Newsday Sunday "Spelling B"

[mmcbs]

Stan Newman dazzles us with this magnificent puzzle based on the simple theme of 10 long words that start with B (betcha don't know how to spell very many, if any of them).

BRZEZINSKI - Carter's National Security Advisor

BRUNNHILDE - Wagner opera Valkyrie

BOURGEOISIE - Middle class

BRAGGADOCIO - Empty boasting

BOYSENBERRY - It might get into a jam

BOUTONNIERE - Lapel adornment

BATHYSCAPH - Deep-sea submersible

BETELGEUSE - Star in Orion

BARYSHNIKOV - Former American Ballet Theatre head

BROBDIGNAG - Swift's land of giants

The remainder is the usual crosswordese-free patter with notable entries such as PODCASTS, SUN DEVIL, SIZEABLE, and EYE CANDY. Could have done without ERECTORS, but what the hey?

Fun ride. How many could you spell without the perps?

[Thomps2525]

Mark, I knew the spellings of all but one of those "B" words. I thought the valkyrie's name was spelled with only one N, not two. Thanks to good ol' Wikipedia, I discovered that the original name of Brünnhilde in Norse mythology is Brynhildr -- which looks more like a line on an eye chart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brynhildr

Now -- is "bathyscaph" a misspelling? The deep-sea submersible vehicle known as a bathyscaphe was invented by Auguste Piccard. The first one was constructed in 1946-48. The name comes from the Greek bathys ("deep") and skaphos ("vessel; ship"). I consulted several dictionaries and websites and can find no source which gives the spelling as "bathyscaph." On the Oxford English Dictionary site, I got this message:

"No exact match found for 'bathyscaph' in US English.
Did you mean 'bathyscaphe'?"

[mmcbs]

That's pretty awesome! BATHYSCAPH is the spelling as in the puzzle, and it is a variant spelling per RHUD, so iffy, but technically correct.

[Thomps2525]

"Technically correct." Indeed. The Dictionary.com website, which uses the Random House Dictionary, lists "bathyscaph" and "bathyscape" as variations of "bathyscaphe." Now I know the spelling in the puzzle is not a mistak.