Tomtit in the tilth -- the NY TIMES SPELLING BEE thread

NAPHTHA not being accepted makes me so mad, every time.

today's Wordle was the toughest for me because I'm not clear on the rules for indicating repeated letters. I think I have it figured out now though.

Honestly, half of the fun of the Bee is complaining about included or excluded words.

I am coming to the same conclusion, al"bee"it reluctantly. upthread you will see me expressing irritation with that approach. I am starting to embrace it now

Heh.

Wait, kinder, what do you mean by “indicating repeated letters”?

So say the word was DODGY
If I get _ _ D_Y obviously either of D and Y could be in the remaining blank letters

But if I put A Y D R Y (pretend this is a real word) and the first Y is grey does that mean it's not in the blank letters at all or in another position - because grey is supposed to indicate that letter is not in the word at all (according to the 'how to play') but clearly that's incorrect. So I still wondered if there might be a second Y in one of the other positions, say YEDLY.
I tried something similar today to figure out the 'rules' and I think maybe it treats remaining blank letters as 'the word' so it would be yellow if it was there a second time but in a different position?
I always forget that if they're 'green' they could still be somewhere else in there, anyway.

So sorry yeah I didn't really mean 'indicating repeated letters' - more what I can infer from the colours of the remaining letter guesses given that grey doesn't mean it's not in the word at all if it's already been found. I've only played it a few times so still figuring it out!

i went from a "2 performance" to a 5 rounder today. i thought i had really figured out things. :(

Does it really matter? Seems to be a question of luck.

staring at the crossword puzzle, i asked myself, does it really matter

I'd say no.

@ kinder, yeah if there is a repeated letter in your guess, they'll green one if it's in the correct position, and yellow the other if there is a second occurrence of the same letter; the second letter will be grey otherwise.

So if the solution is PATTY, the guess TOTEM will get you yellow/green, TACIT will get you yellow/yellow.
If the solution is DATUM, the guess TOTEM will get you grey/green, the guess TACIT will get you yellow/grey.

Thanks! That's nice and clear.

Honestly, half of the fun of the Bee is complaining about included or excluded words.

― Rabbit Pen Warren (Leee), Sunday, 9 January 2022 09:02 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I am coming to the same conclusion, al"bee"it reluctantly. upthread you will see me expressing irritation with that approach. I am starting to embrace it now

― nonsensei (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 9 January 2022 09:04 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

there is a longer game within the game - we are meant to slowly figure out who sam is

Intriguing theory. It's like a Where's Waldo or Kit Williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_%28book%29.

Sam is interested in birds and Italian food. Has no interest in British politics or chemical compounds. Relatively few modes of preindustrial transport, except for oared craft. No knowledge of the terminology of the age of sail.

Sam likes loanwords but only from certain languages - Spanish but not French; indigenous Americans but not Arabic.

His affection for childish nonsense words indicates that he is either a manchild or a father.

Possibly Jewish, probably not Catholic.

kit Williams was local when i was growing up and one of the places in town used to get their lawn dug up regularly because it featured in the book.

there's still a clock he designed in the arcade in Cheltenham

lol, i had a copy of masquerade as a kid. and theories!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTz1aTIX1u8

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

The mechanics of Absurdle are identical to Wordle, or as close as I can make them. Among other things, they use the same word lists. (There are actually two word lists in Wordle: one is a list of 2,315 words which can appear as answers, and the other is a list of 10,657 rather more obscure words which are allowed as guesses but will never appear as answers.) The major difference is behind the scenes.

Wordle picks a single secret word at the beginning of the game, and then you have to guess it. Absurdle gives the impression of picking a single secret word, but instead what it actually does is consider the entire list of all possible secret words which conform to your guesses so far. Each time you guess, Absurdle prunes its internal list as little as possible, attempting to intentionally prolong the game as much as possible.

Absurdle 8/∞

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Absurdle 10/∞

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

oh brother

Absurdle 5/∞

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟨🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

not bad considering 4 is the most the creator thinks is possible!

no spoilers but one of the things with Wordle is that I often forget American words are spelled differently to their British version, today I almost lost my streak because I nearly didn't realise that

not bad considering 4 is the most the creator thinks is possible!

Oh, I see, I think.

What was your word choice, harbl? I can't reduce Absurdle past 7

I actually tried the example given on the Absurdle to get to 4 but it didn’t work with the current word list I think.

i don't remember at all, sorry! i like absurdle better than wordle

it may have been bride or drive but i can't be sure

have ended with JAZZY twice

Oh yeah, I just had that one!

actually just got it again. the way i play seems to force it in that direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0COws8SyQus

Absurdle 5/∞

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

SEAMY
GROIN
BUTCH
FLEET
TWEED

Took some trial and error, I can get 6 fairly reliably. Put Y in the first guess so it doesn't appear in the result, gets rid of words ending double letter Y e.g. JAZZY. Getting S out of the way also helpful, and as many other high frequency letters as you can.

Ahhhh that's a good tactic

Wordle 207 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Started off with ADIEU today after reading about it from someone else's strategy.

Ooh thanks for Absurdle, I like it

Absurdle 5/∞

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

5 on my first Absurdle. I did my first Wordle in 2 so there’s some serious beginner’s luck going on here

Absurdle 5/∞

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Tomorrow's Wordle answer should be MATHS. See how they like it

— Alex Selby-Boothroyd (@AlexSelbyB) January 12, 2022

I’ve managed to get in five or six attempts pretty regularly on Absurdle - still trying to get that elusive four. Anyone else has managed?

Lots of fives but no fours - weirdly the one mention in the notes (aiery/canst/dolma/offal) doesn't work, laugh/lauch/pupal are all possible after that.

But if you guess pupal it gives you the win, instead of carrying on with laugh/lauch and giving a grey for the Ps and a yellow for the U.

sorry, not lauch (whatever that is), the c is not available. laugh still works though.

it has been pointed out to me that 'laugh' is not available at that point as 'a' in second place has already been ruled out.

Your point still stands: that the example given on the website does not work.

tangential but with wordle going supermainstream it's time for new new hotness:
https://wikitrivia.tomjwatson.com/

my top so far is 10