Zembla casts a spell

I forgot about this screenshot, from Monday’s New York Times Spelling Bee. Somehow I think there must have been more than just this one reader of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel Pale Fire who had to — had to — spell out Zembla. Zembla, in the words of Nabokov’s narrator Charles Kinbote, is “a distant northern land.” The Bee has also rejected alembic, aporia, and propitiatory. Unlike Zembla , they’re all legit words.

The pangram from Monday’s puzzle: BAMBOOZLE.

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All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)