One Little Wordle

You may have seen strange little green and yellow boxes popping up on social media lately that 

look something like this:

If you’ve managed to stay above the fray—please allow me to change all that. Nothing makes me happier than to drag people down into the depths of my favorite obsession.

As obsessions go, Wordle is relatively benign. There is only one five-letter word, once a day, and you get six tries at it. Type in your word, hit enter. There are no clues to what the word is. Everybody gets the same word.  After the first try, the letters you used on the game board –and the keyboard—will show colors along with the letters. Dark Gray=wrong letter. Yellow=right letter, wrong place. Green=right letter, right place. Unless you are highly intuitive or super lucky, you now have five more tries to figure out the word. Isn’t this fun?!

Obviously, the key to success is having a good start word. Statistically, “ROATE” is supposed to be the most successful word. Yes, it’s a word. I looked it up. I still don’t know what it means—something to do with taxes and net earnings and my eyes crossed and I no longer cared-- but yes, it’s a word. If your word isn’t a word, the game will just “shake it off” and not let you enter it. The good news is it didn’t cost you a try. The bad news is you can’t deploy the Wheel of Fortune strategy and RSTLN the board.

Since I am all about those vowels, my favorite start word is “ADIEU.” I usually follow it up with “STORM” because—except for “and sometimes Y”—that’s the last vowel standing. And it employs some very popular consonants. In words, popularity counts. 

As do consonant blends: BL, CL, BR, CR, SPR, STR, etc. Getting the “wrong” answer can still be a clue, which is probably why I like this game, I am informed by my mistakes. 

I am often well informed. It is unlikely I will get the win in one or two tries—because the real guessing doesn’t start until round three. And yes, the game sometimes uses words with repeated letters. 

Sure, some people claim this game is highly addictive—BUT ---and here comes my rationalization--YOU CAN ONLY PLAY ONE WORD, ONCE A DAY—HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY HURT? 

Psst! You can find Wordle at powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle  

UPDATE: The New York Times bought them, so find it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html

The NY Times is why we can't have nice things...