# NYT Spelling Bee drives me crazy **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** board-card-word-game\ **Created:** [December 17, 2023, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739 "2023-12-17T15:50:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 121
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2401 "2025-12-12T13:24:30Z")
Twice this week, glia was allowed, but not glial. They seem equally obscure to me. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2402 "2025-12-13T02:08:58Z")
Yesterday, they accepted myeloma, but not myoma. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2403 "2025-12-13T12:11:28Z")
That’s odd. The adjective (in the phrase glial cell()s) must be much more common than the noun. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2404 "2025-12-13T12:12:32Z")
Right?? The mysterious ways of the Spelling Bee. Wait, does that mean that Sam is God?? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2405 "2025-12-13T13:34:13Z")
WTF is with [GALANGAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galangal) and [LONGAN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longan) from yesterday’s puzzle? Have these items become popular while I wasn’t looking, because they sure are fucking obscure to me. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2406 "2025-12-13T14:03:09Z")
Remember, they _love_ food — and seem to have recently discovered the pleasures of Southeast Asian cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2407 "2025-12-13T16:05:58Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > WTF is with [GALANGAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galangal) and [LONGAN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longan) from yesterday’s puzzle? Have these items become popular while I wasn’t looking, They’ve been used several times. I’m surprised he hasn’t used galanga as well. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2408 "2025-12-13T16:09:41Z")
Once again, no GROUNDNUT or TUNG or TURD. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2409 "2025-12-14T00:02:58Z")
Galangal is a key ingredient in southeast Asian cooking. It’s appeared in the Bee in the past and isn’t that obscure. It’s the interesting taste in Thai food like tom kha soup. It’s sold at standard chain supermarkets, at least out here. I always have dried or ground in the house, and often fresh as well. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2025, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2410 "2025-12-14T05:29:01Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Once again, no GROUNDNUT or TUNG or TURD. I tried all of those too. Grr! OTOH I was amused at ROTGUT being accepted. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2025, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2411 "2025-12-14T15:13:06Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > OTOH I was amused at ROTGUT being accepted. However, its near anagram TURGOR has not been accepted for several years. Note: I spoilered that even though 1) it’s not accepted and 2) it’s not spelled anything like an accepted word. But you know if I hadn’t spoilered it, someone would find some excuse to complain that I didn’t. This brings up the concept I’m going to call SB-anagrams. That is words which use all the same set of letters, but with possibly different counts of each letter. In the above pair, for example, there were two of one letter in one and two of another letter in the other. The advantage of knowing about these is that if one word is accepted, you can automatically add its SB-anagrams. The problem is remembering them, of course. So what are the largest sets of SB-anagrams? For four letters, I’ve found two sets with 8 words. Fairly sure these are the largest sets for four letters. AELP – appeal, appellee, apple, leap, paella, pale, peal, plea AELT – elate, late, latte, tale, teal, tattle, tattletale, telltale Note these are only words that are accepted, so there may be larger sets with non-accepted words. And I checked, neither set has been allowed in a game for a couple months or more, so no complaints about spoilering. For five letter words, I found one with 7 words. Not certain this is the largest such for five-letter words, though. This set hasn’t shown up since the beginning of September. ACINT – antic, cantina, incant, intact, tactician, tannic, titanic Have not looked for any six letter sets. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2025, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2412 "2025-12-15T10:27:22Z")
No FUNNING? I guess Sam isn’t a very FUNGI… ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2025, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2413 "2025-12-15T11:29:22Z")
How come no unagi, given all the other Japanese food items he accepts? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2025, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2414 "2025-12-15T14:27:33Z")
Huh. Genius without any 4 letter words, but also no pangram. I don’t think I’ve done that one before. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2415 "2025-12-16T19:00:10Z")
It’s odd that they accept WATT which is a unit of measure but also a name and it’s always capitalized. I had thought that those weren’t allowed before. But if they do accept it, why not NANOWATT? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2416 "2025-12-16T19:05:55Z")
Wiki doesn’t have that capitalized, for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2025, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2417 "2025-12-16T20:05:47Z")
It’s seems that Sam, who I’m going to guess is not a tech type, rarely accepts prefixed SI units except for the really common ones like KILOWATT and MEGAWATT. There was a different prefixed unit that in past games was rejected. I can’t remember for sure what it was, but I think MILLIAMP. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2418 "2025-12-19T02:08:54Z")
On occasion, when I’m really bored, I play a similar game on the local newspaper’s website. I’ve mentioned this game in the past, but no one seemed very interested. Anyway, if you think SB is a bit strange in what words are accepted/rejected, this other game has SB beat on that score. In today’s game, one of these words was not accepted: 1. HOICK 2. OTIC 3. POOCH 4. TOTO Answer: pooch, and no, that’s not a joke. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2419 "2025-12-19T05:45:43Z")
I just hate it when I’m completely stumped for the last word before Queen Bee, and when I finally give in and use a hint, it’s not one of those weird obscure cooking terms that Sam loves so much, but a perfectly ordinary word I just couldn’t see. Using SBB, I knew it was a seven-letter word stating FU, and just couldn’t think of it. FULFILL. D’oh! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2420 "2025-12-19T16:08:24Z")
Today, it’s rejecting APPELLATIVE, which would have been a pangram. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=120) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=122)