Of course I knew the other word was hanging there just below the surface. I once posted that very anagram to alt.anagrams on the old school BBS system before Anagrammy.com pilfered the contest away from the newsgroup and plunked it online. I have never liked the way they arranged the site. It's too hard to determine what you've already read and what is new. If they were only a way to mark posts as read I may have never stopped competing.
The discussion here about "skin tags" is perilously close to practicing medicine without an insurance code --- something frowned upon by the AMA and other professional medical organizations.
Spelling Bee refers to a word that uses all the letters in the set as a pangram (as opposed to an anagram, since an anagram doesn't repeat letters; an anagram is a pangram, but a pangram isn't necessarily an anagram). So I used the term "pangram" for our Week 9 contest to reuse all the letters in a movie title to create a new movie -- and I promptly got a big ahem from Loser Jon Gearhart. Jon directed my attention to Merriam-Webster’s sole definition of pangram: “a short sentence containing all 26 letters of the English alphabet.”
But surely – at least since the advent of the crazy-popular Spelling Bee – the word is used far more often to refer to a word or phrase that uses merely all the letters in any given set. And M-W knows this: Because in its own new version of Spelling Bee, the laughably similar Blossom (https://www.merriam-webster.com/games/blossom-word-game) , it says that each of its seven-letter sets contains at least one "pangram." I know that adding meanings into the dictionary is a long, painstaking process, but it’s funny to see M-W use words in ways its own dictionary doesn’t even recognize.
Sorry Pat, you brought this on yourself by offering your services to the Sniper Cell. No doubt, you'll be hearing from the gastroenterologists among us about the indiscriminate use of colons.
Gene, where will you address our comments? Will the addresses be on legal size envelopes? Will each comment have a unique address? Will the envelopes in which the comments are addressed contain stamped, self-addressed envelopes for reply?
For those of you who fear clowns or suffer from coulrophobia (as mentioned in Q&A) , you may be wondering why (or not...). A recent study sheds some light on your Bozo derangement. The most prominent reasons found for the phobia were:
*A eerie or unsettling feeling due to clowns’ makeup making them look not-quite-human.
*Clowns’ exaggerated facial features convey a direct sense of threat.
*Clown makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty.
*The color of clown makeup reminds us of death, infection or blood injury, and evokes disgust or avoidance.
*Clowns’ unpredictable behavior makes us uncomfortable.
*Fear of clowns has been learned from family members.
*Negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture.
Re: the skin tags, just be aware that some health insurance plans explicity exclude coverage of skin tag removal, so even if it is just a matter of a doctor with a scissors, you may have to pay retail.
Many skin tags can be removed by weaking the base of the "stalk" with a small amount of salicylic acid. Eventually, the skin tag can be easily pulled away, though sterile conditions should be maintained. There may still be some bleeding.
People always seem to be smugly justified in their complaints about Spelling Bee not accepting something they consider a word, but they label someone who complains about ScrabbleGrams offering CANOLA as a six-letter solution with a T left on the rack while ignoring OCTANAL (octlyl aldehyde or caprylic aldehyde) which was obvious to even most casual observer a raving lunatic.
By my reckoning, except for the Week 10 option (one of 40) in redoing contests from 1993, this week's contest is our first neologism contest since the beginning of October. I'm not going to scrutinize the whole Master Contest List at NRARS.org, but it's my strong hunch that we've never gone remotely that long between coin-a-terms in at least 20 years. Have at them! Our last Spelling Bee neologism contest was in 2021, when I posted 30 letter sets; the first time, in 2018, I used 15. So today we're going with 20. They're randomly chosen except that I usually didn't use ones that had very low word counts in the original game.
OK, so I see the funny word in U S B T T E X. But what's the non-funny one?
Subtext
I thought I was the only one who noticed the other word in U S B T T E X.
I thought I'd even taken a screengrab of it but I can't find it now.
THIS is why I joined The Gene Pool.
Of course I knew the other word was hanging there just below the surface. I once posted that very anagram to alt.anagrams on the old school BBS system before Anagrammy.com pilfered the contest away from the newsgroup and plunked it online. I have never liked the way they arranged the site. It's too hard to determine what you've already read and what is new. If they were only a way to mark posts as read I may have never stopped competing.
If there were... substack should implement an edit post feature...
So the intended Word-Scramble Scrabblegrams Puzzle word was frottage and the inadvertent one, agalmatophilia. Correct ?
Yes.
Nah. No way can you spell 'frottage' or 'agalmatophilia' with those letters.
Journocop: PREPLANNED.
The discussion here about "skin tags" is perilously close to practicing medicine without an insurance code --- something frowned upon by the AMA and other professional medical organizations.
Not John Moore; Morris Bishop. And you fluffed the last line, which has no "there" there.
Naturally as a long time Loser i found the word you weren’t supposed to find before i found the one you were supposed to.
Spelling Bee refers to a word that uses all the letters in the set as a pangram (as opposed to an anagram, since an anagram doesn't repeat letters; an anagram is a pangram, but a pangram isn't necessarily an anagram). So I used the term "pangram" for our Week 9 contest to reuse all the letters in a movie title to create a new movie -- and I promptly got a big ahem from Loser Jon Gearhart. Jon directed my attention to Merriam-Webster’s sole definition of pangram: “a short sentence containing all 26 letters of the English alphabet.”
But surely – at least since the advent of the crazy-popular Spelling Bee – the word is used far more often to refer to a word or phrase that uses merely all the letters in any given set. And M-W knows this: Because in its own new version of Spelling Bee, the laughably similar Blossom (https://www.merriam-webster.com/games/blossom-word-game) , it says that each of its seven-letter sets contains at least one "pangram." I know that adding meanings into the dictionary is a long, painstaking process, but it’s funny to see M-W use words in ways its own dictionary doesn’t even recognize.
I just pointed it out because Pat the Perfect.
It had to be done.
Sorry Pat, you brought this on yourself by offering your services to the Sniper Cell. No doubt, you'll be hearing from the gastroenterologists among us about the indiscriminate use of colons.
Gene, where will you address our comments? Will the addresses be on legal size envelopes? Will each comment have a unique address? Will the envelopes in which the comments are addressed contain stamped, self-addressed envelopes for reply?
For those of you who fear clowns or suffer from coulrophobia (as mentioned in Q&A) , you may be wondering why (or not...). A recent study sheds some light on your Bozo derangement. The most prominent reasons found for the phobia were:
*A eerie or unsettling feeling due to clowns’ makeup making them look not-quite-human.
*Clowns’ exaggerated facial features convey a direct sense of threat.
*Clown makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty.
*The color of clown makeup reminds us of death, infection or blood injury, and evokes disgust or avoidance.
*Clowns’ unpredictable behavior makes us uncomfortable.
*Fear of clowns has been learned from family members.
*Negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture.
*A frightening experience with a clown.
Coulrophobic, the inpatient frowns
When he spots the buffoons making rounds.
From his bed, it appears
That his greatest of fears
Has come true—someone's sent in the clowns!
I hope the Czar is aware that Tallulah Bankhead died over a half a century ago. What a way to attract new readership.
It was like yesterday to me. She and I once had sex.
With each other?
Sure hope that was while she was still alive.
“ I don’t love that you’re using two hands “ is the funniest line on SNL since some of the alien probe sketches with Kate McKinnon.
Ranks up there with Pete Schweddy's "My balls are there for you to enjoy."
Agreed.
Re: the skin tags, just be aware that some health insurance plans explicity exclude coverage of skin tag removal, so even if it is just a matter of a doctor with a scissors, you may have to pay retail.
Many skin tags can be removed by weaking the base of the "stalk" with a small amount of salicylic acid. Eventually, the skin tag can be easily pulled away, though sterile conditions should be maintained. There may still be some bleeding.
People always seem to be smugly justified in their complaints about Spelling Bee not accepting something they consider a word, but they label someone who complains about ScrabbleGrams offering CANOLA as a six-letter solution with a T left on the rack while ignoring OCTANAL (octlyl aldehyde or caprylic aldehyde) which was obvious to even most casual observer a raving lunatic.
Now THAT is just you.
Is it just me or is there no link to the Questions form?
If Gene can't fix it in real time, use this:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0DnQCOaQaSRizoEPqFWMb_u1Io0eb6t4ykJo0apFEX4PBvA/viewform
Is real time like Seth Thomas time?
I'm hoping it is just you!
It's me, too.
i just want to say that I wish I could tell the joke about women and legs but I cannot ever. And that;s all she wrote.
By my reckoning, except for the Week 10 option (one of 40) in redoing contests from 1993, this week's contest is our first neologism contest since the beginning of October. I'm not going to scrutinize the whole Master Contest List at NRARS.org, but it's my strong hunch that we've never gone remotely that long between coin-a-terms in at least 20 years. Have at them! Our last Spelling Bee neologism contest was in 2021, when I posted 30 letter sets; the first time, in 2018, I used 15. So today we're going with 20. They're randomly chosen except that I usually didn't use ones that had very low word counts in the original game.