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To Bee or Not to Bee By Liane Kupferberg Carter
Spelling Bee, I just can't quit you.
I've been sucked into a black hole. Utterly possessed. Even in my sleep, I'm seeing honey- comb grids and combining letters. Last night I was so elated dreaming that I'd found the words "inculcate" and "indoctrinate" that it made me wonder if it's time for an intervention. For anyone living off the grid, let me enlighten you: The New York Times' Spelling Bee is a wildly addictive online word game. You earn points making as many different words as you can from seven letters arranged in a honeycomb. Letters can be used more than once. Every puzzle contains at least one pangram — a word using all seven letters — which bestows bonus points. You move through nine levels, from Beginner to Genius. Many puzzlers are satisfied to stop there. But if you're tenacious (or lucky) enough to find all the words, you achieve Queen Bee, which earns you bragging rights and a jaunty image of cartoon mascot Beeatrice wearing a crown. The first time I reached Queen Bee, I proudly posted the Beeatrice
image on Facebook. A friend responded, "Wow. I was just psyched today to find 'bacilli.'"
Spelling Bee allegedly contains easier words than those in the daily NYT crossword puzzle, and none that are obscure. Yet some of the so-called everyday words seem arcane or just bewildering. Words like anion. Deicide. Griot. Natant. Torii. Autodidactic (which at least was a recent pangram, so worth 19 points).
The first time I reached Queen Bee, I proudly posted the Beeatrice image on Facebook.
Still, I have questions. Why "doldrums" but not "doldrum"? Since when is "PFFT" an acceptable word? And what's with the archaic words? Attaint? Pettifog? Really? Months ago, I had such a surge of indignation (pangram, 18 points) about a word they rejected that I clicked the "Think we missed a word?" link. All I got was an autoreply thanking me for my interest. To Bee or not to Bee isn't the question. Even though it frequently frustrates and occasionally confounds, I'm unable to resist its siren song. How do I love thee, Spelling Bee? Let me count the ways.
Better yet, let me "enumerate" — because that's a pangram worth 16 points.
Read more stories like this on Next Avenue.org.
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NEXTAVENUE.ORG
APRIL 2022
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