NYT Spelling Bee: GUARDVAN

Grid:

My Genius list:

Real pangram: VANGUARD

Fake pangram: GUARDVAN

A usually unmarked van on patrol.

(This is a cop-out fake pangram, but I couldn't come with anything better.  That V does not go well with these letters.  In fact, I didn't find a single valid word other than VANGUARD that uses the V.  I wonder if there even is one.)

Difficulty: Easy

VANGUARD fell instantly, and then I steadily filled in the rest, until the two variants of GRANDDAD pushed me to Genius level.  I was a little slowly than usual, but that's mainly because I was wrestling my youngest son while I was playing.  He's little enough so that I can keep him at bay with one arm, and play Spelling Bee with the other -- multitasking.

Olio: A tweet from puzzle editor Sam Ezersky:

DURAG has become a topic of discussion concerning inclusivity in word games, because it has yet to appear in the NYT crossword puzzle, even though it seems to be the favored spelling among people who might actually wear a DURAG... and most everybody else.  (It gets almost five times as many Google hits as its counterpart DORAG, which has appeared in nearly two dozen NYT crossword puzzles.)

I didn't even see DURAG in this puzzle.  However, I've added it to my personal word list.  I'm still debating whether or not I should delete DORAG or keep it.  I'll probably delete it.  I typically eschew the usage of less-common variants in my grid.

For what it's worth, Blogger puts a squiggly red line under both DURAG and DORAG, but I think it's anti-inclusivity -- literally.  It also does this for inclusivity.