Bee Scolding: Episode One
RANTY ANALRY!
Welcome to the first episode of Bee Scolding With Karen and Sophie, in which we take all of the rage, confusion, ennui, sadness, and general sense of fear that is omnipresent here in life in mid 2020 and funnel it into a small yet mighty complaint department devoted entirely to the New York Times Spelling Bee daily puzzle and their annoying habit of not giving us beloved points for words that either actually exist or should actually exist. Are you ready for some serious…
? We hope so!
Look, not everyone cooks meat in an earthenware tagine or a Le Creuset Dutch oven, NYT. Some of us park in a carhole and some of us braise in a
Did we endure the in-retrospect only very slightly irritating compared to what has happened since but nevertheless inescapable and irritating body positivity but make it dudes hot take cycle of 2015 only to get NO POINTS FOR THIS IN 2020?!
I am certainly not going to sit in my home alone for three months eating “family-sized” boxes of Cheez-Its and rewatching “Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements” on repeat, crying and laughing and crying again, just to have the New York Motherfucking Times tell me that part of my body just doesn’t exist.
When will we have justice for the grooviest shoes of the 1990s (and today)?
What about the hardcore crafters? Don’t they deserve lots of points, NYT Bee Editors? If that is your real name????
Most egregious of all is the erasure of the work of one of our most skilled and exuberantly creative living lyricists, the great Missy Elliott. [Editor’s note: having re-viewed this video, we are delighted to be reminded that it features bees! and we note that the rejected word below doesn’t actually feature in the lyrics. Rather, its cousin “ga-dunk-a-dunk-dunk” is referenced. We submit that the more popular term should nonetheless be permitted in Spelling Bee and we give Missy credit for coining it. If this is wrong, please do let us know, we do actually want to be right.]
Actual Bee Corner
Periodically, we will also include information about Actual Bees, in addition to our impassioned rants about the game-based metaphorical bees we struggle with and against daily. Today, we want to highlight the delicious symbiotic work of Actual Bees and a New Jersey family of beekeepers, whose honey you can buy right now. Support a Black-owned business and enjoy one of nature’s true miracles while you’re at it, with a purchase from Zach & Zoë’s Sweet Bee Farm!
'mononym' gets to me, because it has somehow been available three times in the past few months. Also 'luff'.
Such important work. I was powerful mad about "badonkadonk," too. Another one that just bugged me was "turd," because really?