# 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:** 49
**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 23, 2024, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/961 "2024-12-23T05:52:22Z")
Surprised not to see LUTEIN. ---
**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 23, 2024, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/962 "2024-12-23T06:48:21Z")
INLINE should be a word ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/963 "2024-12-23T06:53:46Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > INLINE should be a word. It is a word. M-W hyphenates it, so that may be why it’s not accepted in SB. Although I’m not sure what, if any, dictionary he uses as an authority. ---
**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 23, 2024, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/964 "2024-12-23T07:40:22Z")
MOCHI, yum. The omission of GNOMIC is annoying. ---
**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 24, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/965 "2024-12-24T18:04:14Z")
Sam and his love of obscure cuisine: TEFF. Really?!? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/966 "2024-12-24T19:50:37Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > TEFF. Really?!? I don’t even know what that word means. Which is not unusual; there’s a number of words I get but don’t know the meaning. I just know they’re valid words for this game. Yeah, I could look them up or google them, but I’d likely forget after a while. Not worth wasting my time. At any rate, I got it because I got almost to QB but needed one more point. That meant there was a 4-letter word I hadn’t gotten. So I tried out various likely 4-letter words and eventually tried that. So QB without hints. ---
**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 24, 2024, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/967 "2024-12-24T20:00:41Z")
How do you know the QB score without looking at the hint? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/968 "2024-12-24T20:06:10Z")
I covered that in a post way back. Too lazy to look it up, but the short answer is that the Amazing score is 50% of the QB score. You have to do a little bit of arithmetic to allow for rounding, and it’s not always possible to determine the exact score, but in this case it was. ---
**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 24, 2024, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/969 "2024-12-24T20:11:15Z")
Thanks. I’m new to the game so I missed the old post ---
**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:** [December 24, 2024, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/970 "2024-12-24T20:14:56Z")
You can just glance at the Hints link. It provides the total number of words, number of points and number of words for each letter, including by letter count. If all of that is too much of a hint, you could just look at the number of points and close the link. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/971 "2024-12-25T12:52:43Z")
Yes, if the Amazing score is N, QB is either 2N or 2N-1. ---
**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 25, 2024, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/972 "2024-12-25T13:06:27Z")
What the heck? No gaffing?? ---
**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 25, 2024, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/973 "2024-12-25T13:16:07Z")
This EFFING puzzle, I tell you. ---
**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 25, 2024, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/974 "2024-12-25T14:18:50Z")
Haha! Definitely tried that, too. ---
**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 25, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/975 "2024-12-25T18:01:48Z")
I was so proud to find NAILFILE but no. ---
**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 26, 2024, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/976 "2024-12-26T07:34:48Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Sam and his love of obscure cuisine: TEFF. Really?!? I’d be surprised if 1/10 of the people eating that cuisine at a restaurant knew the name of that ingredient. It’s not completely obscure cuisine where I live, but pretty niche, I guess. I’d guess maybe 20 restaurants in the region. ---
**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 26, 2024, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/977 "2024-12-26T08:17:41Z")
The absence of that word has been complained about for quite a while. ---
**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 26, 2024, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/978 "2024-12-26T14:34:15Z")
Not by me! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2024, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/979 "2024-12-26T16:17:05Z")
Forgot to mention on Monday: DOWNWIND was acceptable. WINDDOWN was not. I use the latter quite a lot in my work, so this was annoying. ---
**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:** [December 26, 2024, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739/980 "2024-12-26T16:22:24Z")
I think that second one is used as a two word phrase. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=48) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-spelling-bee-drives-me-crazy/994739.md?page=50)