Tomtit in the tilth -- the NY TIMES SPELLING BEE thread

Tough one today.

TBH I'm a little put off by the complaining about QIGONG yesterday, but I also realize that I'm saying this from a very biased perspective that I have a hard time detaching myself from, which makes it harder for me to accurately gauge how white people would react to it.

Did people complain? Seems like a common enough word these days.

This thread!

Oh yeah, behind the h-tags.

It's not so much that it's too obscure, it's that that word sails through the "nothing too obscure" filter while hundreds of words that we think are common... don't.

It's like, cool if you think QIGONG is common bit of American English. Ditto YENTA or TOWHEE.

But what's off-putting is when you simultaneously think QIGONG is a non-foreign, non-obscure word in American English, but TORTA or TOFF aren't.

It's very selective, and every day it becomes glaringly moreso.

it's just a game though, and it is one that you can learn to get better at

also it's nice learning new words. the one from today that I had never heard of before (and not sure I'll remember) was a bird-related word, towhee

I love the compound words that are reversible, like pinhead and headpin, or today's hometown and townhome

i’ve never heard the latter used so it just annoyed me

Same, me neither.

today’s is rough!

Meant to post that this morning. Totally needed hints.

made it to genius but what a struggle

TIL that FLATFEET is acceptable

I guess it has no hyphen here in the US, but does have one in the UK.

yeah starting to get annoyed with sam again. ALCHEMICAL is most certainly a word.
(putting in spoilers tags because even though it’s not accepted it contains a valid word that is)

ha, just came here to complain about that word too

Sam being Sam again and not accepting a word he used to (in this case OCOTILLO).

I never heard of a boodle, and it still irks me that bole is not acceptable.

Re today’s words: so glad I remembered UNTUNEFUL from the other day.

Yeah that one is out there but at least comprehensible. there is utterly no way I would have gotten venule without hints and guessing

Me neither.

Sometimes when there are this many words it gets to the point where even after I have given up on my own steam (hopefully after getting pangrams and genius) and looking at all the clues I still can't tell which words I missed.

Also, really wanted LENTEN, I assume he left out because usually capitalized.

Again with the formerly-accepted-but-not-today: TELNET.

DIdn't even try.

Feel like there was a good (rejected) screenname based on that one once.

Surpised I didnt tihnk to try that one Leee, given my profession haha.

Guess LEXEME is still too technical

british spelling not being accepted is especially annoying today

lol just came here to post “they’re really trolling the brits/aussies today”

.. and canadians

ha yes them too, sorry canadians

managed to get to QB w/hints

I think I've come up to three or four short but have never achieved QB without hints. there are always four-letter words that I forget, so I try to do those first

QB was easy today, I tried the AU/UK -our spellings just in case. He seems to use alt spellings sometimes but not always? I guess it'd get too messy.

the alternate spellings are not usually a problem

but even trying to conjure compound words like falloff, nobleman/noblewoman, bellmen I often miss them

Some of the, um, fun is typing in still-foreign words and hoping they will be accepted like CEMITA.

Lol James, I think I tried MAMACITA at least twice today

I’m too sexy for my (no longer acceptable) CATAMITE.

Yeah I tried that too; meanwhile CRAP and CRAPPING were fine just a couple days ago

As seen here: Rewrite the openings to famous novels in the style of John Lanchester

I had another pair to gripe about but capitalization.

there were a lot of chemistry words today

tried both mamacita and catamite

missed words like climatic, lacteal, acetate

and titmice!

chemistry words and medical words

acetal
acetic
acetate
calcite
malic

celiac
iliac
lactic

didn't hide it all, sorry

but not ictal, which an often used medical term

Keep typing LAIRD to no avail.

Yeah that’s bullshit. Fuck catamite not counting as well!!

Inclusions are never bullshit ime, exclusions are often bullshit

Tomtit talks and bullshit walks.

Biggest bullshit today might be that none of the variant spellings of arrack are accepted