favorite has been Cryptic Byword, but lately, I just don’t seem to have time for that stuff. Even reading has fallen. It seems that as time goes on, I have more to do. And less time to do it.
I used to have a video Boggle game with several variations and the In Your Face version was an absolute blast. Totally hooked. They don’t make it for Macs so when I went Apple I lost Boggle too.
When I say something drives me nuts, my wife says “Short drive” and has been doing so for about three decades now.
No “fomite.” No “muriatic” acid. No “annatto,” either, as I recall. But any versions of “mama” or “papa” seem to be fine. “Dunno” is fine. “Gimme” they’ll accept. Oh, and they love those technical botany and musical terms that are way more obscure than annatto! Oh, and Japanese mats and that OTHER kind of soy sauce. To say nothing of all the things they claim are pluralized by adding an “i,” like “genii” being the plural of “genie.” And “celli” for plural cellos? It was news to me. At least now I’m wise to their tricks and remember these particular words! Sooner or later I will get Queen Bee all by myself. But it hasn’t happened yet. I have to resort to all the clues.
Incorrect: they take MAMMA but not PAPPA. Oh sorry! Correct. They take POPPA.
Oh, and recent pet peeve – faro! Faro is a perfectly legitimate card game played in the 1700s and beyond. Nope, not accepted. Only farro grain was accepted. (Can you tell you’ve struck a nerve with this post?). LOL.
Oh my god – he will use ratatatat or achoo, but not other words that make sense! My favorite hated word, that I cannot even remember, meant an archaic hair shirt worn in the 1700s or some such year! I hated his architecture kick!
I like the “Target Master” nine letters in a 3×3 cube, find the nine letter word, and also find as many other words as you can of four or more letters but each word MUST contain the central letter in the cube. It’s fun, until the next day when I check my answers, and they have really easy words that I somehow missed and obscure words I never heard of and they discount words I found though they have allowed them in previous days/weeks.
Sounds worth a shot so I looked it up, and did find it, but the first 10,000 hits were some kind of gun thing.
If I recall, you were the butt of some laughter about a deli order which you mispronounced…
But I can spell it!
Exactly why I won’t play it.
Crazy isn’t a drive more like a short putt.
Morning routine, in order: Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossword Mini, Connections.
Hubs and I mail each other Connections results and Wordle grid goes to a group text with our son. As a group, we hope our average is lower than the NYT Wordle average. Most days we win.
Gimme and wanna. Those are not real words no matter how much people say them.
No tarn. No caracara. And yes, no hoopoe. The administrator needs to go birding.
I KNEW THIS ONE WOULD BRING OUT THE ‘MUDGEONS!!!
I still remember something that happened in our 5th-grade spelling bee. The student teacher pronounced, for us to spell, “lenth.” I asked for clarification: “Did you say ‘length’ or ‘lenth’?” He repeated “lenth.” So I spelled it that way and lost.
That one would sting for life.