The “yoke” is on me in this case. Monotonic was one of the two words I missed on yesterday’s NYT spelling bee. My bee partner (not pictured) got it and then she and her dad (pictured) both razzed me about missing it. “Didn’t you take algebra?” yada yada yada.

The other word I missed was tomtit. Apparently it is a frequent flyer (pun intended). Not only is it a bird, it is frequently used in the bee. Hopefully I won’t miss it the next time it fits into the letter combo.

I managed to get to queen on today’s bee. That means I got all possible words. I’m embarrassed that the last word I put in was mommy and I am embarrassed that it took me FOREVER to get it because it shoulda been a no-brainer. I wasn’t going to post it because my bee partner had a way more hectic day than I and was still working on it. But she just texted that she got mommy (and it took her a while too).

One word that a lot of folks were upset didn’t “fly” in today’s bee was jammy. Whaddya mean, jammy isn’t a word (there’s a daily hints page with lots of commenters)? I’ve been doing the xword long enough now that I have more or less absorbed the “rules” for that although I am NOT and never will be a cruciverbalist. Er, upon looking up cruciverbalist I guess I *am* one in the sense that I like to solve xword puzzles. But I will never be a constructor. I do not have that kind of chops.

I can see jammy being an acceptable xword answer appropriately clued but the rules for the bee are a bit more arbitrary and there’s always a lot of discussion about acceptable words and sometimes complaints. My take on this is that the bee is created by one person (with some computer help). I have a lot of fun doing it (or attempting to) and due to the constraints of including a finite number of words, he does a great job. If every esoteric word in every dictionary were included, nobody would ever finish the bee. Personally I consider monotonic to be pretty esoteric but we had a good time with it 🤣 and I learned a new (to me) word.

On another topic, hints of the S-word are in the forecast. Will we get it or not? Drive carefully over confident would-be road warriors. My loverly Cygnus is a much better S-word vee-hickle than my sweet Ninja was but as she is brand new, I will drive her with an excess of care. I also dredged up my YakTrax today.

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