It’s aurochs (singular) is why.
Ok, thanks. Didn’t realize that the s was needed even for the singular.
Sadly so.
Now I’m wondering whether there are other words for which that’s the case. (Aside from those ending in iness- or similar suffixes.)
As previously discussed in this thread.
That’s different, though. Those are plurals with no singular form. It looks like aurochs is the singular form?
And CUCARACHA and more seriously
OUTCOACH
I finally got to G with one pangram. Today was tough for me.
Agree with all that.
Etymology
Both “aur” and “ur” are Germanic or Celtic words meaning “wild ox”.[3][4] In Old High German, this word was compounded with ohso (‘ox’) to ūrohso, which became the early modern Aurochs.[5] The Latin word “urus” was used for wild ox from the Gallic Wars onwards.[4][6]
The use of the plural form aurochsen in English is a direct parallel of the German plural Ochsen and recreates the same distinction by analogy as English singular ox and plural oxen, although aurochs may stand for both the singular and the plural term; both are attested.[7][8]
Wednesday: I know it’s somewhat archaic but you’d think an NYC-based puzzler would be fine with CONEY.
Why? It’s pretty obviously a proper name. If you think it’s an alternate spelling of cony, an archaic word for rabbit, 1) that’s pretty obscure, and B) historians don’t agree that that’s the origin:
Yet other theories suggest a Dutch etymology: one theory holds that the name had come from Conyn, the surname of a family of Dutch settlers who lived there,[21] and another suggests that it came from the Dutch word for rabbit, konijn, derived from a purported large population of wild rabbits on the island".[21][24][25]
There is little evidence for each origin theory, and there are conflicts between the pieces of evidence that do exist.[21] The most popular idea is the translation of the Dutch word for “rabbit” into the English word coney, but that has its detractors and counter explanations.
I mean, there’s a whole subset of people who’ve read LOTR who don’t think it’s obscure…Sam Gamgee clearly tells us there’s only one way to eat a brace of coneys.
It’s not that obscure, and the spelling is more common than the earlier “cony”.
Regarding yesterday’s puzzle. Has it happened before where the center letter didn’t start any words?
I just went down a Google Ngram rabbit hole (yes I said it) where I learned that “cony-catcher” was a term for a swindler, particularly at cards. The more you know.
It happens once in awhile. June 11th was O A C K L N U.
TOLUENE, LEPTON.
Yes, Discourse, that’s what I meant.
No PUNNET tendered. 
Also missing, a pair of fun words including a pangram: NONUPLE / NONUPLET
I tried punnet as well. And why accept
untune but not other un- words?
As a sort-of musician, it drives me nuts that it accepts untune and not detune, which I think of as the right word. Not valid today, of course, but has been on other days and not accepted.