A brief follow-up to my 11/2 posting “poetite”, about the NYT’s Spelling Bee puzzle, in which I wrote:
Spelling Bee’s dictionary is mighty persnickety. Editor Sam Ezersky uses some standard dictionaries as a rough basis for his puzzle dictionary, but his judgments are strongly personal, and consequently often fiercely disputed. Grievances are sometimes unloaded in Facebook.
A comment that led to a Facebook exchange between Karen Davis and me.
— KD: I’ve lost track of the valid words the Bee doesn’t allow.
— AM > KD: Me too, and I don’t even play the game, just get my friends’ aggrieved postings. I’d say that Ezersky is, at age 30, just too young to manage such a project, but (a) you get similar stuff from opinionated geezers with lifetime experience; and (b) at his age I was a tenured full professor managing, I think judiciously, considerable responsibilities for my department, my university, and various academic organizations (like the Linguistic Society of America); and (c) I can name others with life / work histories much like mine.
So I’d say: not age, but cast of mind.
And remember: it really is just a game.
Added on 11/3: On the other hand, Ezersky’s unpredictable judgments deeply offend our sense of fairness, and that’s not a trivial complaint.
And on 11/4: from the Calvin and Hobbes Wiki fandom site on “Calvinball”:
Calvinball’s first appearance in print, 5/5/1990Calvinball is a game invented by Calvin and Hobbes. It is used recurringly in several strips. The game may involve wickets, mallets, volleyballs, and additional sports-related equipment, but a mask is always required.
There is only one permanent rule in Calvinball: players cannot play it the same way twice. For example, in one game of Calvinball, the goal was to capture the opponent’s flag, whereas in a different game of Calvinball, the goal was to score points by hitting badminton birdies against trees using a croquet mallet.
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