Adit

Enter at your own risk

Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:

A, G, I, N, T, U, and center D (all words must include D).

Merriam-Webster says…

Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know adit can’t possibly be a word if the New York Times says it ain’t?

For further fascinating facts, check out the Spelling Bee Master.

What’s your favorite dord* from today’s puzzle?

My Two Cents

This is a weird exclusion by the editors of the Spelling Bee. Mining is a common activity, so the word can’t be that obscure. Maybe the New York Times finds it offensive, due to all the environmental problems it causes?

Today’s puzzle accepts naiad. Do you know what a naiad is? You do, because you minored in Greek mythology in college? Oh, okay. Well, adit had nothing to do with Greek gods, so read on.

Enter sandbags

The dictionary explains that adit is a borrowed word from aditus, a Latin word meaning “approach” or “entrance”, combining the prefix ad- (to go) and -tus (action noun suffix). It’s first known use dates to around 1602.

These horizontal entrances to mines, or adits, are used to ventilate them, and drain them of water; they are also a convenient way to haul out all the minerals you find inside the mine. Adits are typical of drift mining, and are bored into the side of a hill or mountain.

The horizontal entry provides advantages over the vertical one, commonly used in what is called shaft mining. Here are basic schematics of the two types we’re comparing:

Using an adit means you need less energy to move miners and heavy equipment into and out of the mine. Consequently, it’s also much easier to bring the ore or coal out. So, in general terms, costs and expenses are greatly reduced. Horizontal travel is also much safer than the vertical one used in shafts, and can move more volume.

Adits show up in quite a few movie scenes that are not about mining. Think First Blood (the original Rambo film), or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or even Galaxy Quest (the scene with the cute but deadly aliens). Anytime you see hi-jinks involving people riding a mine cart, they’re most likely doing it in an adit.

Really gross anatomy

Aditus, the word from which adit was shortened, happens to be a medical term. But don’t expect it to show up as an answer in the Spelling Bee game. It’s rarely used, even by doctors. Maybe anatomy teachers or pathologists throw it around occasionally, just for kicks.

There used to be three adituses (aditusi ?) in the human body, but due to budget cuts, there are now only two:

• Aditus to the mastoid antrum, in the ear
• The laryngeal aditus, or opening that connects the pharynx and the larynx
• Omental foramen or aditus, in the abdomen.

After serious discussions and lengthy debates by thousands of doctors over many years, it was decided that the omental foramen was not really an aditus and would no longer be called that.

Now that you know, please stop using aditus when talking to your friends about your omental foramen. It’s just rude.

Interestingly, even though I went to med school, when I hear aditus I don’t think of passageways or canals or entrances. I think of this:

Aditus was a pop-rock band that hit it big in the 1980s in Venezuela, where I grew up. Although they started off playing progressive rock in the 70s, they quickly realized there wasn’t too much money in that.

One of the original band members, Edgar de Sola, was a doctor, so it was he who came up with the anatomical reference as the name for the group. De Sola, who was the drummer, eventually left the band and went to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.

Aditus had a really long run, playing until a few years ago. Their front man, Pedro Castillo (vocals and guitar), came over to Madrid, Spain in 2019 for a series of performances with another Venezuelan musician. I had the good fortune to see them live at the time.

Ahh, the wonderful life we lived before Covid…

I think I got off track there somewhere. (Bad pun intended.)

Anyway… next time you watch My Bloody Valentine 3D, when you get to the mine scene you can proudly point at the screen and say “That’s an adit!” Or not. Because the editors of the Spelling Bee decided that adit is a dord.*

Please check out my previous entry on another dord*:

*What the heck is a dord, anyway? Here you go: