# 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:** 143
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2841 "2026-05-02T08:12:44Z")
Not sure why ENGLOBE/ENGLOBED are not accepted. The latter would be a pangram. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2026, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2842 "2026-05-02T10:33:53Z")
I see how it shifts from the share your achievement screen to the Play Spelling Bee page. I know I’ve posted the former, so it may be a glitch. Try the other button to see if it lets you download the image. I can’t think of a way the image could be more specific without including spoilers (for example, some people prefer not to know how many points are needed to reach Genius). ---
**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:** [May 2, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2843 "2026-05-02T12:28:11Z")
Isn’t boondoggle a noun, not a verb? (I don’t know how much I should spoiler there, so I erred on the safe side. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2026, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2844 "2026-05-02T12:41:33Z")
Merriam allows it! (that seems vague enough to not spoiler) ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2845 "2026-05-02T13:11:07Z")
I was surprised that the natural pangram LONGBED was not accepted. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2846 "2026-05-02T13:25:47Z")
It’s not in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, if that matters. I have no idea which dictionary is used by the puzzle’s creator. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2847 "2026-05-02T13:37:49Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I have no idea which dictionary is used by the puzzle’s creator. It’s bespoke, curated and very exclusive. It’s called IMIUAIGA. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2848 "2026-05-02T18:51:00Z")
51 damn words to get genius on today’s (May 2nd) puzzle. At my wits end, I decided to read the “how to play” and learned that there is one panagram per puzzle… which immediately brought the last solution into play. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2849 "2026-05-02T18:53:28Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > and learned that there is one panagram per puzzle (at least) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2850 "2026-05-02T19:02:17Z")
Exactly. There is always at least one word that contains each of the seven letters and on some days, there is more than one. I remember one day there were six such words. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2851 "2026-05-02T22:41:12Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I remember one day there were six such words. The record is 8 pangrams. That was on 2021-Dec-16 and the letters were C AGEILN. The pangrams were cancelling, cleaning, angelic, allegiance, enlacing (angelica, canceling, inelegance). I only got 5 of them (the ones not in parens). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2852 "2026-05-02T22:44:01Z")
2021 was well before I started to do the Spelling Bee puzzle. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2853 "2026-05-02T22:48:25Z")
I started in April of 2021. During the first couple months or so, I didn’t always get to Genius, but since then I always have. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2026, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2854 "2026-05-02T22:54:39Z")
You’ll get the hang of it very quickly and we’re here to help. Scroll back a little and look at the way we do spoilers. Some days it’s fewer than twenty words to Genius and more than 50 isn’t unusual. If you get every possible word, you get to Queen Bee status. The QB score is 2x or 2x-1 of the Amazing score. Scoring is one point for a four letter word and the number of letters for all other words. Seven point bonus for pangrams ---
**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:** [May 3, 2026, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2855 "2026-05-03T03:29:36Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Not sure why ENGLOBE/ENGLOBED are not accepted. The latter would be a pangram. And the even more common GLOBED , which is in the OED and in M/W, isn’t accepted either. TIL that DOGLEG and BOONDOGGLE are verbs. I’ve never seen them used that way. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2026, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2856 "2026-05-03T03:40:13Z")
Warning, the game can be addictive! I had played a few times but never got into it until I was sitting in a boring work meeting, saw a friend playing it and realized how it works. After a couple of days I was getting to Genius, and after a week I wasn’t giving up until getting to Queen Bee. ---
**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:** [May 6, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2857 "2026-05-06T16:21:13Z")
ARIL? Really? Did you know that it means “fleshy and usually brightly colored cover of some seeds that develops from the ovule stalk and partially or entirely envelops the seed”? Even though it’s been in 57 previous puzzles, I don’t remember seeing it before, and I’ve never come across it in the real world. But it’s not obscure or technical. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2026, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2858 "2026-05-06T16:23:28Z")
Wikipedia photo of a pomegranate fruit showing the arils. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Pomegranate\_fruit\_-\_whole\_and\_piece\_with\_arils.jpg/](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Pomegranate_fruit_-_whole_and_piece_with_arils.jpg/) ---
**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:** [May 6, 2026, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2859 "2026-05-06T16:32:44Z")
It’s a classic crossword word, otherwise I wouldn’t know it. Forgot all about this today until I saw the thread, meandered my way to Genius and quit. Some days I’m just not feeling it. ---
**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:** [May 6, 2026, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/2860 "2026-05-06T16:32:52Z")
Link doesn’t work for me. I don’t doubt arils exist. Did you know the word before seeing it in the Spelling Bee? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=142) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=144)