Bee Free

September 14, 2022 6:36 PM

Do you love word puzzles like the New York Times Spelling Bee? Are you constantly frustrated by author Sam Ezersky's idiosyncratic lexicon, which often leaves out highly common words? There's

a solution! It's the Free Bee freebie by Studio Urban Homestead. (Not that Urban Homestead which is previously on, but another one.) From the site's info: "Free Bee uses the Public Domain ENABLE dictionary as found here. Never again wonder why a word was not accepted. Even better, players can and should request the addition and removal of words via issues and pull requests. The dictionary should grow with the players.

posted by heyitsgogi (49 comments total)

Yes! I get so frustrated--I keep wanting to use Atlatl and it is not recognized. It is one of my favorite words (not to mention being a handy weapon). There are others that I get frustrated about as well and he seems to allow some British words but not others. I will try this version! Thanks.
posted by agatha_magatha at 6:49 PM on September 14, 2022 [11 favorites]

Idiosyncratic is a perfect way to put it. Sometimes I feel like there's no way to know what word will or won't be accepted until you try it. Sometimes it seems like the pangrams come from out of left field compared to the other words that are accepted. I'm not surprised to learn that Ezersky starts with the pangram.
posted by mollweide at 6:54 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am conflicted -- I like the game but there are aspects that rub me the wrong way. I can kind of, slightly, somewhat make my peace with not having "atlatl," but I hate all of the middle-America slangy words that get included instead. There was just "anyhoo" in a solution in the last couple of days -- sorry, but if atlatl doesn't count, there's no way "anyhoo" comes near to being a word. Same with "dunno," too, which shows up all the time.

I guess the pleasure is in figuring out the constraints and trying to work inside of that. I'll definitely try the Free Bee version, though.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:14 PM on September 14, 2022 [9 favorites]

The slang drives me crazy, too, given the words that aren't accepted.
posted by mollweide at 7:22 PM on September 14, 2022

Spelling Bee does accept “fart” so at least there’s that.
posted by azpenguin at 7:40 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

The one I just can't believe Spelling Bee doesn't accept is bole. Who doesn't know the word bole? They did add "linnet" at one point, so I keep trying words like atlatl and neoteny and dado just in case they change their minds about them. The dumb slang words like anyhoo are annoying. And why are so many obscure foods, currencies and names of fish included?
posted by Redstart at 8:03 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hoopoe hurray!
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:05 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

ho doesn't know the word bole? They did add "linnet" at one point, so I keep trying words like atlatl and neoteny and dado just in case they change their minds about them.

I keep trying "bole" and "neoteny" as well. Maybe someday...
posted by Dip Flash at 8:07 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

They don't take hoopoe now, do they? That's one of the words I keep trying. If a hoopoe were a fish, I'm sure it would be in their dictionary.
posted by Redstart at 8:08 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Spelling Bee doesn’t accept “elven,” which is the only whopper in my book. Well, that and the pangram not too long ago of “PHABLET,” which I look at as a word that failed.
posted by argybarg at 8:12 PM on September 14, 2022 [12 favorites]

I'm trying out Free Bee and finding the user experience a lot less pleasant than Spelling Bee. I'm up to Superb but I have no idea how far that is from the top level. I see they include "s," unlike Spelling Bee. Between that and the bigger dictionary it seems like the total number of words in each game might be frustratingly huge. I kind of like the way Spelling Bee uses a more limited set of words and (in theory) leaves out the weird words no one knows. I just wish their ideas about the reasonable words to include were a little more reasonable.
posted by Redstart at 8:14 PM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

OMG, phablet! That was one of the rare days when I just could not manage to find the pangram.
posted by Redstart at 8:15 PM on September 14, 2022

Redstart, as of a few days ago they still did not accept Hoopoe.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:18 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I take the occasional arbitrariness of some of the word choices in return for a well-curated experience with a good interface and a good community. I also really don’t like humongous word lists; I only have about a half hour each day to spend on Spelling Bee.
posted by argybarg at 8:37 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

And if you want to try yet a different version, well, I wrote something called Spellbound which I posted last March on the Projects page.

The project link and explanation is here. Direct link here.

Choosing words is hard. At the end of the day, it comes down to editor’s (my) choice. It’s not always easy: I want them to be fun (yes, slang) and more common than what I was seeing in the NYT (too many chemicals and weird fish).

We’ll never agree on all the words, but it’s still a pretty decent time waster when you need one. Maybe give it a try?
posted by AMyNameIs at 8:42 PM on September 14, 2022 [6 favorites]

ENABLE is rather long in the tooth (it doesn't know APP!), and has a ton of bogus inflected forms -- the most recent one I found is BODYBUILDINGS.

As part of my work on Surfwords, I released an improved word list. It's based on ENABLE, but includes a bunch of newer words, and removes as much of the garbage as I could easily find. Patches are accepted!

One real problem that I haven't addressed is the words from older dialects of English. If a word was last seen ) according to the OED) in 1536, is it still a word? What about 1673? Etc. I would love to get a firm rule on this, but as soon as I do, someone will just make a blog post just to resurrect that 1599 word. And then there are the hapax legomenon cases...

... But at least let's not use ENABLE in 2022.
posted by novalis_dt at 9:57 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

Tons of relatively common chemistry terms--the sort that are absolutely "fair" in crosswords--don't get in. Lots of common crossword terms are out, in fact. Annoying.

Scores are related to the total number of words that can be found, and they support a tiny group of hard-core types who shoot for 100%, so a maximalist approach has penalties too. Adding a word only I know actually would penalize everyone else. Not that such a word exists. But they want it to be a "find the pattern" thing, not an obscure vocabulary thing. This approach is, well, it's a choice, and they didn't have to make it, but there you are..

But accepting that means there's going to be the same silly problem with listicles at the edges. "Why was this worthy but not this?" There will always be examples in any finite list.

Along those lines:

Never again wonder why a word was not accepted

I just tried FreeBee and literally the first word I tried was "wiki." Wiki appears in my go-to dictionary, Merriam-Webster, but FreeBee rejects it.

So it doesn't really solve the boundary questions, they've just outsourced it. The only answer to me wondering why is always going to be "It's not in the human-assembled list we chose to use that."
posted by mark k at 10:20 PM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

Endorsement for Spellbound by our own AMyNameIs. Crisp design! We [with visiting 20something daughter] knocked off puzzle #86 a couple of days ago. The missing words are, like all these puzzles, idiosyncratic and revealing of who and where the creator is - part of the game, part of the fun, as is playing it as two-hander.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:56 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

I cannot figure out the scoring of spelling bee and never understood when I’m close to done. And yeah the weird words et…
posted by Tandem Affinity at 11:04 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

ALPHABET was the much more pleasant pangram on the PHABLET day.

My husband and I do the Bee together, and when we were doing that particular puzzle, I rage quit after it rejected PHTHALATE.

Also very mad it wouldn’t take URTICARIA on a much earlier puzzle. Uncool.

ANYHOO was the word that got us to genius last night, which was immensely less satisfying than when I almost immediately saw CACOPHONY upon opening.
posted by obfuscation at 3:38 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Today I have learned the word "bole"!
posted by brainwane at 3:40 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

After years of enjoying various word puzzles Spelling Bee was the one that had me ragequit in three days. I’m thrilled to try this alternative. It wasn’t the difficulty (that was semantle, a game I couldn’t click into well enough to be fun), it was the inconsistency.
posted by kimberussell at 3:51 AM on September 15, 2022

I rage quit after it rejected PHTHALATE.

I feel seen.
posted by Ickster at 4:31 AM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]

Somewhat ironic in light of the above comments regarding fish and British words, but it annoys me so much that it doesn't accept "plaice." It's like, a super common fish, come on!
posted by CheeseLouise at 4:32 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

I find the desperate search for a pangram often leads me to create words that don't exist, but should. Two recent examples:

COMMUNITION (n.): 1. Bullets for a Kalashnikov. 2. The stack of pre-consecrated Eucharist wafers.

JAYDANCE (v.): To cross the street against the signal, but, like, funky.
posted by dr. boludo at 6:46 AM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]

I kind of drifted away from Free Bee after seeing that "darky" was an accepted word.
posted by koucha at 7:19 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

People can (and should!) request that words which are offensive be removed! The dictionary they use is right here.
posted by heyitsgogi at 7:46 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I always knew MetaFilter people were my people, but it's nice to know I'm not alone in shaking my fist about ATLATL on the regular.
posted by mumkin at 8:37 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

@obfuscation thanks for noticing me. PHTHALATE was also my breaking point that day, although there have been so many smaller examples. For some reason I keep doing them though...
posted by cacophony at 9:08 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Did you do yesterday's, cacophony? If so, I bet you found the pangram.
posted by Redstart at 9:34 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Spellbound is a thousand times easier on the eyes. The font used on FreeBee is actually painful to glance at, let alone stare at for half an hour.
posted by apparently at 10:46 AM on September 15, 2022

Thank you, BobTheScientist, for your endorsement of Spellbound. And I'm honored to be described as our own. Makes me feel truly a part of the Blue.

And thank you to all who tried the game. I get location data and am seeing places from all over the world. There is a map of countries and US states that shows where Spellbound has been played (look under the hamburger menu) so you can see it, too. [For those concerned about privacy, note that it's just a list without dates, counts, or cities.]

BobTheScientist, I also get a kick out of playing the game with other people.

Here's how my friends and I play: We choose a game, play it for 10 minutes on our own, and then compare and add to our own answers. Our slogan: Smart Alone, Superb Together [I changed the names of the levels].

As to what you can deduce about me, I won't ask, but I hope it's all good.

On preview, I just saw your comment, apparently. I deliberately designed it so that the letters would be as big and clear as possible while still fitting on the screen.

I plan a release in the next couple of weeks that will have 25 additional games and a refresh of the appearance. The new font face will be as readable as the current one.
posted by AMyNameIs at 11:07 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Another fan of Spellbound here, playing regulalry since you first posted that link, AMyNameIs.
posted by Plafield at 12:52 PM on September 15, 2022

ooh! I'm sorry I missed Spellbound AMyNameIs. It looks beautiful, and I'll definitely play it. I thought the crowdsourced dictionary was a real innovation in Free Bee, but I agree that the UI leaves a lot to be desired.
posted by heyitsgogi at 1:11 PM on September 15, 2022

I knew I couldn’t be the only one whose eyes rolled right out of her head upon “anyhoo." I actually got that one but that’s because I’ve learned to try out various slang terms to run up my score. Most of the time it doesn’t work. I’m also annoyed that many crossword words don’t count. At least it gives me something low-stakes to shake my fist.

Anyhoo, I’m excited to try out the alternatives.
posted by stowaway at 2:23 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Today's no go, "Digged." I always send an email about words. I love The Spelling Bee. But today, I realized I could be solving vocab problems for money.
posted by Oyéah at 2:33 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

P.S. Though Hell is a place name, it is not a proper noun.
posted by Oyéah at 2:35 PM on September 15, 2022

I love you guys. You are mad about the same words I am mad about. The NYTs sent me a poll the other day to ask me about Spelling Bee (sorry; I pledged not to disclose the contents) and BOY OH BOY did they hear about BOLE.
posted by acrasis at 2:39 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

The one I'm mad about is AFFINE, but BOLE and ELVEN are up there too.
posted by zeptoweasel at 3:37 PM on September 15, 2022

How about TEFF .. they won't take it but it's a legit word! I had it for dinner last night! Also it wouldn't take UNDAUNTED, in spite of me pointing out that it is a legit word and part of the title of a bestselling Stephen Ambrose book about Lewis & Clark.
posted by Kangaroo at 3:46 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ezersky said that the non-inclusion of "UNDAUNTED" was a mistake.

One that drives me nuts is that the game won't accept OTIC even though it allowed OTOLOGY! I mean, c'mon.

Another pet peeve is AMARO/AMARI. And despite accepting some very obscure food-related words, the Bee won't take PANADE.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:02 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Thanks for playing, Plafield. And, heyitsgogi, I hope you like the game.

A couple of comments about words in Spellbound. :

* I gotta admit that I like the slang (dunno why) and am gonna put those words in.

* Teff is in my dictionary, bole isn’t. You’ll have to play to find out the rest.

Thanks, again, everyone for giving the game a try.
posted by AMyNameIs at 8:38 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Teff is in my dictionary, bole isn’t.

Well, 50% is better than 0%, I guess.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:58 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

One that drives me nuts is that the game won't accept OTIC even though it allowed OTOLOGY! I mean, c'mon.

Hmm. Went down a brief rabbit hole on this one.

Merriam-Webster doesn't appear to have OTIC as a stand alone word (it's listed as a hybrid adjective, -OTIC) even though it has OTOLOGY. OTIC definitely does get used stand alone, but most of those seem to be highly specific scientific terms ("otic notch") or medically, so perhaps that's there reasoning? Auricular appears to be the common word when it's not part of a term of art. (As an aside, one of my favorite chemistry words is "squaric," which means like a square and exists rarely in some chemicals and AFAIK literally nowhere else.)

Anyway, OTIC is in the ENABLE list (among various other dictionaries). But obviously it's one of those borderline words.

Which then sent me looking for the criteria by which words make it into ENABLE. I failed to really find anything. It appears primarily to be compiled with an eye to make a word list for word games, based on perhaps what other dictionaries' editors have chosen?
posted by mark k at 11:34 PM on September 15, 2022

It's never "how many words can you make?" It's "how many words does the puzzle maker know?"
posted by emelenjr at 7:34 AM on September 16, 2022 [4 favorites]

* I gotta admit that I like the slang (dunno why) and am gonna put those words in.

I would argue that slang especially is where a game designer needs to think about inclusion and accessibility. The slang in the NYT's Spelling Bee (eg, "anyhoo") is exclusively mainstream middle-American -- it's vocabulary you could hear in the audience at a high school baseball game in western New York or Indiana. That's great if that is your linguistic and cultural background, but it's kind of cheesy to have that be presented as normative and not any of the other widely-spoken slang that at least as many people are familiar with.

I guess my point is just that slang is great to include but the designer should consider what it communicates about who the intended audience is, and that, when done wrongly, can feel exclusionary.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:00 AM on September 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's never "how many words can you make?" It's "how many words does the puzzle maker know?"

I have been personally stung by AFFINE's lack in the NYT version of Spelling Bee, and brought it up in an email with them. Their response was it's too much of a math term. I could possibly see that. The only trouble is that the game expects you to get the great majority of possible words to qualify for the Genius rank (and I hear there's a secret Queen Bee rank for getting every word in a puzzle), so, every word that the puzzle recognizes that you don't get is a significant bar to getting the best public rank, and makes it impossible to get perfect.

This is something I've noticed about word games in general, at deep levels they often turn into trying to figure out the vocabulary and common usages of the creator, or sometimes the editor. Including our slang might be good for us, but not for the sizable portion of the world for whom that slang is not current, especially when missing even a single word means not even possibly being able to get Queen Bee.

A somewhat relevant aside... the NYT Crossword is generally good, but I am struck sometimes by how many upscale terms and names are used in it that I would have no hope of getting. Characters from NYC theater, names of NYC streets, luxury cars, fashion brands. Add to these those areas that I just have no knowledge of, which are generally sports and actor-related.

Every answer in a good crossword is checked, has both an Across and Down answer, so you can often complete a puzzle even if you don't know some of the answers, and there are sometimes other ways to guess at what an answer will be, and those can take you pretty far in practice. But there are limits, and what if a sports name is crossed with another sports name?

No one knows everything, of course, and to some degree one has to just accept that some answers one just doesn't know, but when it comes to answers that presuppose knowledge that generally only comes with wealth, it stops feeling like a personal lack, and starts feeling more like one must be this affluent to play.
posted by JHarris at 11:42 AM on September 16, 2022

There is also Pangram (iOS App Store link), which is a decent fremium game. Includes a much larger dictionary than Ezersky, I’ve never tried to get all the words in it.
posted by drfu at 1:46 PM on September 16, 2022

When the puzzle didn’t accept the word “raffia” (a decision since overturned) one frustrated player sent yards of the material to the New York Times’s office in protest, along with a threat to follow up with an ortolan (“animals are so dicey”, sighs Ezersky)

I'm the one that sent the raffia. I can vaguely understand not including ortolan, since I remember roughly when I learned about them -- but who doesn't know what a caracal is? They're too cute to be obscure! Unsupportable!
posted by novalis_dt at 3:51 PM on September 16, 2022 [3 favorites]