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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What’s the Word(le)?

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What’s the Word(le)?

by WaterGirl|  January 11, 20228:30 pm| 120 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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This was a word from earlier this week:


Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What's the Word(le)?

The only game I play is Shanghai – on my iPad – and I play a few games before I go to bed because it’s a great way to clear my mind.

But you guys have been talking about Wordle, so I decided to try it.

Here is my first try tonight.  Oh wait, never mind, I can’t do that in case you guys are Wordlers or you haven’t tried it yet but you will try it now as a result of this post.   Good thing I caught myself or I would have returned from the FOUR DIRECTIONS POST later and found that everyone is pissed at me.

I think I like this game!   A lot!  Of course, it helps that I got it in 4 lines on my first try.  Is that good?  Average?  Below average?  This is Balloon Juice, where everyone is above average!

It looks like everyone gets the same word on a particular day?  Seems like that would be a problem… surely people would see other people’s results and then the game would be spoiled?  (I’m sure someone here can explain why that’s not a problem.)

Here’s an open thread to take about games or politics or music or whatever you like so you have a current place to talk while the FOUR DIRECTIONS Q & A is going on, if that’s not your thing.

 

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Previous Post: «Four Directions Q & A Tonight at 7:30 Eastern + Zoom on Thursday 1 Four Directions Q & A Tonight at 7:30 Eastern + Zoom on Thursday
Next Post: Late Night Open Thread: ‘Grandma Killer’ Mandel Is At It Again »

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  1. 1.

    dlwchico

    January 11, 2022 at 8:53 pm

    https://www.sweardle.com/

  2. 2.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    @dlwchico:
    Click through to see the picture and understand the true meaning of life.

    we all know this classic wordle way https://t.co/n8emDplYYf pic.twitter.com/P6McSUOLQA
    — Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) January 10, 2022

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 8:57 pm

    @dlwchico: Ha!

    I was just wishing I could try another word tonight since I did so well with my first one.  (beginner’s luck, no doubt)

    Sweardle, too funny.

  4. 4.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 8:58 pm

    Brought up from downstairs: Wordle strategy.

    Link to game site. (New game every day at midnight EST.)

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:01 pm

    @dlwchico:

    You only get 4 chances to guess though, so don’t fuck it up.

    Too funny.  It doesn’t seem like there are that many 4-letter swear words… so I wonder how long this can last.  Good on them for jumping on the bandwagon.  They didn’t let any ground grow beneath their feet!

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:01 pm

    I don’t do it, but there’s apparently a way to display your results that doesn’t show the letters but just shows the colors—gray, gold and green.

    To reveal the word would be incredibly dickish, because there is only one game a day, and everybody gets the same one.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:03 pm

    @Steeplejack: I was about to do it, not to be a dick, but because it’ hadn’t occurred to me that everyone got the same word, so that would be a HUGE spoiler.

    Sometimes it’s not that you’re not a dick, it’s that you’re just clueless or distracted.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:04 pm

    @Steeplejack: Oh, I don’t think I was to read that strategy post.  That would take the fun out of it.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:05 pm

    Reminder: this is a totally open thread, so we don’t need to stick with Wordle unless everyone wants to!

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:09 pm

    @dlwchico: Well, I totally sucked at the swear version of the game. I only got one letter out of all 16 boxes.  sign.

  11. 11.

    Ohio Mom

    January 11, 2022 at 9:10 pm

    I’ve done three Wordles. The first two took me all six tries but I am catching on. Learning that the keyboard lets you know which letters you haven’t tried yet has been key.

    It’s a toss-up which game I rue my involvement with more, Wordle or the NYT Spelling Bee. The Bee’s acceptable answers can be arbitrary, which somehow seems to me to fit the Times’ overall approach to everything.

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:11 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    After you do the Wordle you can click “Share,” and your result gets copied to the clipboard like so:

    Wordle 206 5/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜??⬜
    ⬜⬜??⬜
    ⬜????
    ?????
    (That’s my result from this morning.)

  13. 13.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 9:11 pm

    @WaterGirl: Guessing in the same way that they guess on the Price Is Right is not a bad choice. What were the most common letters that people would pick?

    People get tripped up by rare letters and letters repeating.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    January 11, 2022 at 9:12 pm

    I’ll probably be the last person on the planet to try Wordle – just because I’m a laggard.

    Riddle me this pic.twitter.com/3KvaoSRAuP

    — HappyToast ★ (@IamHappyToast) January 10, 2022

    I probably won’t see this anytime soon either.

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    Hungry Joe

    January 11, 2022 at 9:14 pm

    Wordle is based on Master Mind, a board game that has been around at least since the early ‘70s. Master Mind uses colors instead of letters/words, so the puzzle to be solved (re-create the color sequence) is random and requires pure logic, while Wordle requires knowledge of orthography and vocabulary as well. Both are enormous fun.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    January 11, 2022 at 9:14 pm

    Don’t usually do games, but this one is appealing.

    A fun BBC story about a 5 letter word.

    The popular Welsh word cwtch has been used for the first time in the UK Parliament.
    It commonly means a hug or cuddle but has no literal English translation.
    Brecon and Radnorshire MP Fay Jones said cwtch while questioning Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons on 5 January.

     

  17. 17.

    Mousebumples

    January 11, 2022 at 9:14 pm

    @WaterGirl: i got it on my third try. But definitely had to debate what swears to go with.

    With a 2 year old in the house, I’ve been in the habit of using The Good Place replacements. (eg Holy Forking Shirtballs)

    Still a fun game to try. ?

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    January 11, 2022 at 9:15 pm

    Someone made an unlimited version of Wordle called WordMaster.

  19. 19.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 9:15 pm

    @Steeplejack:
    One of my mutuals told everyone that they can add
    ?????
    to their mute words, and so I took my Wordle result and…

    Wordle 206 4/6

    ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
    ⬜?⬜⬜?
    ???⬜⬜
    ?????

  20. 20.

    SP123

    January 11, 2022 at 9:15 pm

    There is a site where you can play as much as you want:

    https://octokatherine.github.io/word-master/

    Another site where you can play four to eleven letter words:
    http://foldr.moe/hello-wordl/

    An adversarial site Absurdle- see explanation there but basically it cheats by changing the word  continuously without invalidating any of the clues you’ve already found. The goal is to pin it down so there’s only one possible word:

    https://qntm.org/files/wordle/index.html

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 11, 2022 at 9:18 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    What is Shanghai? I’m always open to new games I can play on small screen.

  22. 22.

    craigie

    January 11, 2022 at 9:18 pm

    My best is 3 tries, my worst is 4. Although I guess the worst would be not getting it at all, but so far so good.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:19 pm

    @Starfish:

    I don’t understand this. What are “mute words,” and are the five green squares supposed to be showing something else?

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 11, 2022 at 9:19 pm

    @Starfish:

    ETAOIN SHRDLU

  25. 25.

    Tony Jay

    January 11, 2022 at 9:20 pm

    I’m going to bed, my sinuses feel like there’s a bowling ball stuffed in there, and this is an Open Thread.

    Imma just going to drop this here and hit the horizontal.

     

    Today’s Word is – “Liar”

    It’s been a while since I’ve had the time or the inclination to flap my e-gums about Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his ongoing spirit-quest to smear handfuls of rancid smegma across every single facet of British life. He and his Party haven’t stopped being the bastard children of Operation Paperclip’s corporate propaganda arm and the people who’d attend Lady Warblethorpe’s evening of fundraising for Generalissimo Fransisco ‘Hammer of the Reds’ Devota-Sanguinario’s ongoing legal fight against extradition at Downton Abbey, but sometimes life intervenes and time flits by. There’s been Christmas (I got new pans!) then New Year (I got drunk!) then the boy’s birthday (I got a trip to London!) and now I’ve got a stinking cold (I got a stinking cold!) but today has been one of those days when the prospect of Fate’s hobnailed boot volleying the slack-gutted vomitoid’s corpulent arse right out of Downing Street took a hop, skip and a jump closer to inevitability. Sure, I know he’ll only be replaced by another in a long line of Murdoch-approved sockpuppets preaching Red (Meat) White (Power) and Blue (Meanness) to a choir of house-trained Media lapdogs but given how irredeemably crap everything to do with life in Britain is these days, I’ll take my meagre pleasures where I find them.

    You might recall that early December saw a spate of internal leaks about sexy parties held at Downing St for staffers (and who else? Dunno, no one’s asking) during the previous Christmas when everyone else in the country was struggling to feel festive under strict Covid restrictions that forbade gatherings of virtually any kind on pain of a £10,000 fine. These are still being ‘independently investigated’ by one Sue Grey, the second permanent secretary at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (yeah, fucked if I know either) who was appointed to head the inquiry after the previous pick, the cabinet secretary Simon Case, was revealed to have not only held his own parties at the time but attended some of the ones he’d be investigating, then just completely forgot to mention them, which is perfectly reasonable behaviour, if you’re a Tory. I mean, in all the hurly-burly of bankrupting the country and stripping away legal rights that have existed for centuries who can possibly remember every single illegal gathering they’ve attended during a pandemic, eh? We’re told (by Tories and the Media) that Sue Grey is very strict, someone who’s role as ethics overseer during the Cameron and May Premierships (a fucking what, now?) made her a bureaucratic power node, a proper Mycroftia Holmes in fact, utterly dedicated to her job and unwilling to cut corners no matter who she’s investigating. From that we can probably conclude that she’s one professionally applied coat of whitewash and a clumsily performed oral massage of Johnson’s fiery-red nutsack away from at least a Damehood and probably a seat in the Lords, as is the tradition amongst these kinds of people.

    Except, hold your horses there intemperate one, the Secret Leaker of Scandalous Secrets has woken up from their Midwinter hibernation to drop another depth charge under the hull of the HMS Flobalob. It turns out, and you’ll laugh when you hear this, that there was yet another party that Johnson and Co just plain completely forgot about. This time it was a “bring your own booze” garden party at Number 10 on May 20th 2020 with the invitations sent out via e-mail by Johnson’s own principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds. If the earlier leaks were, as I’ve suggested before, warning shots across the bow, this one was aimed right at the ship’s magazine with malice aforethought by someone who knows – exactly – what they’re doing.

    All the denials, all the obfuscation, all the smirking lies delivered to journalists who know better than to question their chief-editor’s very special friend, dispelled with a satisfying crack of glass and bone as the firm hand of interparty rivalry propels a certain thinly-thatched head face first into the Mirror of Erised. There’s no way he’s wriggling out of this one. His own PPS sent the invitations on behalf of “we”, which in this case might not be royal but it’s certainly Prime Ministerial. Leaving aside the obvious questions for later (100 people got this e-mail but not one of them had the self-respect to mention it through this whole Partygate saga? What a bunch of shits. The Metropolitan Police and Special Branch have officers all around this area with everyone in and out logged, but none of them told a senior officer that the law was being broken right at the heart of Government? Who do they work for again?) there’s only one question that matters where Flobalob’s continued survival is concerned.

    Where were you on the afternoon and evening of 20th May 2020?

    Now, we know he’s going to lie. Tomorrow is Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, which used to be a serious occasion where PMs were judged on the accuracy of their responses and the potency of their rhetoric, but is now just a boring kabuki where Labour’s heavily oiled figurehead of a ‘leader’ tries to catch Johnson in a brilliant forensic trap for the edification of his supporters, only for the blustering munt to just drop his pants and fart, to rapturous Tory applause, into his perpetually confused little face. This should (and I underline the should here) be different. Sir Keir Starmer might be a transparently obsequious placeholder for the next Murdoch-approved ‘centrist’ Alpha-Male to briefly bestride a post-Tory world, but even he can’t fuck up something this easy-peasy. It would be better if he was still isolating from his latest bout of Covid and deputy-leader Angela Rayner was on call to provoke Flobby Fibster (and Starmer’s inner circle of pinch-anused zealots) with her mouthy, Northern femaleness, but we can’t have everything. Johnson will claim that he can’t answer questions on the topic while Sue Grey is still running her inquiry, but Starmer just needs to follow the lead of his more outspoken MPs and hammer the turd with the truth – Grey’s inquiry is about were there parties that broke Covid rules, but there is absolutely nothing stopping Johnson from answering a simple question about where he was when forty staffers and unknown numbers of others were getting pissed in his back garden.

    Chances are he’ll claim he’s caught Covid again and duck the humiliation. He hid today, sending out a creepy little junior minister to gulp a lot while Labour MP after Labour MP recited stories of their own constituents who couldn’t be with dying relatives while the Downing St Posse were enjoying their piss-ups. This minister, one Michael Ellis, clearly didn’t want to be there, and barely had a script to work from, telling a disbelieving House that Johnson “retains the confidence of the people” and was “going nowhere” and visibly shrinking as the anger rose on the benches opposite. Normally he’d have been able to rely on at least pro-forma support from the Tory benches, but today there was no one there. A handful of Tory backbenchers and not one single front bench Minister. As far as demonstrations of non-existent support go today was up there with Ney at Waterloo and Manchema at any given Senate vote. Ellis was out there humiliating himself like a Cruz, but it was all for nothing.

    Meanwhile, the hush-hush campaign to limit opportunities for people to test themselves for Covid is having the expected effect on positive test results (yay, they’re down, lets dump all of the protections and show how manly we are!) but the NHS is crumbling under the pressure and hundreds are dying every week, and Brexit is about to hit us like a drunk gorilla who just had his favourite banana stolen. Tory MPs are arguing that the Trial by Jury system is anti-democratic and everyone with a newspaper column is just bouncing up and down impatiently waiting for the leadership race to start so the can write paeans to the unexpectedly leaderlike charisma of whichever moral dwarf their paper’s owner had dinner with last.

    Let’s face it. Short of an alien invasion by E.T. and A.L.F. and maybe the kids from Battle of the Planets, the UK is permafucked. Let’s see if we can at least put on a show as we circle the drain.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @Mousebumples:

    Also got it on third try! I’m guessing we used the same words.

  27. 27.

    Ohio Mom

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @Starfish: All over the internet, people are sharing their secret formula for their first word. Everyone agrees that fitting in as many vowels as possible is the goal.

    For me, the key has been, after the first letters have been identified, using pencil and paper on the side, and trying out possibilities that way.

  28. 28.

    The Dangerman

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @dlwchico: Me likey!

    I want to watch “The History Of Swearing” on Netflix, but I don’t have Netflix, so this is a problem.

  29. 29.

    RSA

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @SP123: Nice! (The changing the solution behind the scenes, I mean.)

  30. 30.

    toine

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    I’ve done it twice… it is fun! Reminds me of that game with the colored pegs when we were kids (Mastermind?)… Seems like your 1st word will have a big impact on your chances. Got it in 4 the 1st time and 2 today… feels more like luck… :-)

  31. 31.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @Steeplejack: People on Twitter are getting annoyed at other people on Twitter posting their Wordle scores.

    You can add mute words there, which is useful when stupid things are trending.

    The most straight forward solution is to mute the word “Wordle.”
    The less obvious solution is to mute the five green squares that show someone completing a Wordle.

  32. 32.

    MazeDancer

    January 11, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    Have played 6 days in a row. Find it boring but compelling.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    January 11, 2022 at 9:22 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: You may have seen it as mahjongg.  It’s the tile-matching solitaire.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:23 pm

    @Steeplejack: What is communicated by the gray boxes?

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 11, 2022 at 9:23 pm

    I hadn’t played until just now. Here is my result

  36. 36.

    Abnormal Hiker

    January 11, 2022 at 9:23 pm

    I failed at worldle but got sweardle on second guess.  Must be spending too much time on Balloon Juice.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 11, 2022 at 9:26 pm

    @Ken:

    Ah, I have probably a dozen Mah-Jongg variants on my phone. Thanks, had not heard it called Shanghai.

  38. 38.

    planetjanet

    January 11, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    @dlwchico: I got in on the first try!

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:30 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    There are 4 of each type of tile.  Some are identical like the top tile you see in the center.  Some are related like the “4” that’s on the bottom row on the right.  “1”, “2”, “3” and “4” are part of the same set.

    You touch two tiles of the same type and they disappear from the board..  The goal is obviously to clear the board.

    : Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What's the Word(le)? 2

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:30 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Gray = not in the word. Gold = in the word but not in the right location. Green = right letter in the right location.

    ETA: S_C’s result linked at #35 is a better illustration.

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:34 pm

    @Steeplejack: Yes it is.  All I see on my laptop with yours is grey.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    January 11, 2022 at 9:36 pm

    Wanna make it a wee bit more challenging? Hello Wordl.

    ;)

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:36 pm

    @Steeplejack: Green are showing that all the correct letters were selected in the correct order in the bottom row.

  44. 44.

    Pete Mack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:36 pm

    I do NYT Spelling Bee and crossword nearly every day.Yes the Xword cost $48/year, but it is the best one in the US.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:37 pm

    @MazeDancer: Boring but compelling does not seem like it should be a possible combination.

  46. 46.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:37 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    You don’t see any green boxes in mine? It happened today that I didn’t have any correct letters in wrong positions.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:38 pm

    @Steeplejack:   Screen capture of what I see.

    Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What's the Word(le)? 1

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:39 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I get that. I didn’t get “they can add
    ?????
    to their mute words.” What are those green squares supposed to represent?

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:41 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    The white squares are green on my display (Firefox, Win10). Like I said, I don’t typically share my results, so it won’t be an issue going forward.

  50. 50.

    zhena gogolia

    January 11, 2022 at 9:41 pm

    Oh, I just tried it, it’s fun. I had to use all my guesses but I got it on the last one. Now I understand it better.

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 11, 2022 at 9:42 pm

    So it’s like minesweeper, but with words?

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:44 pm

    @Steeplejack:  To me, this indicates that in the first row they had one correct letter but in the wrong position.

    Second row: postion 2 is the right letter in the right place, position 5 is the right letter in the wrong position.

    Third row: correct letters in the right place in the first 3 positions, wrong letters in position 4 and 5.

    Fourth row:  all correct letters, all in the right positions.

    In other words, you can show the progress of your game and the final result without showing the actual letters involved.

    Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What's the Word(le)? 3

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:45 pm

    @Steeplejack: ah, that would be more clear!  All I had were grey and white.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:46 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Can’t help you there, I never played minesweeper.

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 9:47 pm

    @dlwchico: Bookmarking that too!  LOL!  Second guess btw. :)

  56. 56.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 11, 2022 at 9:47 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Its nothing like Minesweeper.

  57. 57.

    Rob

    January 11, 2022 at 9:49 pm

    This strategy worked for me, on the fourth word today (not the third word as she was saying)

    https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1480584512924909568

    “the combination of TEARY + PIOUS pretty much ensure you’ll get Wordle on the third word. you trade your chance at moonshot glory for an almost certain third try“

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    January 11, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    @Chetan Murthy

    More akin to a TV game show from the 80s, Lingo.

  59. 59.

    MazeDancer

    January 11, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    Wordle strategy is pretty obvious. First word  matters. Use one with as many vowels as possible.

    Then you can move on to those letters they give away free on Wheel of Fortune.

  60. 60.

    Kalakal

    January 11, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    @Tony Jay: To add a little more to how well Flobalobs prospects are looking here’s tomorrows UK headlines. These papers (with the exception of the Grauniad & Mirror) are all Tory through and through and when a Tory is being monstered by Uncle Rupes rags you know he’s in the brown stuff well above his nostrils

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/12/the-partys-over-boris-what-the-papers-say-about-johnsons-no-10-crisis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 9:52 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I understand all of that! My result and S_C’s show the same thing, but with colored squares instead of heart shapes.

    What I don’t get is “add [something?] to mute words.”

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 9:55 pm

    @Steeplejack: You are adding the symbols to “mute” the words, in other words so people can’t see/hear the letters and words themselves.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 9:56 pm

    I’ve played for two or three rounds.  Glad it’s a once-a-day puzzle, or I’d be playing it all day.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    January 11, 2022 at 9:59 pm

    Twitter, explained in 15 seconds pic.twitter.com/4dp4qytgwf

    — David Hobby (@strobist) January 10, 2022

    (via JJMacNab)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:00 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: How can you play two or three rounds if you can only play one a day?  Or do you get to do previous days if you haven’t done them before?

    So are you cursing me or thanking me for the new game? :-)

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:00 pm

    @Another Scott: That’s funny.

  67. 67.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 10:04 pm

    @Steeplejack: My friend did not want to see wordle results in his Twitter timeline so he muted green squares. I, a jackass, took time to turn the green squares to green hearts to get past his attempt at muting the game.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 10:05 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    This is on Twitter, I presume? I don’t have a Twitter account, just read via my browser.

  69. 69.

    Rob

    January 11, 2022 at 10:07 pm

    @Another Scott: Thanks, that was perfect!

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 10:08 pm

    @Starfish:

    Thank God someone finally mentioned “on Twitter”! Now it makes sense. I dont have a Twitter account and just read stuff there via my browser. Haven’t had a problem so far with people spoiling the Wordle.

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 10:10 pm

    @WaterGirl: I’ve played for two or three days. ?

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:11 pm

    @Steeplejack: Okay, yes, I finally get what you are asking.

    RIght.  On twitter if you “mute” something, you just don’t see it if something contains the thing you have “muted”.

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:12 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: I did my first one tonight and immediately wanted to do another one.  It is good that they limit you to one a day.

    edit: yay!  tonight I don’t have to do the thing where you let your water trickle from your faucet all night so your pipes wont freeze.  I won’t have to do that again until Saturday.

  74. 74.

    Starfish

    January 11, 2022 at 10:13 pm

    @Steeplejack: It’s not that people are spoiling the game. The posts are just green, yellow and gray squares so you can’t ruin it for other people. It is that so many people are posting their results on Twitter that people’s timelines are full of Wordle. Some science fiction writers have been making fun of everyone while Chuck Tingle has written his typical gay romance with something abstract about the game.

  75. 75.

    CaseyL

    January 11, 2022 at 10:14 pm

    I may be overthinking things have played Wordle twice and came up empty.  I’m usually very good at word games.

    However, I got sweardle on the third try.

    I’m going to check the sites that let you play more than once.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 10:15 pm

    @Starfish:

    Got it.

  77. 77.

    Suzanne

    January 11, 2022 at 10:16 pm

    @Rob: I have been using TRAIN and MOUSE. PAINT would also be good.

  78. 78.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 10:19 pm

    Saugatuck (Michigan) Brewing’s Peanut Butter Porter

    Very drinkable.  Nice flavor.

  79. 79.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 10:22 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    edit: yay! tonight I don’t have to do the thing where you let your water trickle from your faucet all night so your pipes wont freeze. I won’t have to do that again until Saturday.

    Oh outer wall pipes!  You silly, chilly bastards!

    ETA – we got down to 7 degrees last night.

  80. 80.

    PaulB

    January 11, 2022 at 10:24 pm

    I’ve just started and I was working on the strategy of starting with whatever word catches my fancy.

    Wordle 206 4/6

    ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
    ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜???⬜
    ?????

  81. 81.

    RSA

    January 11, 2022 at 10:25 pm

    @Brachiator: Nice.

    As it happens, the word “cwtch” is included in the dictionary for Wordle, which contains almost 13,000 five-letter words.

  82. 82.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 11, 2022 at 10:28 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: You are dead to me.

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 11, 2022 at 10:29 pm

    @WaterGirl: Just took the dog for her last evening pee. It is a brisk 6F.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    January 11, 2022 at 10:31 pm

    @CaseyL: For the first word, pick a word that has lots of vowels. Like “ocean” or “adieu.” That ought to give you at least one yellow square, if not a green one. If not, there are one or two vowels to try in the second line.

    For the second word, try to use some of the more frequently appearing consonants — t, s, l, r…

    By the third line, I am writing all the still possible consonants on a piece of paper, along with whatever vowels I have, to see if anything pops out.

    I think the secret to Wordle’s success is that you can easy show off your (muted) answer. It strikes me as funny that I am joining in with this fad since I was never much of a fad follower. Feels like being a kid in the in-crowd.

  85. 85.

    debbie

    January 11, 2022 at 10:34 pm

    I have no idea how, but I got it in 3 tries!

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:34 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: We were zero.  Still no snow. :-(

  87. 87.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:35 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: RFC

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    January 11, 2022 at 10:36 pm

    @debbie: I did, too. I’m calling it beginner’s luck.

  89. 89.

    Ohio Mom

    January 11, 2022 at 10:37 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: We are not beer drinkers but I found a stew recipe that calls for a can of ale so I went to the section of Trader Joe’s where the single cans are.

    All were from local breweries and all with ridiculous combinations of flavors, many naming fruit or otherwise sweet things. Made me think that there are a lot of beer drinkers who don’t really like the taste of beer but the soda pop they prefer doesn’t give you a buzz.

  90. 90.

    debbie

    January 11, 2022 at 10:37 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Agreed.

  91. 91.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 11, 2022 at 10:45 pm

    @Ohio Mom: To this (beer-drinking) palate, a lot of American craft brewing is some kind of showing off. Lately I’ve been going more in the direction of Central and Eastern European pilsners – just beer-flavored beer.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 11, 2022 at 10:49 pm

    @Ohio Mom: in fairness fruity beers have a long history in Northern Europe– I don’t like it but Belgian Kriek (beer brewed with cherries) is probably the best known. I just assume the monks really wanted to get drunk and made do with what they had.

    I had a hopped hard cider once that was delicious, the hops and apple taste went together really well, but I’ve never been able to find anything like it in stores. Most hard ciders taste to me like flat seven-up with extra sugar.

  93. 93.

    Redshift

    January 11, 2022 at 10:52 pm

    I started Wordle recently. And I’m up to a seven day streak, so beginners luck for me, too, I guess! It’s fun, and I do like that it’s once a day.

  94. 94.

    CaseyL

    January 11, 2022 at 10:56 pm

    @SP123: That one is a lot more fun!  Good practice, too, I think.

  95. 95.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 11, 2022 at 10:56 pm

    Derek Thompson @DKThomp

    Don’t look now but we’re seeing evidence of peaking cases or declining presence of Omicron in wastewater in DC, Boston, and NYC. This could be a false peak (or the way back down could be bumpy) but FWIW the Omicron wave in Gauteng, SA, was also about 3x faster than Delta.

    Also, there’s a twitter feed dedicated to waste water as a Covid measure. No shit.

  96. 96.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 10:57 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Meh.  It was good.  I’ll enjoy the other 5 cans too.

    Now on to Short’s Brewing’s Superfluid

    Also nice.

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 10:57 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I like pilsners and lagers, the occasional IPA. Not a big fan of “fancy” beers. Well, I like some of them, but I don’t seek them out.

  98. 98.

    mrmoshpotato

    January 11, 2022 at 10:59 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    We were zero. Still no snow. :-( 

    You wanna shovel snow in 0° weather? ?

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 11:00 pm

    Down to 21° here in NoVA, but it’s not getting much colder tonight, and it’s going up to 45° or so tomorrow. Balmy! And no precipitation in the forecast for the next week.

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 11:01 pm

    @CaseyL:

    Which one?!

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    January 11, 2022 at 11:08 pm

    So old can remember when we used pencil and paper and called essentially the same word game Jotto.

  102. 102.

    Feathers

    January 11, 2022 at 11:17 pm

    @Mousebumples: Currently reading through the Margery Allingham Campion mysteries. She uses “perishing” as a swear substitute, as in “that perishing fool.” Googled, but I don’t see evidence of that being a usual British slang term of the 30s-50s. It’s growing on me.

    On Wordle. I’m playing and I like that it’s one game a day. I can really get sucked into games. I often do the NYT Sudoku more than once with different strategies. I don’t post on Twitter, because there are some anti Wordle spoilsports amongst my mutuals. Using symbols does screw up Twitter for anyone using a screen reader, so I get it, but I am also annoyed because I’ve been doing very well at it. Better than some of the famous authors I follow, in fact. Sigh.

    Although, thinking about it, the emoji/symbol problem is one the screen readers should be fixing, because people aren’t going to quit using emojis, special fonts, and ascii symbols. (The issue is that screen readers will read out every symbol, so the Wordle grid would be: black box, green box, black box… up to thirty times).

  103. 103.

    Argiope

    January 11, 2022 at 11:19 pm

    @Kalakal: So is the cwtch word likely to pop up again in the prime minister questions tomorrow with reference to the May 20 party? It would be amazing if this whole thread’s UK references all came together like that…. Thanks again to you and Tony Jay for the BJ Across the Pond reports, which are hilarious and incredibly sad all at once.  I’m definitely in the might as well laugh camp, but can imagine that crying takes over some days due to sheer futility.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    January 11, 2022 at 11:20 pm

    @Steeplejack: It’s right about that here. I went to hot yoga and sweated buckets. Felt good.

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 11:21 pm

    @Feathers:

    I’ve seen perishing used that way by other authors.

  106. 106.

    Feathers

    January 11, 2022 at 11:22 pm

    @Steeplejack: you can also just open a different browser and try again.

  107. 107.

    Feathers

    January 11, 2022 at 11:24 pm

    @Steeplejack: Thanks. I was wondering. So it seems to have been an in joke for writers that never jumped far enough into the real world to make it into dictionaries. Although I am curious enough to check the OED next time I’m at the library.

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 11:31 pm

    @Feathers:

    What is this replying to?

  109. 109.

    CaseyL

    January 11, 2022 at 11:38 pm

    @Steeplejack:  This one: https://octokatherine.github.io/word-master/

  110. 110.

    Mike in Oly

    January 11, 2022 at 11:40 pm

    I am loving Wordle too. Have played for six days now and gotten it every time, in a range from 2-6 tries. Today I got it in three, and that with no letters hitting in the first word. I am thankful it is once a day. I am avoiding the knockoffs that are unlimited. I’d get nothing done.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack

    January 11, 2022 at 11:40 pm

    @Feathers:

    Perishing in that sense is in the same zone as bleeding or bloody. “That bloody idiot.” “Those perishing fools.”

    OED: Perishing, adj. “Confounded, troublesome; insignificant. Now frequently in weakened use as an intensifier.”

    Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights: “Do you imagine that healthy, hearty girl will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you?”

    And Allingham makes an appearance with The Tiger in the Smoke: “These perishing crooks, who do they think they are all of a sudden?”

  112. 112.

    dww44

    January 11, 2022 at 11:54 pm

    @Tony Jay: Read every word of your Boris explaining epistle.  It’s actually depressing to see so many other countries taking the knee to the power of money.  Democracies will not survive when our countries are governed/not governed by those  who have no genuine regard for the everyday people, and are, to boot, “moral dwarfs” to their very cores.

  113. 113.

    Steeplejack

    January 12, 2022 at 12:30 am

    Just did the Wordle for Wednesday:

    ⬜⬜??⬜
    ??⬜??
    ?????
    .

  114. 114.

    Chris T.

    January 12, 2022 at 3:12 am

    Hrm, I got:

    Wordle 207 5/6

    ??⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜??⬜⬜
    ⬜?⬜??
    ??⬜??
    ?????

    I used kind of a dumb strategy, as it might make more sense just to go for letter frequencies in the first two guesses; instead, when I found that R was correct but in the wrong place I just kept advancing it until it was at the end there.

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 12, 2022 at 7:35 am

    The first couple of Wordles I tried, I got in 4 and 3 guesses, but today’s took me 5 and I realized I’d used a suboptimal strategy, persisting a letter in a wrong position on my second guess. I think I need to engage “hard mode” to prevent that.

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 12, 2022 at 7:39 am

    The problem with the shared Wordle graphics is that they play merry hell with screen readers for the blind and visually impaired–readers just repeating “green square green square” over and over. I’ve seen people suggesting posting screenshots with alt text instead.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 12, 2022 at 7:41 am

    @Hungry Joe: Aside from using words, the other difference from Master Mind is that Wordle actually shows you which letters were correct or misplaced, whereas in Master Mind the hider only indicates the number of colors in each category. It’s a necessary compensation for the far larger range of possible guesses and the shorter number of guesses you get.

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    January 12, 2022 at 8:41 am

    @mrmoshpotato: You can’t have snow once the temperature hits a certain point, so snow + zero degrees just doesn’t happen.

    Zero, zero go away, bring some snow another day.

  119. 119.

    Denali

    January 12, 2022 at 9:34 am

    @Tony Jay,

    Hope you are right and that Boris is done.  Glad we were able to live in Britain when it was Britain and not whatever it is now. Wish something could be done to save it, but it does not appear likely. What a heritage – what a loss.

  120. 120.

    catclub

    January 12, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    @Steeplejack: ​
     

    To reveal the word would be incredibly dickish,

    so, common as dirt on the internet?

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