Wordle at 200
Is Wordle still a thing? For a few months last winter it was all anyone could talk about or post on Facebook. Or rather, it was about the only thing in this politically polarized moment that everyone could discuss without pulling each other’s hair out. (And even that was dicey. One morning the answer was initially ABORT, which was itself aborted at about 2:00 a.m. for a less sensitive five-letter word.)
Wordle was so popular that TheRinger.com had a whole interview with Kamala Harris to discuss her game strategy. Apparently the Vice President’s go-to starter word is NOTES. She also claimed that she’d never missed solving the problem, although conveniently she can’t share her squares to confirm this because she uses a super-secure, triple-encrypted, anti-spy phone. I would certainly not imply that a politician is stretching the truth but I find the whole story a bit fishy, especially since NOTES is such a mediocre-to-bad starter word (having that S at the end is not very strategic because Wordle doesn’t use plural words as answers. STONE would be a much better word if you wanted to use those same letters.)
I know some people continue to play Wordle because I still see the Facebook posts, but I don’t know whether this is a fad that has largely burned out or if it’s turned into a habit so regular that it’s no longer worth mentioning.
I, for one, am still at it. It gives me something to do at 3:00 am, when I have insomnia, and it provides my wife and me something to talk about every morning. More important, by helping me break my addiction to the NYT Crossword puzzle, which was occupying hours of my time by the end of the week, Wordle — and its big brother Quordle — turned out to be the puzzle version of Methadone. Apparently all I need is ten to twenty minutes of word scrambling a day to get my fix
I reflect on all this now because I just played my 200th game. I wish I could be prouder of my record, though. I have a 97 win percentage, which means I’ve lost six times — much worse than Kamala Harris (supposedly!) Some of these failed attempts were bad luck, like the time I identified four in-place letters but they were _IGHT, leaving my potential solutions as SIGHT, MIGHT, LIGHT FIGHT, RIGHT, NIGHT, and TIGHT. Then there was the time I had _0_ER after two guesses but still guessed wrong on my next four tries. When the word LOSER then popped up, I thought WORDLE was insulting me rather than providing the correct answer. (I guess this was my penance for using URINE as my starter word.)
In my defense, I deliberately create an extra degree of difficulty for myself with starter words. Actually, I don’t understand why people always use the same starter word. Once you’ve figured out that ADIEU has four vowels, what’s the fun of that? Rather than stagnate with the same starter, I deploy a different one every day. To discipline myself I go through the alphabet in order, starting with AVOID and working my way through to ZEBRA. I specifically seek out the words that amuse me, like MOIST, LOUSY, JUICY, SAUCY, WEIRD, ROACH, ODIUM, NASTY, or HAIRY.
This leads to a few surprises. I’ve learned for example, how few five-letter, non-plural words begin with E. And of course it’s particularly hard to find starter words that begin in X or Z. Although occasionally this strategy will pay off (see below)
How long will I stick with Wordle? I did the New York Times crossword puzzle every Sunday through Friday for ten years before I fell down, broke my dominant arm last January and then couldn’t hold a pen to write out the answers for months. Maybe I’ll stick with Wordle and Quordle until I break my thumbs.
Really!!? 