@rejectednytwords.bsky.social How can one REdo it if one cannot DO it?

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social NYT does knot know KNOUT, knot know KNOUTING?

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social The dictionary, Phillis Wheatley (shown: poets.org/poem/right-h...), Aphra Behn, and Andrew Marvell are among those who deem this omission unjustly cruel.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social I find this omission base, even despicable

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Ouch—those guys got rejected again.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social I’m as prudish as the next person, but even I can admit that the word COITION exists.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social It is more painful when a rhythmic and lengthy word like CONCOMITANT is not allowed to occur with or exist according to the dictionary of NYT Spelling Bee

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social It’s a perfectly cromulent word!

Despite tons of research indicating that it’s better to get students away from screens while AI also undermines typed work more than ever, no less a 500-pound gorilla than the College Board STARTED requiring online writing in ‘25, incentivizing teachers AWAY from asking kids to write by hand. 🤦‍♂️

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social It looks like Spelling Bee “anticipated and prevented and eliminated [my ability to earn this pangram] by [the] effective measure” of removing the word from its dictionary.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social What’s next, NYT Spelling Bee — are you going to tell us that “Pumpkin” isn’t a word either?

2025 Year in Review! -falcon hearing worse than ever -center losing 50 to 100% of holding capacity -blood-dimmed tide containment failure -the Worst with record high passionate intensity

To say that “it didn’t matter” should be expanded to “it didn’t matter *to that person.*” I don’t think we can discern (from this information) whether the fault is in the inherent meaninglessness of the task or the person’s inability/unwillingness to recognize some value.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Imma dime them out on this omission

My annual Thanksgiving homework assignment for the students in all my English classes, after we read “Those Winter Sundays” in class, is for each student to express their gratitude to someone in their life for whom they are grateful. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/...

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Even Polonius (Hamlet, 2.3) says “moble” should be good

It’s been a midwestern autumn over at #CanonChat — consider reading Plainsong and joining us!

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social (I know it’s not a word, but…): “One limit [imposed by quantum physics] restricts the knowledge of the position and the momentum (velocity) of an object, which means that the trajectory of an object cannot be determined with certainty.”

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social It is gallingly common for the Spelling Bee to reject perfectly cromulent words.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Can something be antediluvian if there’s no such thing as diluvian?

I don't think students should be asked to rhetorically analyze poetry in a class before they get practice experiencing poetry without imagining it as a rhetorical structure. Like, cooking is so much better if you begin by first developing a relationship to the pleasure of food.

I (a) am not a Swiftie (but am married to one), (b) am all for getting people to talk about Ophelia and the rest of Hamlet, and (c) want to remind critics that re-shaping devastating tragedy into feel-good victory (e.g., Inglourious, Hollywood) earns plaudits for Quentin Tarantino.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social I must be doing SOMETHING every time I undo that messed-up group I made in my various Microsoft apps

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Ol’ Spelling Bee’s word list is (figuratively) maculate due to this omission.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Uncle Walt suggests that we need this word

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Too delicious to omit!

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Someone took “Never Mind the Bollocks” part of that Sex Pistols album title too seriously

Fellow teachers: what literature-song pairings do you use (or would like to)? 2 I’ve used: Shakespeare sonnet 138 (“When my love swears that she is made of truth…”) + Offspring “Self-Esteem” … Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” (for an independent study on postmodernism) + Nirvana’s “In Bloom” video.

I hope that Lehrer songs play everywhere—finally—for the next several weeks, in his honor. RIP.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Whatever bubbles bubbles up

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social The sudden nonexistence of FLABBILY is doing wonders for my body image!

#PoemADayJuly My first observation about “Litany for the Animals…” is that any 14-line poem makes me think “How is this a sonnet, or why isn’t it?” It doesn’t rhyme or have consistent rhythm, but it seems to have a turn (volta) right at its midsection, after line 7, on the shift to “You.” 1/3

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social What if I were to do something in a slender and long-limbed way?

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social Something fishy anout this omission

“Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.” - from Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, ch.71. Many classics might have been written yesterday….

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. / (But yea it hurts that Spelling Bee omits / From its vocabulary my dear name).” Tempest 3.2, plus some … extrapolation.

@rejectednytwords.bsky.social We *deserve* to be congratulated for finding this word!

This poetry wall ensures that Ss have the chance to fall in love with a poem every time they enter the claasroom: 📸 via T @carlrosin.bsky.social #EduSky

We may have a variety of shortages, from rare-earth minerals to critical thinking, but apparently America will never run out of cruelty.

NFL legend Bill Belichick and his young girlfriend Jordon Hudson show that support for banned books symbolically spans many generations by recreating the opening scene of Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home, which was recently removed from my school’s library. www.inquirer.com/education/ra...

Is NYT #SpellingBee complicit in the Trump Administration’s assault on Canada?!

My fellow #TeachersOfEnglish recognize this quotation from Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.” As one of the posters noted, in that story it is the family motto of a homicidal lunatic.

Fellow readers, do you care to help me offer AJ Brown some sidelines-reading suggestions? 1 catch for 10 yards: Inner Excellence Tackled on the 1-yard line: Never Let Me Go Benched after screaming at Hurts on the sideline: Things Fall Apart Scores on an end-around: The Things They Carried 1/3

Will someone at NYT #SpellingBee please let an MoT review your goyische word list? Oy vey. (Dates: 1/17/25, 11/1/24)

Anyone with even rudimentary critical-thinking skills should be able to acknowledge that “AI can be a valuable tool that we should learn how to use” can obviously and meaningfully coexist with “AI should not be used to generate coursework for assignments that ask me not to use AI.”

Dad-jokes do not take a vacation when school is out for winter break!

Mr. Shakespeare, mounting our Christmas tree in defiance of his haters, endorses all efforts to expose students to high quality literature. Those pieces that are most intellectually challenging might be the most intellectually nutritious!

Giovanni’s “Choices” is one of the poems I most cherish having had the opportunity to know and teach—it echoes frequently. If BlueSky did a 20-poem version of the 20-book challenge, “Choices” would certainly be in mine. May her memory be a blessing to all she touched with her work and life.

As with everything writing instruction, no one should be taught how to break the rules if they don't know what rules they are breaking. There is a big difference between good writing and correct writing. Our job is to teach them the former.

My annual Thanksgiving lesson: we read the powerful “Those Winter Sundays”…then I assign homework: show gratitude to someone in your life. Write a card? Bake something? Just tell them you’re grateful? Whatever, but do it sincerely. That’s it. It’s for the kid and their “someone,” not for me.