The Noble Art of the New York Times Spelling Bee

A healthy, brain-exercising addiction.

Photo by Dustin Humes on Unsplash

I came late to the New York Times Spelling Bee, which had been in the digital paper since 2018. During the Pandemic, I started playing Wordle with the rest of the globe and hightailed it over to the Times when it moved.

But I became bored and frustrated with Wordle; so much depended on luck, and I was always in short supply. I found a lot of rhyming words. Or I just wasn’t good at it. As a Times subscriber, I checked out the rest of the games section. I had never been a crossword fan, so I tried spelling bee.

Within a few days, I was hooked, and The Whole Enchilada has been a wonderful part of every morning since. I anticipate the taste of my first cuppa black coffee with the revelation of today’s puzzle.

I got to genius easily, and I was overwhelmed by my magnificence. I shared my results on Facebook. But I wasn’t paying attention to my tribe of incredibly smart writerly and readerly types, most of whom could write cogent, brilliant 100,000-word epistles with one hand tied behind their backs.

The deal is—you must get to genius every day—or you are a complete numbskull. And you don’t get to brag about your triumph, it’s expected.

Queen Bee? Not so much. It’s hard. I’ve reached it four times, including a two-day run. My perception of my brilliance has diminished, yet I keep trying because it’s fun and interesting. And then I can complain to the gods of Spelling Bee, who have determined that “bundt” isn’t a word, but “eked” is.

Other aspects of this experience make it desirable, including the community and making my own rules.

The Community

Shortly after the puzzle is posted at 3 am., the comments get going and Succinctly Steve and a few others give their own clues. By 8 a.m. Central, the official clues are up. (To clarify, I’m not up until 8 a.m., either.) Beyond the clues, there are many conversations between players on the Times site and social media. Participants on the Times site often leave funny poems or comments about wordplay.

Amy’s Rules

I play the same way every day, making that first cup of black coffee and looking eagerly at the vowels. I do not look at the clues until I am out of steam, and then I check the clues from Succinctly Steve, and if I tap out, I move to the official clues.

I usually make it half to two-thirds of the way through the puzzle without looking at clues. Skill improves the longer you do the puzzle. You recognize what an “i o and n” or an “e d” can do, making many words from one base word.

I don’t look things up, but if I get into trouble, I’ll call in the big guns, my husband, whose vocabulary is superior to mine after a lifetime of playing crosswords.

One of the best things about Spelling Bee is that it is highly unpredictable. There may be days of difficult puzzles, followed by days of difficult puzzles, and vice versa. Repetition doesn’t get a reward, so one is always surprised.

Are you a puzzle person? What rituals surround your daily wordplay?

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