NY Spelling Bee: DOGHUNT

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Real pangram: DOUGHNUT

Fake pangram: DOGHUNT

A search for an escaped dog.

My childhood dog used to escape frequently, and she was so fast and elusive that we used to just let her run around the neighborhood for a few hours, until she got hungry and came back.  I feel like this was a more acceptable practice in the '80s.  Like, if you did this now, your neighbors would be giving you the stink-eye -- Come get your damn dog! -- but back then it was all good.  There were all sorts of pets running around our cul-de-sac.  Now that I think about, I like it better now, actually.  Pets are overrated.  I mean, they're fine, but I wouldn't find if we all dialed back our pet adoration a few notches.

Difficulty: Challenging

This one took me much longer than usual.  I race up to the level right before Genius, and then I got a bad case of anagrammers block.  Finally, I tried UNHUNG and UNTHOUGHT, both of which I would've guessed were not valid, and pushed me over the brink.

Olio: What's up with OUTTHOUGHT being invalid?  It's a perfectly cromulent word, no?  It's in the dictionary.  That was my ace in the hole (10 points!), so I was confusedly bummed when it didn't take.  I even tried it twice, thinking I must have misspelled it the first time.

NYT Spelling Bee: DOHGIRL

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Real pangram: GIRLHOOD

Fake pangram: DOHGIRL

A female stan of Homer Simpson.

Difficulty: Challenging

I got the pangram in short order, but stalled out longer than usual before getting to Genius level.  I tried many a moonshot phony -- GORILLO (male form of GORILLA), LORRID (portmanteau of LURID and TORRID), GRIO (a type of wine?) -- before seeing the real HORRID, which finally pushed me over the edge.   

Olio: Didn't we just see WOMANHOOD a few weeks ago?  It was before I started this blog, so I don't have it on record, but I'm pretty sure we did.  Maybe space out the -HOOD pangrams a bit more.  Other than that, a fine, if sparse, puzzle.  I like the word DOLOR; it's underutilized, for sure.

NYT Spelling Bee: BULLTHIGH

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Real pangram: LIGHTBULB

Fake pangram: BULLTHIGH

A folksy term to for something sinewy and strong.  Cuz' of all the dirt roads 'round here, our truck tires need to be tough as bullthigh. 

Difficulty: Medium

It could be easy; I'm not sure.  I tried something new, and wrote down the letters on paper, as I'm trying to cut back on my phone time (which has gotten way out of hand).  But I read the rules wrong and thought it was 1-pt for every additional letter over four, not 1-pt for every total letter for words over four letters.  So, initially, I was drastically undercounting my actual score.  Once I figured out what was going on, I was already well past the Genius score.

Olio: My brain kept wanting GULLIBILITY, but, of course, there is no Y in the grid.  Maybe we will see it in the future -- this grid with a Y in place of the H.  You would lose the -IGHT words, though, so I'm not sure if there would be enough there to replace them to make it interesting.

NYT Spelling Bee: OUTMUNCH

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Real pangram: COTTONMOUTH

Fake pangram: OUTMUNCH

To surpass in munching.

This fake definition reminds me once, in Bangalore, India, I saw a little restaurant called MUNCH BOX.  The women with me were like, Yes, please!

Difficulty: Challenging

I got COTTONMOUTH in the middle of my solve, which is strange.  Usually, I get the pangram right away, because I'm looking for it, of if I don't, I usually don't get it until the end, because I set it aside mentally and try to fill in everything else first.  In general, this one took me longer than usual.  I finally tipped over to Genius level once I started looking for OUT and UN words.  The last one to go in was UNCOUTH.  Weirdly, I got the much less common COUTH very early on.

Olio: I always want COUNTOUT to be valid.  It's a pro wrestling term.  I also always try to put in HONCH even though I know it's spelled HAUNCH.  I see now I missed HOOCH, which is a shame I love old-timey terms like that.

NYT Spelling Bee: POPPYGENT

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Real pangram: GENOTYPE

Fake pangram: POPPYGENT

Chiefly British A quaint term for a man who exaggerates or employs nonsense in his rhetoric.  I advise against taking Mr. Lancaster too seriously; he's a bit of a poppygent.

Difficulty: Medium

GENOTYPE was the first thing to fall, but it wasn't instantaneous -- more like one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, got it!  From there, I charged up to the brink of Genius level, before temporarily drawing a blank.  After a few minutes, I saw POTENT to finish in my usual time.

Olio: I found out today POOPY is invalid, and it's an egregious omission from the word list.  Everybody who's old enough to speak knows this word, and I mean that (almost) literally.  I'm not sure if it's just an oversight, or if it's an example of the fustiness of the Old Gray Lady.  POOPY has also never appeared in an NYT crossword puzzle.  (POOP has, but never in its feces form.)  I don't understand this vestigial primness.  It's 2020.  POOPY is an everyday word used in everyday conversation.  It's not vulgar; it's not obscene; it's not improper.  Can you check the baby?  She might have a poopy diaper.  That's how parents say it.  That's how normal, respectable people talk.

Free POOPY!

NYT Spelling Bee: NOHARMY

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Real pangram: HARMONY

Fake pangram: NOHARMY

A general term for an ardent group of supporters of an art form, who organize their large numbers to cause coordinated disruption for a political or social cause -- named for hard-core fans of noh theater of Late Middle Ages Japan.  By helping to disrupt the registration of Trump's Tulsa rally, K-Pop fans are proving to be a 21st-century noharmy.  

Difficulty: Medium

For the second day in a row, I saw the pangram within a literal second of opening the game; for the second day in a row it took me a normal amount of time to attain Genius status.  MAMMARY finally pushed me over the edge, even if I did try to spell it MAMMORY at first.

Olio: In any game you play repeatedly, there are little tricks you notice, and one of those in Spelling Bee is to make sure you hit all the variant spellings.  I'm always ready for the quartet of mothers (MOMMY, MAMA, MAMMA, MOMMA, but not MOMA -- that's a museum), and I was sure to hit MYNA(H) in both its H and H-less forms.  My favorite find is ANONYM, because I don't even know what it means.  Ah... it's a form of ANONYMITY; that makes sense.  For some reason Blogger is giving it the red squiggly line.  I think Google needs to update their word list.

NYT Spelling Bee: MELONFOLK

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My Genius list:

Real pangram: MENFOLK

Fake pangram: MELONFOLK

A genre of music blending traditional folk melodies with Shannon Hoon inspired vocals.

Difficulty: Medium

I put in MENFOLK instantly, but it took me a normal amount of time to attain Genius status.  17 of the 20 words I found were four letters, and only the pangram was longer than five letters, so I didn't find this one all that interesting.

Olio: A few words I always try to enter even though I know they're not valid: MOONMEN, FOMO, MOOK.  I like that LEMON and MELON are fruit anagrams.  Maybe there is a crossword puzzle theme in there (FRUIT SALAD?) -- or maybe there isn't, and I should leave it alone, lest I try to force a theme and spend a bunch of time constructing a bad puzzle.

NYT Spelling Bee: CRIBWORK

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Real pangram: BRICKWORK

Fake pangram: CRIBWORK

The area of parenting focused on sleep training an infant.  Because of their stellar cribwork the new parents were able to sleep peacefully within a few months of birth.

Difficulty: Easy

Saw BOOK and WORK immediately as possible parts of a compound pangram (which also gave me both WORKBOOK and BOOKWORK straight out of the gate), so it was just a (short) matter of time before BRICKWORK fell into place.  The -ROCK/-RICK/-ROOK endings proved to be fruitful in quickly attaining Genius level.

Olio: There aren't too many words I find in Spelling Bee that the layperson would not recognize, but I suspect BRIO is one.  I know it from crossword puzzles, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody use it in everyday discourse.  Maybe I'll start.

NYT Spelling Bee: GODTRUTH

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My genius list:

Real pangram: DROUGHT

Fake pangram: GODTRUTH

A single word that's shorthand for "God's honest truth."  I tried to text you back, but my phone wasn't getting service -- godtruth.

Difficulty: Easy

I noticed the -OUGH(T) endings right away and tore through*  those, including the pangram.  It didn't take long to supplement with some OUT- words and some short stuff to attain Genius Level.

*Although, I apparently somehow missed THROUGH.

Olio: TURD should be valid.

NYT Spelling Bee: UPGROWN

Happy Father's Day!  It's kind of a Hallmark holiday, but it's still nice for my wife and kids to let me sleep in.

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Real pangram: GROWNUP

Fake pangram: UPGROWN

This happens sometimes: I'll recognize the pangram is likely compound word, but I'll see (and try) the phony backward pangram before the real one.  In this case, UPGROWN seems like it could be a perfectly cromulent word -- There is a distinction between the upgrown trunk of a tree and its downgrown roots.  In fact, UPGROWN is a valid Scrabble play.  Its counterpart DOWNGROWN, however, is not.

Difficulty: Challenging

GROWNUP fell before too long, but it took me more than one sitting to reach Genius level.  If I have to put my phone back in my pocket before finishing and come back to it later, that's typically my criterion for deeming a puzzle Challenging.  In this case, two things that always get me -- doubling back on the same consonant in forming short words (NOON, NOUN) and utilizing the UN- prefix (UNWON, UNWORN) -- got me again.  I gotta remember those.  I could've cut my time in half on this one.

Olio: Merriam-Webster defines PORNO as a less-common variant of PORN, but I contend there is a subtle difference in usage.  PORNO more commonly refers to a single smutty movie, while PORN more commonly refers to the industry at large.  For example, you are more likely to say, So-and-so just starred in a PORNO, instead of So-and-so just starred in a PORN.  Conversely you are more likely to say, So-and-so does PORN than So-and-so does PORNO.  In the attributive noun case, either one is okay -- So-and-so is PORN(O) star -- with the non-O version sounding a bit more natural.

And all this reminds me: If you are looking for a good book to read, I recommend PORNO by Irvine Welsh.  It's an excellent followup to Trainspotting and the basis for the film T2 Trainspotting.

NYT Spelling Bee: HIVEBITTEN

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Real pangram: INHIBITIVE

Fake pangram: HIVEBITTEN

It's like snakebitten only with bees.  Yeah, I know, bees don't bite, they sting, but it's not a real word, anyway.

Difficulty: Medium

Took me several minutes of warm-up on the easy four-letter words before I was ready to take down the pangram.  It then took me more minutes to achieve genius level.  ENTENTE and INVITEE pushed me over the edge after a little dry spell.

Olio: I've never like the euphemism HEINIE -- too cutesy.  Weirdly, it was once a popular nickname for men, at least for white, baseball-playing men.  You can find around two dozen major league HEINIES, all of whom played pre-integration.  The best was Hall of Famer HEINIE Manush, with HEINIE Groh and HEINIE Zimmerman not too far behind.  The latter won the Triple Crown in 1912.

On Problematic Scrabble (and Crossword Puzzle) Vocabulary

I started this blog back in 2007 as a way to chronicle my exploits as a mediocre competitive Scrabble player (with the goal of becoming a better-than-mediocre player).  But, life happened shortly thereafter, and I haven't played a tournament game in over a decade.  I keep telling myself I'm going to get back into it one day -- and I am -- I just don't know when.  Nevertheless, I still have a strong affinity for the game and the culture, so I eagerly read any Scrabble articles that cross my path.

The latest is this article by the inimitable Scrabble ambassador Stefan Fatsis.  It's on a really interesting debate -- prompted by the recent protests of systemic racism and police brutality -- about whether or not slurs should be allowed in tournament Scrabble.  Currently they are.  You won't find them in the Scrabble dictionary, which doesn't contain any "patently offensive" words, but they are on the Official Word List used by competitive players.

The debate is similar to ones we in the crossword puzzle community have had over certain words, but there are some key differences.  The first, as Stefan points out in the opening sentence of the article, is that for most competitive Scrabble players the definitions of the words are completely irrelevant.  Words are only words until they qualify for inclusion on the list of valid plays.  After that they become meaningless strings of characters.  There have been top-rated Scrabble players who could not read or write English.  In crossword puzzles, definitions (or "clues," if you will) are half the game.  Words are always words, and their meanings are very relevant to the solving experience.

The second major difference is that in Crossworld there are already taboo words, ones that aren't even offensive -- ORGASM,* for example, has never appeared in a mainstream puzzle despite having grid-friendly letters -- so eliminating slurs is already a must for crossword puzzle editors (even if they don't always do a good job of it).  In Scrabble World, the standard for decades has been: Every word is valid, period.  So, exempting slurs would be a significant change of the norm.

*This almost certainly would have been okay in the bygone BuzzFeed, edited by Caleb Madison, but I suspect slurs still would not have been permissible.  Once, I pitched an idea to Caleb for a DIRTY/CLEAN Schrödinger puzzle in which theme entries could be either "dirty" (DAMN IT) or "clean" (DARN IT).  One of my suggestions was BITCH/WITCH, but he nixed it on the grounds that BITCH is too gendered in its vulgar connotation.  He green-lit the idea though.  But then the whole puzzle folded like a week later, and I never actually made the puzzle.

So what's the right thing for Scrabble World to do?  Eliminate slurs or keep them?

My general position on things like this: Y'all go ahead and figure that out and let me know.

It's kind of a cop out, but more so it's that I don't want to speak out of pocket about derogatory terms that aren't aimed at me.  I am not personally offended by slurs -- in crossword puzzles or Scrabble -- but I'm a heterosexual, middle-aged, white man.  There aren't even any slurs for me.  I mean, theoretically there are (HONKY and HAOLE and whatnot), but practically there aren't, because nobody ever actually uses them in a pejorative way toward me, and I never heard them growing up in my formative years, so they never enrooted in my psyche.  I have the luxury of not being offended by anything.  (Also, I'm kind of a robot in general.)

I'm also not the type to get offend on somebody else's behalf.  So, my position is, What do the targets of these slurs think?  If a significant portion want them banned, then let's ban them; if they don't, then let's not.  Right now, judging by the admittedly tiny sample of people quoted in Stefan's article, there does not seem to be sufficient outcry among the targets of the slurs to support a ban.  It seems like the people with actual cause to be offended prefer to keep the game as it is and to let Scrabble World be a little niche of society in which the derogatory words exist as nothing more than arrays of tiles.

However, if I was playing against somebody who sincerely wanted to keep slurs off their board (which is totally understandable) I would agree to not use them.  Maybe that's a workable compromise: Keep the word list as is, but allow either player to declare a slur "opt out" before a match.  As long as both players know the valid words in advanced, it's a fair game, and it would hardly be any different than one in which derogatory words are allowed.

Well, that's all for now.

Until next time...

NYT Spelling Bee: BULLYPIC

I decided to start blogging daily about the New York Times Spelling Bee game -- just for fun.  The entries will be very short.  We will see how long this lasts.  Here's the first one.

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My genius list:

Real pangram: PUBLICLY

Fake pangram: BULLYPIC

A movie in which bullying plays a prominent role; a few bullypics which come to mind immediately are The Karate Kid and Mean Girls.

Difficulty: Easy

Not more than a week ago I tried to spell PUBLICLY PUBLICALLY and got the squiggly red line, so I was primed for this one.  I got the pangram instantly and hit genius level within a few minutes.  I even kept playing and added a few more, which I normally don't do.

Olio: CLUBBY?  If you say so.  My mind kept wanting to enter BULLY PULPIT even though there is no T and it's two words.