NYT Spelling Bee: POPPYGENT

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My Genius list:

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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My Genius list:

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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My Genius list:

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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My genius list:

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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My genius list:

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.