Semantle: Can you think like a computer?

my buddy is beta testing

Each guess must be a word (of any length). The similarity value is how similar word2vec thinks your word is to the secret word. The highest possible similarity is 100 (indicating that the words are identical and you have won). You will need more than six guesses. You will probably need dozens of guesses.
Words may be any part of speech. It's tempting to think only of nouns, since that is how normal semantic word-guessing games work. Don't get caught in the trap! Since our Word2Vec data set contains some proper nouns, guesses are case-sensitive. But I removed all but lower-case words from the secret word set, and if your word matches the secret word but for case, you win anyway. So if you want to know if the word is more like nice or Nice, you can ask about both.

Prior art. I discovered French Toast about 20 years ago, and immediately knew that I had to tell Dominus about it. He replied that in fact he and Ranjit had invented it 20 years before that, and called it "Plenty Questions".

But I wasn't thinking of French Toast when I invented this. Instead, I was thinking about Wordle and Worldle and about the dimensionality of data sets. I considered Filmle, a movie guessing game: You say "The Matrix", it says "Keanu Reeves has a bacon number of 3 where bacon is the lead actor in the target film." (and so on for Carrie-Ann Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving for actors at corresponding billings). But I don't care about movies. Too bad, because IMDB actually has exactly the data that you would need to implement it in a really easy form. Then I remembered word2vec, and here we are.

(Yes, I expect it to be way too hard -- that's not a bug, it's inherent vice. I promise that I have been able to solve some of these).

https://semantle.novalis.org/

originally here before the word nerds got testy
Tomtit in the tilth -- the NY TIMES SPELLING BEE thread

Today's word seems to have loaded sometime last night, like by 9pm EST? Because I seem to have already finished it; reloading doesn't get me a new puzzle. I don't want to give anything away about today's solution.

managed to luck out and get today’s in 21 but really this game is just throwing a bunch of random words into a text box, not finding it particularly satisfying

I finally tried this. Best early guess was a 677/1000 then I had an 817/1000 but couldn't really tell what was up. When I finally gave up and saw the answer it didn't quite make sense.

I got today's in 60 but a lot of that was me failing to think of a really obvious connected word and instead trying increasingly niche things that were connected to my close guesses.

Now doing a post-mortem, post-season, whatever. I have words 997 and 998 and they still have less than 60% similarity.

Cool. I just got it in 6, but that feels like beginner's luck!

i'm going to say very much so!

Took me 51 this time, but that's still an improvement from the first few times when I decided it was impossible and gave up. There's definitely a learning curve.

have three goes at this - first time i gave up, second time got it in a mere 172 guesses - today was 18 - so fully expecting to get it first try tomorrow

it's definitely initially interesting in the same way that Wordle is initially interesting, in that it requires you to foreground/attend to processes that are normally intuitive

*have had

Semantle author here! forkclovetofu invited me in. First, thanks to everyone who is playing! It always gives me a smile to see something I make get used. I plan to continue to make updates to Semantle over the course of at least the next few weeks. I am especially happy to make minor usability and legibility fixes, which don't require as much thought.

New puzzles appear at midnight UTC, which early evening here in NYC.

A similarity hint for today's word is (or should be) near the top of the page. I've just added some bold to make it a little easier to see.

A 60% similarity is fairly typical for the closest word. If you think about it, this makes sense: each word is represented as 300 numbers, and with 300 numbers, there are a lot of ways to be different. Someone in the previous thread complained about the low similarity of "elevator" and "lift". I understand that complaint -- but there is really only one context in which they are similar: up-going boxes. By contrast, "lift" can also refer to "bro, do you even lift?" -- a totally different part of speech. "Mood lift" is some sort of scam drug; "mood elevator" is some sort of scam book. "elevator music" seems to be much more common a phrase than "lift music". And so forth.

I hope to add one more wacky hinting mechanism, but it's kind of complicated and it's not clear that it will be at all useful. Probably later this week, or over the coming weekend.

Hey David, welcome...
Sounds like an interesting project, I have been unable to play on my Android phone or my iPad, but I enjoyed reading the description... :)

Works on Android (Pixel 5, Firefox and Chrome) for me, and iPhone for my wife. If you give me more info about what sort of breakage you're seeing, I might be able to fix it.

well fuck, that's my first time getting the word. 46.

Measuring the "similarity" of words is a very squishy concept that could encompass a large number of concepts of what similarity means. But software deals in algorithms, not concepts, and if a programmer tried to implement more than one similarity measurement they would need to apply a method for resolving the unavoidable conflicts that would arise from applying all of them to the same case while each delivering a different numeric 'similarity' weight. All that programming would get messy in a hurry.

This leads me to think the basis for judging "similarity" and attaching a numeric weight to it would be the product of probably just one measurement, at most three. Figure out what drives the algorithm and you should be able to reduce the solution to an optimal strategy you could counter-program in your own computer. Creating such a program would literally exemplify "thinking like a computer". My guess is that somebody will do just that and the game will be over.

Thanks David, I just type a word in, hit guess, and then nothing happens... no getting close meter, no rank, no guess count... (it's just the Samsung browser on my phone, and Safari on the iPad...)
Anyway, didn't mean to turn this into tech support, please don't sweat it...

his leads me to think the basis for judging "similarity" and attaching a numeric weight to it would be the product of probably just one measurement, at most three. Figure out what drives the algorithm and you should be able to reduce the solution to an optimal strategy you could counter-program in your own computer.

the 'algorithm' here is a neural net, they are famously not amenable to reverse engineering and as david said each word is represented as 300 numbers.

Started to maybe get the hang of it today, my first not cold guess was only 303/1000, it could have led me to the answer quickly but I ended up going a completely different route and got it in 122.

121. Holy shit, I’m gonna waste a lot of time with this.

I am giving up pretty early until I kind of understand what is going on.

The interface is definitely much easier to use on the computer than the (Android) phone. The enter box is tiny on the phone and if I zoom in enough to see it, the word list and leading text is gigantic. But this has promise as one of those quick "brain break" games for me - so much less autopilot than Two Dots or any of the Candy Crush variants.

I love the idea of this game, but I'm just not getting it. I've given up in frustration both days so far, and playing around with it further after knowing the word only confuses me more about what's considered "close".

I am feeling that too, only I somehow managed not to get frustrated...yet.

what factors are considered in the comparison? Or is the fun lying in not knowing? I gave up too fwiw

Got it in 21 today! Much better.

I don't really have any advice for those who are struggling with it. I tend to start with a few guess words that are as semantically different as I can think of at the time and see what's closest, and then progress from there.

here's some info on Word2Vec, which is the underlying algorithm
https://radimrehurek.com/gensim/auto_examples/tutorials/run_word2vec.html
https://medium.com/@zafaralibagh6/a-simple-word2vec-tutorial-61e64e38a6a1

m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), what word were you trying? Someone just pointed out a bug with that symptom with "slice" (and about a hundred other misc words), which I just fixed.

If anyone wants to know what "different" (as opposed to "similar") looks like on a related dataset, try https://www.datcreativity.com/task (not mine -- I'm just a fan).

It doesn't know the word aeroplane

My first time playing it today and can't seem to get closer than 824 (32.73% similarity).

I tried a bunch of different words, I'm pretty sure it's just the doinky Samsung phone browser...

If you can, switch to Firefox. Not for Semantle. But because with Firefox, you can install an adblocker like ublock origin, making everything much more pleasant.

I gave up but I like the game, I'll try again tomorrow...

It doesn't know the word aeroplane

Now that it's the next day, I can say that, for instance, the day the answer was CANDLE, I got my highest hits from (iirc, I've actually forgotten already) ALTAR and, like, words relating to textiles you might find in a religious setting. I think one of them was WIMPLE, in fact. Those prompts made me fixate on textiles and wardrobe items, when I apparently should have been expanding to other things found in a ritual setting? Did anyone else get CANDLE and if so, what was your approach?

the 'algorithm' here is a neural net, they are famously not amenable to reverse engineering and as david said each word is represented as 300 numbers.

Then I can't help but think that the dynamic between the player and the game will be similar to other situations where the reward is entirely erratic and unpredictable. If the reward is powerful enough and is dispensed often enough to reinforce, the player will continue to seek it and may even become convinced they discovered the secret method for winning. If the reward is too weak or too infrequent to be reinforcing the player abandons the game.

i bailed before i got there as it was driving me nuts but i got highest with FIREPLACE, PYRE, FLAME. Couldn't find my way to where I was supposed to go. i have a funnier story about todays, but I will wait.

it should be noted that, having won once, i am particularly interested in seeing if i have figured out the internal logic somehow or if that was a fluke.
given that there are people (on this thread even) who are maintaining some consistency, I don't think it's an erratic or unpredictable puzzle so much as it requires access to a specific perspective, one that i'm having issues attaining.

My close guesses were LAMP and LANTERN, which you would *think* would give me a good basis for getting candle. I instead spiralled into guessing SEARCHLIGHT, SPOTLIGHT, LAMPSTAND, HEADLAMP and other stupid things, before taking a break and finally having CANDLE come into my mind.

I did also get a glitch where one of my closer guesses didn't come up with the green indicator bar, but instead said "cold" - I can't remember what word it was so this isn't a good bug report, I guess, but I figured I'd mention it seeing as we have the creator here.

gonna start c+ping my answers to post here post game

Can we just put the answer into one of those other sites and see the map of the close words or do we just keep guessing at the semantle site?

if you're seeing a way to do that, i'd be curious!

I don't think it's an erratic or unpredictable puzzle so much as it requires access to a specific perspective, one that i'm having issues attaining.

This is where I am, I'm by no means faulting the game. Actually some of the posts made since I mentioned my frustration earlier have helped me already shift my perspective for next time.

Yeah I think I'll give it a proper go tomorrow, as my initial confusion has been somewhat dispelled.

emil,y: Thanks for the report. The word you found wasn't a "normal" word (meaning, a word in the 370k-word all-lowercase wordlist that I am using to generate the top 1000). A friend of mine found this a few days ago with "winningest". It's weird to have two word lists, but I really didn't like some of the garbage in the full 3 million words of the word2vec data set I'm using (in one case, one of the top 200 words was some reporter's email address!). To reproduce: capitalize the first letter of today's 999/1000 word. I just changed the code to handle this case -- now it prints "????" with an explanation on hover.

It would be nice to display a map of the close words -- but "mapping" a 300-dimensional space is tricky. I guess I could run another round of principle component analysis on the top 1000, and take the top 2 components.... But I don't think that's going to happen this week.

er, today's 996/1000 word.

61 today, and I cheated by using a thesaurus at the very end.

I don't know why I have zero interest in posting my wordle results but I do feel like reporting on this one, I think because it's less predictable how hard it's going to be.

Wordle doesn’t really need a strategy beyond doing the obvious whereas this most definitely seems to require one.

It's a bit like Scattergories in the way it tends to lock down your brain at a certain point, so that you know there are other words out there but your brain fixates on the ones you've already come up with and can't get past them.

Yeah same

Yep

Cool. I just got it in 6, but that feels like beginner's luck!

― jaymc, Monday, February 7, 2022 4:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yesterday I had the fortune of randomly guessing "lantern" for the second word (after "frog"), which led me to "candle" soon after.

Today I got to the closest match in about 100, but then got stuck. Finally decided to cheat by using a thesaurus, which got me to the finish line.

63 guesses for me today - guesses included the 994, 997, 998 and 999th closest words - took a while to land on 1000, even when I could clearly see the pattern

when does the new word drop? Midnight? LIke the...like that other puzzle?

It would be really interesting to know the optimal, say, six words to start with to narrow down the possibilities.

107 words ... AND I used a thesaurus. The thing that broke it open for me was actually just free-associating. Not sure how I got from WHOOPSIE to ERROR but the answer came relatively quickly after that.

*************SPOILERS IN POST ABOVE SORRY*****************

will try to get a mod to fix

midnight utc it says

got stuck on 940 jigsaw and 952 difficult, eventually started typing in random words from the top of the page! got to 999 but still had to hit the thesaurus, maybe it would have come to me eventually. take home lesson: words in the mid 900s are not necessarily at all helpful.

(got it in 147. also confused by lukas' post as those two words are nowhere near the answer.)

97 but I thought I was going to have to give up even with the help of a thesaurus. Got 4 words over 900 reasonably quickly but stalled out hard after that.

This game is going to ruin my life. Which is a compliment!

lol the mod got creative with my post

Ha!

81 today!
I hit on 932/1000 but other synonyms didn't seem to get that high at all. (There is one missing from the dictionary btw, it didn't recognise marvellous .) Once I got in the final ballpark I didn't look up any synonyms (I don't really consider that cheating if it jogs your memory, as unless you're really close it's unlikely to be one of those maybe?) I got the 997 and 998 before hitting on it.

Oh just realised it was probably a UK/US spelling thing in the 'missing' word.

Today was my first time doing this. It took 56 goes to get the word. I didn't use a thesaurus.

I have no interest in playing Wordle. I think this is probably because of people posting their scores on Twitter, which was annoting and how I first heard of it, rather than any intrinsic qualities of the game itself. This, however, is great and I plan to play again. Thanks, David!

I gave up on today's and had genuine difficulty understanding why my relatively "closest" word (27.14) was any closer to the correct word than many of the much further away words. It seems like until you get a much "closer" guess, the reasons are not apparent for "closeness"

Even so, some of the “closer” words are genuinely mystifying.

Sometimes a word will be close in one form but far away in a different form, e.g. let's say cheater vs cheated vs cheating vs cheat could all have wildly different closeness scores.

yes, and after i gave up i tried some synonyms of the winner that were "cold," while others were very close. and i couldn't find where my closest guess connected to the winner. anyway i got bored of wordle pretty quickly and this is way better.

Oof, today was a tricky one for me. Took me 127 and I did resort to thesaurus cheating at one point. It did give me an important semantic turn that I probably wouldn't have taken without it, though. I was stuck on 'hard', 'tough' etc, thesaurus gave me the idea to try 'critical', which then gave me a new line of enquiry.

I would say over ten of my tries were me getting frustrated and typing in things like 'shit', 'fuck', 'death', 'kill', so maybe I could claim 117 instead, heh.

I must be at a hundred guesses now and I can’t get any closer than a similarity score just shy of 21. FML

Yeah, this is killing me today.

Similarity stuck at 44 and I cannot think of any more synonyms

got it finally. only took me 511 guesses.

I've got similarity of 24/26/34, all are closely related ... and no idea where to go next.

Yeah this one was brutal.

probably put a couple hundred guesses into this fella during a boring work meeting and got no higher than 566 (or so) (my only “getting warmer@ guess also)

then had another go at home and got it in 8

have often found this with cryptic crosswords, where a change of scene will reshuffle the neurons and offer new insights

this game is impossible and makes no sense

stuck on 950/1000 and can't think where to go next, have free-associated my head off.

I've got a few 'warm' words, highest is 872/1000 and I'm also stuck. Might go back to it.

I've guessed 386 words ;_;

Oh God I just hit on it!

My highest guess beforehand kind of had two relevant meanings to it

Got there in 70.

gave up, this game is too hard for me

ok someone give me a hint > 950 (this would be a good feature to add!)

I’m at 936/1000, which is so annoyingly close but I’m totally stuck.

Yesterday’s wasn’t so bad, got it in 82

This game is maddening.

i got stuck at 673/1000 with domains which i thought was close, but that was the first one i've done, and after giving up and seeing the answer, i realise now i was miles from the secret word. the progress bars gave me false hope. can't see that i'd have guessed.

I didn't even get into the 900s. I browsed a few wiki pages for some of the words I had which gave me inspiration. No it's not cheating... (Most of the key terms I'd already tried).
Also I think it's key to try different variations of words e.g. (not related to today's as far as I know) literate, literature, literal. Some are cold when others are warm.

I gave up after about 350 guesses. I can obviously see the connection between the answer and my closest guess license but i'm not sure how i could have got from one to the other without external inspiration - and I'd already tried all the nearest synonyms - or other than sheer luck guess one of the closer words. Still, I'll come back tomorrow for more punishment.

first time ever getting it today after playing for about a week... in 69 guesses O_o

of my guesses, the one deemed literally furthest away make seems imo like it should be closer to the secret word? but im not (yet) a computer so idk ~

139 today. early guesses in the 10s were all small things -- pea, corn, dust -- which led me astray.

johnny fever, i thought the same thing. i hit on manufacture which was one of my warmest guesses, but your word got nowhere.

I'll get as far as 30 guesses before I can't resist and give up ha.

i like the concept but the space is too vast and the goal too opaque. restricting to 5 letter nouns might help

makes me think a fun application of GPT-3 would be to play 21 questions with it

I like the idea of the long game, chipping away at it throughout random times in the day though.

Today turned out to be brutally difficult -- it's just stuck off in its own arm of the semantic space. Sorry about that. Maybe tomorrow will be easier. Or maybe not!

I still have yesterday's loaded and haven't solved it yet. Now worried about trying today's.

What's happening to the Similarity column? It's all out of order. I can't tell what's working and what's not.

I’m seeing similarity sorted properly, but with your most recent guess at the top, which is a very welcome feature!

Wow, I don't have the patience to come up with 600-800 words, plus I find that my brain gets stuck and just keeps coming up with similar words to the ones I've already guessed, even where they only score like 25. I literally don't think I ever would have gotten today's.

spoiler alert: the word "penis" is slightly closer than the word "university" and slightly further away than "paint."

LOL

Wondering if starting with a seed word - say, the 1000th-closest word - would make the game more appealing.

I’m fascinated by it & can’t wait for the next drop (after having pulled the plug on today’s) but the early stages are a bit of a slog tbh.

I didn’t like the idea of hints, but maybe just a wee one? Say, calling for a hint gets you the word that’s one closer from the target word vs your highest guess, like if you had word 950 and you called for a hint you would get word 951. (And if you were stuck on 999, it would give you 998.) One per day.

I got it in 7.

well, at least that was the point I launched my computer over the balcony and put on Peacemaker instead

86 today. I find there's a certain point when I just start entering words I know aren't going to be right.

gave up yesterday. not sure i ever would have gotten it. even after i knew the answer, it was hard to come up with similar words.

then got super lucky today and got it in 21.

84 today, gave up yesterday. I like the new addition of numbering the words and having the most recent guess come up at the top!

Think I'm getting the hang of this, took me 80.

Just trying today. I have the 'guess number' but the similarity isn't sorted by highest for me (Firefox). So it's not sorted by either similarity or guess number.

oh sorry I get it. Most recent goes at the top no matter what but everything else sorted by similarity.

Got it in 60 - are we all getting the hang of it or was it just easier today?

136 for me, easier than yesterday but think I need more practice.

118!
Yesterday's was more 'nebulous' I think - has connotations of law, science, application... bit more straightforward word today.

Mr kinder got it in 33

What is the strategy to adopt here? Is there a number of overall concepts that can be tried with a view to narrowing it down? I'm thinking of Roget's Thesaurus which is divided into six classes - existence, relation, quantity etc.

Had to give up yesterday and today. I'm impressed by those who got them both -- I doubt I would have even if I'd kept guessing for another hour. The possibilities are just so vast, frustration sets in after 100 cold guesses...

Is there a number of overall concepts that can be tried with a view to narrowing it down? I'm thinking of Roget's Thesaurus which is divided into six classes - existence, relation, quantity etc.

I tried it with the thesaurus subcategories that today's word appears in and they are all cold - I would guess they're too far away vertically, you need words that are more synonymous rather than more general, so it's just a case of blundering around till you hit on something.

it's further complicated by the fact that, apparently, sometimes a direct synonym of one sense of the word can be cold.

Got today's in 80. I don't think I'll ever be on super-low scores, as my tactic is to get as many data points as I can, rather than hoping to get lucky/be precise in a few guesses. Yesterday's was the first that made me give up, I got to 990 with INVENTIONS but couldn't make the leap.

I do like the new ordering system, but it was very confusing at first. How about adding a line space between the most recent guess and previous guesses?

42 today, was in the hundreds for the last couple

Found today's in 110 after skirting around it for ages.

I've been struggling with this for a few days, but today I got it in 36.

My first non-cold guess was #14 (758/1000). I then did 20 more cold guesses before getting 943/1000 on #35. And then next guess I got it. Half satisfying, half a shrug of randomness.

70 today, felt like i steadily advanced on the target for oncd - previous goes have seen some pretty wild & uneven lurches towards the answer

*once

Gave up again. FWIW, the closest word I got was "mechanical" which was 20, and then I just kind of got stuck. Once again, I don't get how mechanical is any closer to the word than anything else that I guessed, in fact some other words seem logically closer to me.

a score of 20 I mean

oh hey cool i just started today! 206 baby. proud i didn't give up (almost did about... 180 times)

scores in the 20s are pretty meaningless, i carry on banging random words in till i get in the top 1000 and often well beyond that.

Since I rarely compute at the weekends I changed my system clock and played tomorrow's and Sundays ^_^ I got both, one somewhat quicker than the other.

Whoa, got it in 27 today! Sheer luck that one of my first 10 words thrown at the wall hit close.

162! With the help of a thesaurus. I don’t know if I’ll ever get one of these without a crutch.

I gotta say Dave, I didn’t think this would get traction without adding a crutch but clearly it has some magnetism!

Adding the "getting close" indicator seems to be the thing that made it playable. I can't wait until I add the incomprehensible vector directionality indicator.

lol okay I went from like 30% to 100% that was a day.

Took me 97 guesses

haha i keep giving up early, but I keep coming back to this sodding thing!

yeesh, got to 959 in 11 guesses, then to 990 by 22, and now I'm up to 56 guesses and have gotten no closer, only filled in lower point words. I think it's going to be a stroke of luck for me to finally get this.

This one took me 92. Once again I got to a sticking point and just started entering word after word, then walked away for an hour, came back and got it immediately.

These always take me over 100 moves but I'm not really trying for a low score.

Got a 2-letter word in the top 100 early on today. It had some different definitions that threw me off.

Bugs me that "and" isn't recognized as a word.

found today’s an absolute bastard and gave up!

Just got it in 136. Again with thesaural assistance, altho I snuck up on the final approach without.

My 8th guess cracked the top 1000, but I didn’t get closer until 70 moves later. I honestly think that starting with word 1000 as a seed word wouldn’t make this game much easier.

134. Really tough going early on - think it gets easier once you get to the 900s, though not by much.

Found today's a nightmare and gave up after 248.

Got this in about 60, got lucky by entering the right kind of word - so - early on for some reason, I don't normally go for those. an and to also not recognised as words.

Got up to 998 in 193 guesses, but it took me another 140 guesses to get the word from there. wtf.

131 today. Got bloody loads in the 'getting closer' range, but it took me a fair while to progress up to the final word.

Today is killing me. I got my first 'warm' as my 10th guess, to 989 by my 78th guess. 100 tries later I have surely exhausted all related words! I have hit on the 998 and 999!

antonyms for my top words are still in the 900s which is puzzling me.

and synonyms are 'cold'.

OK I got it and had tried a variation of it ages ago and none of the 990+ words even mean the same thing!

Yeah I had 999, 989, 988, 986, and I still struggled for ages. A friend who found it before me told me that the tree I was barking up was an adjacent tree

Anyway, 188 with a gentle assist

Said friend's opinion about today's word, but also a general statement (after doing this for two days lol):

It seems like the association algorithm sucks at words that are more grammatically functional and less like, semantically full
Like nouns and verbs are probably easier

Spoilered just in case it's a clue

419 today, absolute nightmare

I've been climbing steadily since I realized something around guess #130 or so! But now I'm running out of related words and not getting above 962. Like Absurdle, this sometimes feels like I'm having to hunt down every last possibility like trying to get glitter out of the sofa cushions.

My bad I am now at 995 but this is getting very silly.

In classic fashion my top two guesses are opposites of each other.

I solved Semantle #15 in 24 guesses. https://semantle.novalis.org/

Easiest one yet.

Got this one in 49. First one I didn’t give up on so far.

I have never yet guessed anything that wasn't a "cold"

Today’s was maddening for me - got thrown off by my first warm guess that led me in the completely wrong direction. Got it in 400 guesses lol

gave up again despite having a few guesses in the 99x range - these were all pretty unhelpful and sent had ne the exact wrong direction

Same. I was all backasswards on this one.

Got 3 words in the 99Xs before 40, then just a futile rooting around thereafter. I don’t know how I would have ever got round to it.

Got it in 200 but should've been quicker, I got lots that suggested parts of a bird but then I got 'nose' higher than 'beak' and futzed around with facial features for ages.

stuck again, on 998, 995 and 994

after giving up on my first gl yesterday got it in 26 today.

56 for me. Best score I've had so far, but only just.

Same as ledge. Had it down to two or three similar words, but the opposite nature misled me for a long time. Took 238 I think

Just going to apologize in advance for today's. It's stupidly hard for no good reason.

128 guesses and still cold ;_;

Got to 999/1000 on turn 377 and I'm giving up for now.

I'm in the 990s...

I got 991 after 28 guesses, 996 after 92, 999 with some cheating after 188. I've basically given up though I haven't clicked 'give up' yet.

i gave up and honestly don't think i could've gotten it anyway. the closest word to the answer i could think of only had a similarity of 22! (ie am still not a computer)

I gave up and even knowing the word couldn't get something close to come up.

Yesterday I got close with “beak” but then didn’t get a chance to finish. Not sure “tail” ever would have occurred to me.

David I'm curious what you're doing to try to remove stupidly hard words?

I am manually looking at the top thirty nearest words and seeing if they seem near to me. I just did this manually for the next week, and I'll probably build a UI to make it easy for the future.

I cheated. The word is a (an) adjective while most of the words I found near it were conjunctions or adverbs, i think.

I gave up based on this thread, but probably shouldn’t have. I was closer than I thought.

I'll probably give up today, but I wondered if the word was hard because it was uncommon (technical language, for example) or because the nearest words are so far away?

Kim, same here.

I gave up, I lolled. Despite having four out of the top ten closest words and 20 of the top 100 I do not feel I was in any way close to getting it. I tried the first half dozen words that sprang to mind after the answer and only one of them - an antonym - was close, and only 589/1000.

xp to kinder, i was wondering the same - it is not an uncommon word by any means.

I had subsequent and second in my top three, so it might have happened!

xp to ledge: same. I gave up despite having 999, 996, 993 and 991, none of which seem to bear any relation to the secret word.

Incidentally, I likewise had those ones.

After a billion guesses (600?) I had 996-999 and quite a few others at 980+ but was nowhere near getting that answer. Oof! But I knew what I was getting into with the disclaimer and I did decide to read it as a challenge...

I had resorted to more or less entering everything that was the same part of speech as 998/999 and/or in a similar slightly literary/legalese/oldfashioned register, but the answer wasn't the same part of speech and not so flowery either

Also, my first interpretation of "stupidly hard" was that an abbreviation or something else weird had crept in, so I tried a bunch of abbreviations, random two-letter strings, German words* and html/javascript keywords, and quite a few were accepted as guesses. Hope they don't come up as answers! (OK, they won't, because David is vetting answers from now on. Thanks, David!)

* The German words were because I was getting highish scores on a seam of words which are a bit archaic in English, e.g. thereupon, thereby, etc, but German uses the equivalent a lot - so it seemed easier to think of German ones, which I typed in out of desperation, and dabei, darauf, darüber are all in the dataset, along with a lot of personal pronouns. Not that any of this matters since they seem to score too low to rank against an English target word & it won't affect anyone's guesses, but it was interesting to me.

I'm scoring just under 30 and my top 4 words don't have anything in common with each other.

This better be hilarious.

Got it in 134 guesses :)

got it in 53 guesses.

no idea how I stumbled on the right path, but once I found the common link it was matter of elimination

anybody who was playing more than two hours ago, though, I had a different word than you. it changed at 7 pm ET/6 pm CT

have lost interest in semantle

i coulda done it in under 50 in my first two guesses weren't "poop" and "pee"

I hate this game

I got it in 45. Better!

My god Kim what does the inside of your brain look like?

320 guesses and I'm up to 991/1000 but I've danced all around my highest scoring answers and I'm out of ideas.

got it in 166 today - fluked a jump from word #689 to THE WORD - happily all "warm" guesses were in fact pointing me in the right direction and my mind didn't seize up

I spent 5 minutes trying to guess answers after I knew the word and couldn't get anything else in the top 10.

i tried this and got a couple in the top 10 - it's an interesting exercise! some words I would've imagined being pretty adjacent were way down the list

Dave informs me his user base is up to 76k?!?!?

I solved Semantle #17 in 22 guesses. Guess 8 was "hospital", very lucky.

Nice! 111 for me today, def easier than yesterday

I solved Semantle #17 in 51 guesses.

yeah this one seemed easier (not complaining)

121, took 63 guesses to get anything green then i took the roundabout route of professions, military ranks, scientists, psychiatrists etc, medical professions so I could have taken a shortcut there, but felt like a satisfying solve.

22 today. It's fascinating closing in on a vector.

115 today. I agree with Fizzles. It's great closing in once you're in the right ballpark.

lol, my first attempt and I just got a slight frisson of excitement getting a 20.16 after 20 odd much stone colder attempts, but I can see how the hunt could become addictive.

At the moment my top guess, at 28.01, is 'penis'.

Which I've just beaten with 'breast' (29.84)

which is quite funny knowing the answer, and that the word that really got me on the chase was helicopter at 22.36.

75 today. Love it when those green bars pop up.

OK, clitoris at 30.80. And yet I still can't shake the feeling I'm barking up the wrong tree

Yeah, it's hard to know where to go next after you've found clitoris.

Onward and upward, boring old kidney at 33.76

OK, got it at 77.

115 today. I agree with Fizzles. It's great closing in once you're in the right ballpark.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, February 15, 2022 9:52 AM bookmarkflaglink

I think the bit where i started closing in was the difference between helicopter 22.36 and airplane 17.82, which caused me, after some mechanical guesses, to go for hospital

Interesting to note that both ill and sick were respectively 11.27 and 9.82.

Say if the hidden text stuff is annoying! but i find it all interesting enough to want to discuss some of the process!

my first top 1000 hitdiplomat 29.06 sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase but I hit pay gold with doctor 67.93. I must be good at this because it give me a very high score!

by the time those NYT cunts have put wordle behind a paywall I'm hoping to be averaging regular sub 100 scores on this.

36 today, ended with an incredibly satisfying series of three logical guesses that correctly closed the circle. david this is the best game

Got this one in 14. Also had a couple lucky early guesses.

got today's in 30, made a leap from mechanic to the secret word

Yeah my son beat my score today by a few guesses, he came to the answer by a different route though. my guesses went from star to celebrity to leader and then other notable types of people while he found it with the multiple body parts to anatomy to doctor etc.

I gave up on yesterdays because my 4 closest guesses were (iirc) PERHAPS, NEITHER, uhh maybe SILKILY??!, and EITHER. None of them were going to get me to the answer, in retrospect.

*cracks fingers* let's try today's.

Today's in 64. It took me a while to start scoring, and then when I did all mine were eye related, so I was in a similar ballpark but far too specific!

I did give up yesterday but only because I had to go to bed after having the page up all day to try new things - yes, I am one of those people who took "it's too hard" as a challenge. I got green scores at 25, 990 at 54, and then pages upon pages of green, very few of which were related to the answer in a way I would understand. My highest match was IRONICALLY, ffs. I was working on a few different strands, one was conjunctions and old-timey constructions (I had a lot of fun with inasmuches and heretofores), one was a sort of "quirky" adverb strand (QUIXOTICALLY and NEBULOUSLY and BIZARRELY all scored green), and I got a few that could theoretically have led me to the answer (SUBSEQUENTLY and CONSEQUENTLY), however more obvious matches like AFTERWARDS and LASTLY were cold, so I wasn't looking in that direction.

Honestly, I love this game despite the frustration at machine-calculated relations.

I had pretty much the same strands, emil.y! Less exhaustively than yours, I imagine, tho I even ran through all the contractions thinking maybe that was what made it "difficult."

I mean...SILKILY???! lol it's inexplicable.

Got it in 144! Possibly my best day yet tho I maybe took a funny route.

Got it in 25 today, which is my best yet.

Took me ages but I got there. Highest was tendon] for a long time, then cardiac which led me to implant and scalpel

I have no idea how anyone does these in less than 100. I think I kind of enjoy typing random words into a computer text box... as my ILX posting history will demonstrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol otm

I looked back on the "tail" one from the other day because I still had it open in a tab, and noted that while I got there from typing in "bird" then "flapping" then "wing" then various aeroplane/helicopter-related terms (it liked "propeller" and "rotor" quite a lot) and then typed "tail" while I was considering helicopter parts.

(I haven't spoiler-tagged these since it's not today's puzzle; sorry if anyone feels I should have done!)

Meanwhile, the names of various animals which have tails and particular noted behaviours thereof (dog, cat, pig) scored way less than bird, as did other things with tails (shirt and, uh, sperm), and things like "follow" and "stalk" which are synonyms of "tail" in some contexts scored cold too.

It's a mystery. But it's a fun mystery. Also kinder otm, such fun to type random words and follow weird tangents while imagining "the computer must be thinking really hard about why I chose this one!!"

xxp

I wouldn't feel bad at being crap at it, because you definitely aren't alone! But I feel like once you start getting a feel of how the word2vec data set works, then it will become even harder!

Kinder--I took a totally different route! My first hits in the green were BARBER and BEAUTICIAN, which then led (eventually) to CLINICIAN, and then I was in the home stretch. Random!

Just got the new one! 12 minutes, 108 guesses, but this is definitely a speed record for me.

I solved Semantle #18 in 133 guesses. Again, felt like a pretty linear process (rewardingly so) once I got the first green bar!

I solved Semantle #18 in 159 guesses. Went on a weird tangent when I got a hit on online, and then pay in the top 100.

got it in 127. sadly took me 70 tries after I got my first green to realize I'd been going the opposite path that it wanted.

benefits was my first word approximating 20% similarity, and then pension was the first that got me green. all of my work jargon was helpful this time around.

53, my best yet - got lucky with a green on my 9th guess

111, not too bad a showing. If I’d followed an instinct earlier I probably could have halved that, but I spent a long time chasing a dead end.

Meanwhile, the names of various animals which have tails and particular noted behaviours thereof (dog, cat, pig) scored way less than bird

I'm guessing this is because 'bird' is a larger class than 'dog', 'pig', etc, and any text about parts of a bird or a particular species will use the same other words (beak, wings) whereas if it's about a cat it will mention paws and whiskers, if it's a pig it will mention trotters and snout, etc. 'Nose' was pretty high up though.

From memory nose, snout and beak and maybe proboscis all scored pretty highly on that one - which had me totally stuck looking for “animal face parts” - didn’t think for a second to look at the other end!

Got today's in 162 because I am an idiot.

I got month in 65! Why did it take me another 100 guesses?

Stuck on the third closest word. No clue.

ha my 13th word just hit 989...total luck

I tried this for the first time and rage quit / gave up after 45 attempts all below 12.

but now it's got interesting, i've had four guesses since and not got higher than that one. From the info it seems my best guess is 10th. And I'm absolutely stumped. and scared. because the perfectionist in me wants to guess this right on my next guess.

this is my first time in the zone. so regular zone visitors, how many guesses on average do you usually take once you're very close?

The data set is small at the moment but, usually, loads.

Lol I did it for the first time yesterday and managed to get really close without having read the instructions and I thought similarity meant word composition ie combinations of letters rather than meaning

Weirdly I was able to make pretty good progress under this misapprehension

omg i got fucking burnt on this !!! haha

87! I could have done it in fewer if I'd realised that I hadn't already tried the answer - I had daily, hourly, weekly, yearly, so I just assumed I'd tried the answer already, doh. (That is particularly spoilery hidden text, don't click if you haven't got it yet.)

regular zone visitors, how many guesses on average do you usually take once you're very close?

Bloody loads, honestly. But I get addicted to the dopamine hit of the green. Can't stop playing. Never stop playing. Give me that green score baby.

Does anyone else resort to typing words in the intro blurb if their first few random guesses don't get anywhere near? It actually seems to be quite a productive method of initially guessing. I also do some previous answers as I know what word2vec thinks is close to them now.

haha yes

well 31 guesses, but I got sooo lucky, and then effed up, could have been less. I won't say anything, feared that I will mess up the spoiler text formatting tbf. I will reveal in a few days.

Definitely done that, yes! Or played while half-watching TV and typed words from the TV in.

Once I'm quite close, it takes me anywhere between a few guesses to several hundred guesses. On average? No idea but probably tens. The mean is probably 100+ after a couple of outliers (including the one flagged with a warning) where I didn't get it for ages after hitting the 990s.

this game is fun!

219 for me. Did that thing of being completely stuck and out of guesses despite being on 977. Went back to it later and it only took a few more.

I got up to 977/1000 and got fucked off + gave up and damn it I should have spent at least another half an hour, because was so nearly there. But it's all good experience for getting a feel for how this word2vec scores the word similarity. If I ever see anyone claiming today's wordle was hard I'm going to link this to them from now on, it's child's play in comparison.

I managed it in 31 today. Seems like low similarity scores (<20) are words that might appear in the same sentence as the target word (how big of a content window is the algorithm using?), medium scores (21-40) are words that commonly appear adjacent to the target word, and medium/high scores (>40) start trending towards actual synonyms or members of the same semantic category?

sorry, context window not content

63 in the end

Took 43 to get a green

Solved the new semantle, #19, in 2 minutes, 36 guesses

got it in 61. trimming the fat a little, but once again, I could have saved ten guesses if I pivoted earlier once I knew I was heading in the right direction.

I solved Semantle #19 in 41 guesses. Most straightforward experience yet, still fun. First green was something crazy high like #969.

I have now three other friends playing this

26. far and away my best result, and looking at others' results, this seems a particularly easy one.

lol every time I'm like "damn, awesome, I'm getting better at this", I look and everybody else got it in like 10 guesses

Oh don't worry I gave up on today's.

51, my best showing yet. I think the game is getting a little easier, altho practicing no doubt helps.

50-100 guesses is still a big commitment for most people (a coworker said I must be spending all day playing if I was guessing hundreds of words) so I feel like the current level strikes a good balance between being hard enough to be challenging but not so hard that it’s a chore for die-hards only.

didn't get yesterday's but don't feel that bad about it - for a while my only green was electricity. I tried water, gas, utilities and they were all cold. shrug.

I've started to use a category approach, like....if I start to see my results improve, even if cold, I have really started to strain my brain to figure out if there's any linkage between them.

for instance, tonight's was consume, and pretty early on, I was in the 20% range, so still cold, but on the right track, and it was all food related guesses like chips, mashed, broccoli, burger. so originally I was guessing all food stuff, and then I said 'well obviously if it was a type of food, these wouldn't all be 20%s', so I started guessing words like meal, snack, which were also....in that range, but slightly higher.. And then I realized well shit, it's probably not about food, or the meal itself, but how it is ingested and within 5 guesses I had it. so the 'waste' was all the pointless 'food' guesses.

fuck shit ass shobadeedoowop

food related guesses would have definitely helped in my case, all my warm guesses were destruction-based e.g. burn, destroy, drown so struggled with words like murder, kill, crash and accident until i got hungry and punched in 'ate' and from there i got it immediately.

170 today, but i think i'm getting the hang of it somewhat

I solved Semantle #19 in 33 guesses. https://semantle.novalis.org

I'm improving.

30 but could have been quicker! First green was guess 15 with drink/981 then i messed around too long with synonyms for that (verb and noun) instead of trying related concepts.

Today's, #19 - 21 guesses.
Was about to sack off this game but now I'm back in!

49. Had 997 on my 20th guess but got fed up of firing related guesses with no luck so resorted to a thesaurus.

Today's word is v close to a word that I got stuck on yesterday (but which barely had any relation to yesterday's word) so it was in my mind

This game reminds of that scene in Seinfeld where Kramer tries to guess Georges bank card password "Bosco". He straight away goes in for the food area and quickly hones in on chocolate. Then chases George out the apartment yelling all the wrong chocolate products.

Gave up on 200, got within 178 early on but every other guess was cold.

Got it in 60 with only one guess in the 900s. I've been too focused the last few days on related words (synonyms) instead of the underlying process, so that change helped.

yeah I got super caught up on a specific vector of do - manage - require etc

Got this one in 19, but very lucky again

In 16 rather. I had a bunch of cold guesses (26 was the highest) and then I randomly hit on a super close word that made it easy.

Sigh. I just spoiled today's puzzle (#19) for myself because I un-hid Neando's post thinking it was about yesterday's. Using the puzzle number is more useful than I had realized because it changes in the evening during prime "working on stuff" time.

The page also shows yesterdays word, so be weary of that too

But you can't play previous days' games.

I think someone upthread said they'd found a way of doing it

or i'm telling big fat fibs

Oh maybe you can do it by changing the system clock idk

oh that could have been it, I guess they wouldn't see the new page with the answer then

Yeah, if you leave the tab open, it's still operational the next day.

212 today. Got to 997/1000 very early, pretty much at random, but was struggling for a bit to nail it.

#19 took me 193. I genuinely thought I was going to get a really low score, but it turned out my green guesses were related to creation (PRODUCE, DISTRIBUTE, SYNTHESIZE, GENERATE), when I needed things more related to destruction (DIGEST, EAT). The key to my turn was actually scoring high with DEFECATE, hehehe. Got it fast after that.

8th guess botches!

16 on puzzle #19!

My best yet and feels like less of a fluke than my previous best, where after getting 15-20% on "person" I typed in a random profession which turned out to be half-connected to the answer. (Even then I spent a while going through the wrong half of the concept and guessing other related professions.)

51 today

a relative saunter

This one (#20) took me 117, but the solution actually popped into my mind much earlier and then popped out again, so I convinced myself that I had already guessed it and didn't try it for ages.

#20 took me 74 - got to green relatively quickly and then spent an absolute fuckload of time (and probably 40+ attempts) racking my brain for Perry Mason words - there are an awful lot of 'em!

fuck fuck fuck.

got it in 143. but I was...once again, in the right ballpark by like 80. I went through every courtroom related word imaginable too.

I solved Semantle #20 in 117 guesses. https://semantle.novalis.org/
Guess 23 was sentence which got me to the top 10, then I futzed around trying every related word I could think of.

This was a weird one for me because I only had three guesses in the green before I solved it, but I had more than 100 completely cold guesses.

it was the opposite for me!

I solved it in 70 but 38 were green guesses - it was pretty clear what the ballpark was, just a matter of hitting the right term

ok so i have a query and maybe someone with word2vec smarts can help me out and sorry if it's totally dumb - but in #20 the trail leading to the target word was very courtroom-based, which is fine - but in this case the word itself isn't exclusively a "court" word - like, it's a word with general meaning that i guess is used most commonly in a courtroom context, esp in media - but words like "implore" and "beg" i would consider very similar in meaning, but these are way down the list - does that mean that being 'usage adjacent' is more significant to the dataset than being 'meaning adjacent'?

Mr semantle I love it. Probably too niche to look at but doesn't work on qutebrowser. Submit button doesn't seem to do anything.

does that mean that being 'usage adjacent' is more significant to the dataset than being 'meaning adjacent'?

I'm not an expert (I've taken a couple classes on computational linguistics and played around with Python NLP libraries) but word embedding (which is the essence of what Word2vec does) is about inferring semantic relationships between words based on what words they appear next to and how often in a large corpus... the algorithm correctly inferring meaning adjacency is sort of the goal.

(Semantle #20 took me... 201 guesses)

I solved Semantle #20 in 46 guesses. https://semantle.novalis.org/

Which is worse than it sounds, given that my first guess was trial. Wall of green guesses.

92 today.

so frustrated with yesterday’s: followed a hook from “lasting” through “sustainable” up to “dispose” “burn” “calories” “incinerate” which got me in the green, the last one 700 odd and then just got stuck. didn’t turn it round from waste to the consumption part.

107. I'm gradually improving at this but still haven't done it in less than a hundred ffs! But consider me addicted to the green rush!

I was sent on a red wild goose herring and did not could.

Up to 306 so far today, I suppose I've avoided the feeling of having finished wordle, quordle, semantle and worldle and having nothing left to do.

^^all that plus spelling bee and nyt crossword lol

aside from the xword and tough days on semantle, most of these take less than ten minutes each tbf

stuck around late 900s for quite a few guesses now hmmm

I got a 996 answer and still ended up giving up, after 50 more tries. Ruined my day!

ha i was at 996 too
got it in 62 in the end :)

You found it in 553!

Had mind (296) fairly early and got stuck on that for about 250 guesses, then psychiatrist (615) for another 100, then a slow crawl up from cries (702). Weird that 'cries' and 'calls' are up in the top 1000, 'cry' and 'call' aren't but the word itself is singular.

I got a 996 answer and still ended up giving up, after 50 more tries. Ruined my day!

997 but yup :(

urgh, one average green out of 100 guesses. Gave up.

Im so good at this game. I got it in 37 today after 2 green

obviously luck has a lot to do with it

you've got to be bare forensic as well, innit! I think I need to slow down and be a more selective and thoughtful with my guesses instead of rapid firing them off like a maniac.

yeah i do that, and stupid things like guessing a word way too similar to one I already did that didn't compare well.

You have to do that though - 'cry' nope, 'crying' nope, 'cries' yeah, fuck you.

Im so good at this game. I got it in 37 today after 2 green

was watching this thread like a hawk to see if anyone would beat me, damn you

Dave, a leaderboard would be wise

(daily, weekly, lifetime)

41! My best so far.

Finally got #20, after 119 guesses! Wall of green otm, I had so many close attempts.

This game is so much more of a head-fucker than all the other word games precisely because it's so random from day to day! It kind of defies the attempt to strategize or get better at it ime.

Dave, a leaderboard would be wise

not necessary at all but I’d kinda like user stats too - wanna know what my average guess count is

had about ten guesses in the 900s having reached the top 1000 v rapidly but damned if i can get any further.

I got a 996 answer and still ended up giving up, after 50 more tries. Ruined my day!

i had to take 5 minute pauses between guesses to refresh my brain at that point.

I think you have to think less of the similarity of words and more the differing contexts they're likely to be used. That's my guess anyway. Like mist might be closer to perfume than dew

if you get too much of a fixed idea when start hitting those greens it can end up costing lots of bad guesses, you've still got keep it open but not so open that you are veering away. If that makes any sense.

ico otm

I solved Semantle #21 in 71 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 22.35. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #42. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 28.09 (601/1000).

Well there you have it. Definitely still feeling my way into how the algorithm groups words - trying to be both more and less literal if that makes sense. Sometimes feel like I am being trained in a new mode of language processing, which I guess I am.

Need to learn to be a bit more parsimonious with my guesses if I want to match some of the enviably low score around here though. Something quite compulsive about pouring words into the box until you get a close one tho - fast and furious guessing kind of matches the mental rummage through all the words that are somehow in my head.

agree it's more fun to just spam it with guesses, took me 134 for #21 (didn't get a green until guess #62)

56! woohoo

ooh i like that the Share feature now includes more details:

I solved Semantle #21 in 56 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 17.90. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #32. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 24.46. https://semantle.novalis.org/

the weird part of today is the thing that got me on the right path was, at #17, I guessed a word based on my previous guesses, that got me to almost 20%. I didn't make green until I considered a secondary definition of the word i played at #17, rather than the primary definition. which got me onto the green. and then from there, I was stuck for a bit until I considered the word that got me into green from a different perspective, and from there it was basically an open goal.

As close as 996 and feeling stuck.

I'm stuck on 994.

I solved Semantle #21 in 111 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 10.59. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #57. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 15.25. https://semantle.novalis.org/

I'm stuck on 993 in 84 guesses, not going to crack this in under a hundred today.

I solved Semantle #21 in 104 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 9.54. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #7. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 30.40 (771/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

ffs! but also yeah!

Beginners luck I think

I solved Semantle #21 in 77 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 11.48. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #32. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 36.08 (940/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

73 today. Kicking myself afterwards.

#21 in 34 guesses. My best ever. Could have been 25 but I forgot to try different forms of the word instead of synonyms.

34 is impressive! I made the same mistake, except I ended up getting it in 110 guesses. I hit upon word 948/1000 on my 39th guess and proceeded to rack up about 30 green words before it occurred to me that the secret word might be a different part of speech. my 102nd guess was the adjectival form of the secret word. on the bright side, I now have a sizeable lexicon of words that I might want to use if I ever decide to publish a book about optical illusions

I did it in 230, no idea how you guys are getting these so easily. One thing I did notice is that UK spellings now automatically seem to be "corrected" to US spellings and counted as guesses.

Finally got it in about 300 (two attempts on different devices). Was in the right area (religion) but my closest were saint and savior so I was thinking too much along the lines of holiness, goodness, protector.

it was feat that opened it up for me.

Mine was doodling around the area of rarity, obscurity, etc. decided to spiral off from rarity and went with wonder (warm), marvel (warmer), some other word I now can’t recall, then finally the word itself.

I solved Semantle #21 in 140 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 13.52. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #5. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 6.79.

lol at my penultimate guess being so wildly out, and it taking me so long after getting green at #5. Most of my hits were medical-based, it took me ages to get any warm hits that were kind of religious, so my brain was not on the right track at all for the longest time.

Got it in 59. First green word was gasp, then I got to feat, then magic, which got me stuck on a bunch of words related to magic shows and audience reactions and so on.

One new thing (I think) is that if you misspell a word, it still counts it as one of your guesses and gives you a ranking for it. I was going fast and wasted two guesses on typos.

Dave: it's likely to need some kind of moderation (ugh), but a bare bones chat app on the page would likely engender this kind of conversation among all users...

also there's apparently a reddit but i think you knew that
https://www.reddit.com/r/Semantle/

Just got my friends onto it and they're trying today's, they've been stuck on marvellous, amazing, breakthrough, eureka. After 200 guesses they've got onto religion but despite being Christian haven't made the link yet. It's pretty entertaining watching them try and figure it out!

I don't know if I'm the typical type of user, but I wouldn't use an on-page chat. Too much possibility of random assholes and spoilers. And keeping stuff simple seems like the best idea to me.

I solved Semantle #21 in 132 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 5.82. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #10. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 20.87.

My route was baby, then medical terms, then deliverance which put me on the right track.

I'm desperate. I've got a whole screen of green but where is this going?? On #105.

I solved Semantle #21 in 88 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 21.53. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #4. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 41.68 (985/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

This one was a little tricky, despite the fact I solved it in under 100. My brain just wasn’t going there until I started plugging in all the related words I could find.

37 today, personal best!

ugh 92 today

I'd say the magic's gone, kid. But tbf anything less than a hundred is actually pretty good!

Every day around three I start counting down the minutes until the new semantle arrives.

Ahahahaha I gave up and checked the answer and now I'm so annoyed after spending all day at 994 but unable to just get all the way there. I was on the wrong track for a while because I got high scores with NIGHTMARE, DREAM, and TRAGEDY, which seemed to lead another direction.

On #21 I got a (low) green on my 2nd guess, then doubled the score on my 3rd by typing its antonym, which was very exciting but didn't help me at all in the end, as I took 399 guesses to get the word. Oh well!

I got stuck in a very similar rut to in orbit, stuck in the 800s with tragedy, calamity, misfortune and similar for ages. Even when I branched out to religion via rapture & armageddon it took me a long old time.

It's past midnight so I could do #22 now but I probably should go to bed at a somewhat reasonable time instead.

I solved Semantle #22 in 134 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 6.54. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #9. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 2.12. https://semantle.novalis.org/

satisfying, i usually tap out once im over 100ish or so guesses. had prob two dozen guesses in the top 90% for this one

I solved Semantle #22 in 60 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 4.50. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #20. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 2.97. https://semantle.novalis.org/

I couldn't wait until the morning, my first half decent score.

for a dyslexic who frequently misses words when typing and is a complete idiot. I feel like I'm getting quite good at this!

gave up on #22 despite having many many little green lines including 998/1000 - couldn't quite find that last mental zag, just kept zigging

I solved Semantle #22 in 25 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 2.12. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #11. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 21.00. https://semantle.novalis.org/

woo! also probably never topping this score again lol. The solution was imo very similar to the only green word I got, so I thought at most it would be another green - wasn’t expecting it to be actual word

when I get to 25 I'm going to bake a cake

Incredible feat!

fuck this sucks

I solved Semantle #22 in 173 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 1.52. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #22. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 21.53 (113/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

i had cleared 30% similarity by guess 32, and just kept grinding and couldn't get the precision needed to find the right word.

gah, this one took me 208.

I'm starting to know when I've won, even before the screen changes - I start to get a sense for which words are too close to what I've already entered, and then when I hit on a word with the right amount of distance, and connections to everything I've typed in so far, it just feels right.

389 for #22. Synonyms, man.

I gave up at 104 but I had been at 998 and 997 since the 50s.

I also said the word out loud and thought I entered it, but had not.

I solved Semantle #22 in 85 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 1.10. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #7. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 38.83 (988/1000).

…I started guessing synonyms around my 75th guess and zeroed in on it!

Personal stats are likely at some point -- they're in the top-five or so requested features. A leaderboard is not happening, because (a) the game is so deeply unfair and (b) it would be immediately filled up by cheaters, and (c) it's about the journey. But also it would require me to store stuff on the server, and that sort of programming is less fun than my day job.

"it's about the journey"

yep.

101 today, got to 970 within 30 but struggled after that. Think I put too much weight on synonyms, when I put an antonym in got it within 6 guesses.

Been stuck on 992 for 150 guesses, I have so much green pointing in one direction but either that's hugely misleading or there's a synonym (or antonym) that's eluding me.

Gave up today, frustratingly was 10 words away on my 28th guess but I wandered off the correct track, gah.

Ooooh got it in 66! That makes a nice change from recent hopelessness.

Very hungover, took me 205. Had a look at the nearest words and this one stood out as quite WTF: 872 footcandles 28.76 ?!?!?!

Forgot to do #21. Just got #22 in 14.

I was very close on #20 but never got it.

I solved Semantle #22 in 100 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 1.84. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #4. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 9.51. https://semantle.novalis.org/

emil.y that's hilarious! And..........inexplicable? Computers wtf.

the thing I'm realizing about synonyms is that I often tend to guess ten dollar words when the answer is a 5 cent word.

have to remind myself the answer is more likely to be simple, not shit like "sesquipedalian".

I was so mad yesterday because I knew exactly what the answer was looking forward, but I kept missing the synonym because I was getting too cutesy with it and the answer was of course much easier than what i was guessing.

ffs I guessed echelon, percentile, quadrant before I could think oh shit, "level"

Personal stats are likely at some point -- they're in the top-five or so requested features. A leaderboard is not happening, because (a) the game is so deeply unfair and (b) it would be immediately filled up by cheaters, and (c) it's about the journey. But also it would require me to store stuff on the server, and that sort of programming is less fun than my day job.

― David Turner (semantle), Sunday, February 20, 2022 8:01 AM bookmarkflaglink

that's awesome! and agree on the leaderboard, that would actually hurt my enjoyment of it a little. thank you for this new daily addiction :)

I solved Semantle #22 in 430 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 7.40. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #10. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 29.43 (895/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

And I cheated with a thesaurus. Was stuck on low (992) forever, tried all variations and antonyms, had a wall of green that all pointed towards ranking / grading. I never considered equality, though I've just tried 'equal' and it's cold, wtf. What were some words higher than 992?

surely using a thesaurus isn't cheating? lol I'm a total cheat if that is true. And sometimes I think using a thesaurus actually makes it harder in some ways!

well maybe not harder but it will send you in many more wrong directions

i used one last night but that was the first time and I also had a friend venting to me in a crisis so I couldn't focus like normal

it did cause me to waste guesses I woldn't have otherwise wasted as well

I think my definition of cheating would be using a thesaurus that was constructed using the same word algorithm semantle uses. But a human constructed thesaurus is a potentially useful tool if you use it well, but not a cheat.

I agree tbh. I mostly find it easier to just go from my own brain. it actually caused me to blow 30 guesses yesterday lol, and the thesaurus didn't pick u pthe right word.

Ah you can now see the top words after winning! The top ten is pretty bonkers imo and I'm not sure it would have helped me, even with a thesaurus.

good choice for baiting the hook for new players and for teaching people how to THINK LIKE A COMPUTER

hey dave you should post pictures of your pottery in here as it is fucking amazing

Pottery! Yes! (Though maybe take it over to the 'forks throws pottery' thread so as not to go too far off-topic here?)

oh yeah, i forgot dave is not an ilxor exactly:
forks throws pottery (and maybe you do too?) - An ILX Ceramics Thread
Many of the pieces in there are joint things with Dave! It's an embarrassing showcase, especially when i scroll up.

TOday's took 131 but I did it quickly. First green word was therefore - no real idea why. Got kind and grade and type quite early

holy fucking shit - I did it in 35!

I solved Semantle #23 in 35 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 22.96. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #6. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 7.64. https://semantle.novalis.org/

I got very lucky with try quite early

In a sea of 900s, still can't get it

This is so frustrating - I have 991, 992 and 995 and I still can't get it

same... i got 995 on my 25th guess, but can't close in more than 100 guesses later

my god, this was brutal

I solved Semantle #23 in 166 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 0.66. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #110. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 7.21. https://semantle.novalis.org/

110 guesses to even crack the top 1000. I was completely off base until then. and even after that I was off base again.

Hit 337/1000 after 50 guesses, gave up after 70.

i "solved" #22 in 7 guesses... just got lucky with a random guess

i was solidly hitting in the top 1000 early every one up until this, I started to feel like an imposter a bit

Second time I've given up despite being in the 990s

finally got it in 194.

for the longest time, my highest words were provide, give and receive which made me think about gifting or trading terms like deliver, grant, and supply, and ten thousand similar synonyms. very misleading.

Exactly the same with me! But I didn't have the patience to go to 194!

yeah or the time! it can definitely chew up the minutes this game - anyway i got stuck in pretty much the same dead end as Roz - yesterday i had a similar experience where all my green words were kind of climbing movement-related, like 'elevate' and 'inspire' and 'promote' - then i got 'threshold' which was #997 i think, and my brain just locked up - i would never have got to 'level' in a million years

I am hopelessly stuck on this one; I'm at 995/1000 right now and I think I must be going in the wrong direction with my guesses but cannot figure out where else to go.

995 feels like it should unlock everything, but didn't for me!

in case you guys want a hint (and don't worry, it's not a spoiler word) - if you managed to get guess 994, that is a better indicator than 995

ah dammit sorry!! that was meant to be hidden - fuck you bbcode

64, got lucky today. After 60 cold guesses, I landed on something close quite by chance.

Semantle is punishing us for stealing English vocabulary from all and sundry

I solved Semantle #23 in 224 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 0.72. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #6. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 6.81. https://semantle.novalis.org/

Turn 6 was act at 209/1000, shortly followed by enact in the top 100. Which led to me trying a bunch of legal terms again.

Average similarity per guess might be an interesting stat to see afterward.

Oof, took me 185, and it was a bit of a stab-in-the-dark guess that I genuinely didn't expect to be correct (I was on the same track as Roz). I was thinking I'm getting worse at this game, but seems like aside from a couple of v low scores most people struggled with this one?

Yeah I'm struggling too, 158 guesses and can't get past 995 - and that was with help from my wife after being stuck on 992. I did enjoy last week when it seemed I was getting good at this.

lol how on earth did I manage to do it in 35 last night. Pure drunk luck obv!

I gave up - I think if you have a bunch of close guesses in the same area but have really exhausted all available synonyms etc there's no choice but to start from scratch. Or just give up.

It's not just about synonyms though is it, otherwise it would be piss easy with a thesaurus once you'd hit green. Rather, it's about related concepts.

True, that definitely seems to be the way it goes - I'm still quite surprised though that e.g. search is nowhere near today's.

this is precisely why using a thesaurus can sometimes be useful, and at other times a total hindrance.

yesterday it got me to the finish line instantly, because the terrible tv show that was on was blocking me from thinking of the one word I needed.

the other day it fucked me

Argh! I was so close at 175 guesses and word #996. Just didn’t get there in time.

I solved Semantle #24 in 43 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 3.88. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #25. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 27.37 (817/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

I solved Semantle #24 in 32 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 0.01. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #14. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 15.80. https://semantle.novalis.org/

YEAH MOTHERFUCKER

It's happening again... I've got 998 and 996 and I still can't get it

Finally, with 67 guesses. Having got 998 at guess 15. Searching for synonyms can really put you off your game, but I'm struggling to work out what's the right strategy.

Oh I gave up today. Not that the word was obscure or anything, but the synonyms for the answer scored low and didn't point the way.

I solved Semantle #24 in 24 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 24.16 (492/1000).My penultimate guess had a similarity of 6.45.

This will never happen again, but I will enjoy it after the pain of the last two days.

I think it's really difficult to think contextually in the way that's required here. You tend to look for synonyms/antonyms, but when you actually look at the the top 20 or so closest words, generally very few are direct synonyms/antonyms. In yesterday's one, I got give/receive/provide in the 990s and proceeded to try a million synonyms/antonyms. But the answer was seek, ie not a synonym/antonym of those others, but rather in a close contextual relationship with them, ie in seeking something, you want someone to give/provide you with something.

testing the spoiler tag

spoiler

okay did that right

stalled out at 808/1000, taking a break

38 visionary 27.20 808/1000
70 innovator 26.51 758/1000
80 inspiring 26.31 743/1000
71 innovative 25.89 713/1000
94 cutting edge 24.87 ????

My kid got this one in 54, proud of her

I solved Semantle #24 in 37 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 5.42. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #5. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 38.41 (980/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

I'm glad the stats all start from today and all records of my terrible attempts from last week are lost

yeah only problem is i can now only play semantle on my work computer, in order to preserve forever my ridiculously lucky session today

Ugh today’s is tough for me - 80 words in and nowhere close

media check:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/semantle-is-hard-mode-wordle-powered-by-a-google-neural-network
https://discord.st/server/daily-semantle/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnPZY4z75j0

I now have 4 friends on FB playing this religiously w/ me.

I solved Semantle #24 in 330 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 13.75. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #23. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 4.03

yeesh that was a slog - followed all the wrong leads

I solved Semantle #24 in 66 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 3.15. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #39. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 69.46 (999/1000). My early low-level hits were ancient, zodiac, constellation, fantasy, myth so I was on the wrong track for a while.

I gave up on #23 around guess 120 but only because I was really busy last night/today! I think I like the harder ones more.

#24 in 72 guesses. Guess 32 was internet which was 884/1000 and led to a very lucky guess.

I really like the new personal stats tracking... would be fun to see (my own) quickest and longest solves on there.

I solved Semantle #24 in 43 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 12.54. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #30. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 17.53.

After giving up on yesterday's at 200 or so guesses this was a treat

just jumped from cold to 997/1000 in one go (a decently guessed stab in the dark) and now i’m stuck because i’ve got no through line to follow.

ok got there in 32.

76 today, fun way getting there

love the nearest word list, almost poetic

74 for me. Once I was on the right track this one wasn't too hard to get.

I'm done with this, several of my words which really should have been extremely close were nowhere near today.

what words?

done in 36 btw

I solved Semantle #24 in 35 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 7.91. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #2. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 12.39.

You know what? I found that much less satisfying than getting it at ~100 guesses. And also now I have nothing to do with my day, boo.

I solved Semantle #24 in 218 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 14.26. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #122. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 8.55. https://semantle.novalis.org/

Wow, that one was a struggle. Took me over 120 guesses to get into the green, another 50 guesses to get into the 900s, & a further 50 guesses to nail it. Satisfying finish, tho, enabled by a surprising intuitive leap at guess 211.

79 guesses for #24, sheer luck as I was banging in words at random.

I solved Semantle #24 in 113 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 14.26. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #46. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 20.93. https://semantle.novalis.org/

I'll take it. Once I got a sort of close guess (851) thinking laterally not literally definitely helped - this one time anyway.

lots of "most x thing in the world" in the top 1000, and one of the highest is "horniest".

did it in SEVEN today, fuck yeah

This one took me 228 guesses. I was stuck for a really long time at 977, then got one guess a few steps higher than that and immediately found the solution.

I solved Semantle #25 in 167 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 9.00. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #46. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 73.47 (999/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

I'm not proud but I'll take it. I think I have a new Playing Semantle at Work strategy - make a bunch of guesses, get stuck, do something else and come back to it later.

Which is probably a good Semantle strategy even without the "at work" part.

Yet again, swimming in a sea of green, well into the 900s, and yet I can't get it. Will take the above advice and take a break.

did it in SEVEN today, fuck yeah

― kinder, Tuesday, February 22, 2022 12:25 PM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't understand how this is even possible

i made it to 998 today and still ended up giving up

Taking a break at guess 700 today. got to 992/1000 and I'm stuck.

BTW:

The Twitterverse also likes to tweet at the Wordplay account and, in the early days of the digital game, one particularly incensed solver drove home the point that the word RAFFIA should be accepted, by mailing a package of the palm fiber ribbon to the home of crossword editor Will Shortz, to Mr. Shortz’s complete bewilderment.

This was a buddy of mine who did this! He was proud it got called out in the article.
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Friday, October 22, 2021 4:26 AM (four months ago)

I solved Semantle #25 in 46 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 6.61. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #40. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 34.87 (832/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

a lot of luck in this game

ugh after being so cold i tried something completely different i got 972/1000 on guess 8 and quickly got to 993/1000 on guess 10 and…. now i’m on guess 25 and stuck.

Stuck at 998 and >300 guesses. :/

I cheated. I don't think I would have got today's.

I gave up despite once again getting a couple of 990s. Think I could have got it if I'd persevered.

stuck on 997 and heading towards 200 guesses

same, but I'm on 998

998 really lulls you into a sense of false confidence, I could never get that close to the answer and think I still need to change direction. The jump from 998 to 999 makes some sort of theoretical sense I guess but all of my answers in the 990s were related to cumbersomeness or convolutedness, had to assume I just wasn't hitting the right synonym. Costliness feels like a whole different world

972 is my best so far, but unlike Fizzles I have yet to progress further from it.

plenty of time, mike. i'm still stuck on 993 despite picking it up occasionally and throwing in increasingly desperate tangents.

I gave up after being stuck at 998 for 200 guesses. Boy, my early stats are really not looking great lol

I have had a few tries at this in the last couple of weeks and have got literally nowhere (like punch in 40+ words at random and never see any green) before giving up.

Today I am closer - the thrill of seeing that green bar for the first time! - and am stalled on 987 after a miraculously low (for me) 95 goes.

I solved Semantle #25 in 197 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 4.00. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #99. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 21.08. https://semantle.novalis.org/

felt like finishing below 200 was an accomplishment today.

finishing that was far more satisfying than my best score of 35 the other day tbh. Mo struggle = mo fun!