So. Wordle.
It’s an online word game. And I’m pretty good at word games. (The previous sentence is an example of false modesty.) You do not want to play Boggle with me.
As soon as I looked up Wordle, the new viral game sensation, I realized it was Jotto. Good old Jotto! Jotto is one of my favorite games: I learned it about fifty years ago, and played it with anyone who was willing. You and your opponent each think of a five-letter word. You try to guess your opponent’s word by suggesting other five-letter words, and they tell you how many letters in your guess are in their chosen word. It takes a bunch of turns but eventually you winnow things down to their word. I didn’t always win. But I won a whole lot. (I won a whole lot.)
It’s not really a word game. It’s a game of logic. It’s Mastermind. The word element is you just need to find an English word that uses the letters you’re testing.
Wordle is much easier. You put in your five-letter guess, and the game tells you not only how many letters you got right, but which ones they are, and if they’re in the right position in the word. That’s a lot of information. To make it any kind of challenge, they give you only six chances to get it right. It’s attention-deficit Jotto, and of course it’s still fun. It’s a good way to piss away five minutes.
But it brings up some of my fondest memories.
In my family, we played lots of word games. There was the one in the paper where you had to find as many words as you could in a given longer word. There was Scrabble, of course, and there was Anagrams. Boggle was an aerobic event. My sister Margaret was a monster at all of these games. So was Dad. So was Mom. So was I, once I caught up in the age department.
My brother David wasn’t so specifically a word-game guy. But he was fiercely competitive. He and Margaret, who were a year apart, would fight to the death in any game. And that would be death by laughter. Nobody really cared, ultimately. But be it known: David didn’t like to lose.
So when I discovered Jotto and had already gotten Dad and everyone else on board, I challenged my brother. Nope! Not interested. It’s a word game, he said. No it isn’t, I said. It’s logic. You just have to be careful about your deductions. It took me three days to badger him into it and finally he gave in. I set him up with a piece of paper with the entire alphabet helpfully scribbled onto it, so that he could cross out bad letters and circle good ones, and then we were all ready. I went first.
“BREAD” was the word I started with 90% of the time. It had important vowels, two common consonants, and one less-common consonant, and you could get a lot of information in a hurry.
“BREAD,” I said.
My brother launched his pencil and the paper flew across the room. The pencil is still stuck in the sheetrock somewhere and there’s probably still an echo of my laughter. “That’s it,” he thundered. “I’m done!”
Out of every five-letter word in the English language I had guessed his on the first try.
This is not normal. But it did meet his dismal expectations. We never played again.
Then there was the first time I played my friend Walter. I determined all five letters of his word pretty early on. “SPINE,” I grinned, putting my pencil down.
Walter checked his word. “Five letters,” he said, evenly, and took his turn.
Next turn. “PINES!” I said.
“Five.”
Next turn. “SNIPE?”
“Five.”
We’re now several turns into this and finally I see his word. I should totally have guessed his word on the first try, just like I did my brother’s. Instead, it took me twelve turns.
I think I still won.
Look out, Wordle.
My dad used to like the Cryptic Byword in the newspaper, and later on, I got into it, too. It also involved deductive reasoning. It took a quote, with each letter replaced by another letter. I already knew that the most common letters are T, R, S, and E. So if I saw a lot of some letter, I would assume that it replaced one of these letters. I always started with the two or three letter words. Once they were figured out, usually some of the letters were in the bigger words, which was helpful in figuring them out.
I did the Cryptic Byword this morning, for the first time in years, thanks to you jogging my memory about word games. Solved it very quickly. I still got it, baby!
Good! I don’t know that one. My dad used to love the Double-Crostic in the…in the…and now I can’t remember the name of the now-defunct magazine that featured John Ciardi a lot, um…help?
Wait! Wait! The Saturday Review!
He was on public radio long ago. I think the show was called Speaking of Words or something like that.
I used to do the Double-Crostic that ran in the NYTimes Magazine. My speed records were: Fastest, 20 minutes; Slowest, never finished.
Well, being a quilter, it’s not “never finished,” it’s just “still in progress”!
I would like some of my quilts to be finished. They aren’t listening.
I like to play the Jumble. Yes, I said “play”. For me it’s a team sport. Have your victi…er, partner…describe the picture, read all the dialog within and the unfinished sentence at the bottom of the panel, then have them tell you how many circles (and the pattern) need to be filled. If I can’t guess the punny finish, then we proceed to the word clues. Again, the letters are read off and I solve the word in my head. Once they’re all solved, partner reads the circled letters out and I figure out the answer from there.
Otherwise, it’s too easy and a waste of my time.
Word Bubbles is my daily puzzle of choice, on my iPad. The only thing I keep that iPad for, in fact. It’s like word search, but you’re only given the length of the words you’re looking for. (http://cbottsprojects.blogspot.com/2017/03/sneezy-grumpy-sleepy-and-dopey.html)
I loved playing Mastermind with my oldest boy when he was a kid (don’t get me wrong–he did too). I may have to take a serious gander at Wordle now. Perhaps that iPad isn’t too old to download a new trick.
It’s a new trick that doesn’t take long. Of course, if you string enough of these things together, you’ve missed lunch.
I usually play Scrabble against the computer and sometimes I win. What I don’t like is when it doesn’t recognize words that exist in English. It’s not like I can show it a dictionary to change its mind. The GF and I will often take on the NYT word puzzles on a Sunday morning. She was an English major and this is one area where that is actually useful.
Well today’s Spelling Bee (NYT) is killing me. I’ve only been doing them for a week or two but always sail right to GENIUS and beyond, but today I am stuck. I intend to hack away at it until it gives me my GENIUS.
I can often get to genius, but it takes some serious effort and sometimes causes a headache. It’s nice to be referred to as a genius as it is usually something quite opposite.
Sometimes it takes me ‘til bedtime to hit Genius on Spelling Bee. Generally, I get to Amazing during breakfast, and then get cross-eyed. I need a break to do laundry or something, before I’m able to see the letters in new configurations again. When I’ve plunked down 35 words and I’m still just Amazing, I know I need a nap to go on. Today is one of those days: bedtime, 34 words in, and I probably only need one more. I already used one of my two Hebrew words successfully, so I’m good and stumped. This is where I start deliberately making up words with definitions, the sillier the better. Like FEEBILE or SPLUFFIT. If you can’t be a Genius, be hysterical, I believe, and then hop over to kick ass on Word Boxed. With the addition of Wordle, something in my schedule has to go. I’m thinking laundry. Spluffit.
Spluffit! I’m up to 38 words and 120 points tonight and at least now I can go to bed. I’m new at this but I’m not sure I can go to sleep until I’ve gotten at least that far. Because, you know, I need more things to keep myself awake.
I love word games. I have a strategy with Wordle that my daughter (the English PhD) calls cheating. Like you, I start with the same word each time (it’s not your word, and I’m not sharing it.) But it got me today’s answer in 2 tries. Took her 4.
Wait, Wait, don’t Tell Me on NPR had a question about a new internet gaming trend, but I had no idea what it was and neither did the contestant. Turned out that it was Wordle — which was the first time I had heard of it. I’m not really up on what’s “the latest trend” on the internets…. Or indeed anything.
Unless I’m mistaken, if you get it in two tries you got really lucky. I got today’s in three…
I remember Jotto games with you! A lifetime ago.
My mother was a helluva Scrabble player. She had the official dictionary and memorized all the two-letter words. I countered by memorizing the wood grain on the backs of the Q and Z tiles. Now, retirement and a pandemic have driven me to any number of daily puzzles: crosswords, cryptics, sudoku, the Jumble, NYT Spelling Bee (at which I’m also a regular genius*) and, now, Wordle. Most addictive, however, are KenKens.
*And now you’re gonna say that’s better than being an irregular genius,
I was going to say that is better than being an irregular genius. KenKen? Must look. Cracks me up about memorizing the wood grain!
Wow, I’ve found word nerd paradise!
Yes ma’am you are home.
So was the word Penis? I wrote down your three tries and then that one and I can’t find any others that make sense to me.
I like the ones with the nine letter word and you have to find that word plus as many four letter words as you can, but the puzzle is laid out in a grid, three rows of three letters, with one letter being central and each word must contain that letter.
Why yes it was. I don’t know that nine-letter word game but it sounds a lot like Spelling Bee.
A few friends have started playing Wordle. I might have to check it out. I love Spelling Bee. I haven’t been able to get to Queen Bee without using some hints, but I’ll keep trying. Frankly, I’ve never heard of several of the words used. Plaudit, okay, but the word for a Mexican shelter with palm leaves?
I’d guess it would be difficult to be Queen Bee even for the very worthy. Sometimes I check yesterday’s answers and admit I know all the other answers, but sometimes I just plain do not know them and would never have tried them.
My mother gave no quarter when we played Jotto. I was a mere child, a child I tell you, and she used ‘rhyme’ as her secret word. Beats penis, as it were.
As it were.
When I was a kid I played Jotto with my mom! As for Wordle, I guess the copyright on that name was allowed to lapse— about 60 years ago someone published a book of visual word puns called Wordles. The only one I recall was a sentence shaped into a pair of hills, reading “I dreamed I wrote a Wordle on my Maidenform bra.” Maybe I’ll remember some more of them…
I will leave you to your mammaries.
great story. Took me a moment at the end for the final big belly laugh after the great build up. Well played.
I did my day two on Wordle and got it in three! I was looking for a new game. I have four word game apps but all but one getting predictable. And I hate it when they don’t accept my words. Who doesn’t know ramekin?
Oh, FFS! However do they make soufflés if they don’t know what a ramekin is????
I’m trying to picture someone trying to make a crème brûlée in a paper cup.
So, two days after your blogpost, the Wordle word is ‘prick’. Does Mr Josh Wardle read Murrmurrs?!
Spelling Bee reigns, because it recognizes the Genius in me as no one else has, except for my mom. Queen Bee sounds harmless but is a mild-mannered front for extreme torture—despite the promise not to use obscure words, there’s usually something. Like “fugu,” which as I never knew is a Japanese dish prepared from toxic pufferfish, such that you get a mouth buzz but doesn’t actually kill you. How did I reach 79 years without encountering such a useful word, before Queen Bee?