Defend The Indefensible: Wordle

what's psy op abt it?

i think its ok. what wins said about spelling bee, the creator of that needs a heavy punishment beating. most days

i will never take time from my busy important life to play a daily word game but i greatly like the way wordle's soothing untranslateable abstract pattern pops up to interrupt the relentless harshness of my war-torn TL its like visual ASMR from donald judd

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck, and few don't eventually guess the word, I quickly stopped playing. But I concede there's probably something soothing to that for some folks. Not everything has to be doing the Times crossword in pen with the timer going.

lest we forget (images lost to time):
mastermind, the game

^pvmic

played Mastermind a lot as a kid

anyway was coming here to agree with you all that Wordle hate is futile (and passe) in March 2022 but I did just see #WordleTheAlbum trending on UK Twitter so

Yes, let's reserve our hate for the Wordle Movie (coming spring 2024)

Sounds like a Pokemon character already.

I love Quordle and play it every day. So does my bf and my mom. Idk why anybody wouldn’t enjoy it except that they find people sharing their results tiresome, but it was fun the other day to scratch my head at JUNTO and Google “junto” and get back all these people on Twitter screaming “wtf is a JUNTO?!”

^seconded

It seems like the bulk of people came to Wordle very late in its run (the first time I remember seeing results shared en masse was somewhere in the 190s), so I have to imagine many of the most familiar words had already dropped off the list before people noticed it. I suspect it will be a very long time before we see a word repeated, but ones in common usage will be fewer and farther between until then.

I do find the copycats thing annoying as they spring up so quickly it feels cynical and like skilled people not busy enough in their job are just hanging around waiting for someone else to prove something is worth their precious time and effort. Ah wait this has kinda been my life MO minus the actual success and now I am too busy.

This garbage psy-op robot nonsense

look dude I understand not wanting to have any part of the latest trend but you clearly don't even understand what Wordle is

to be clear i'm not a Wordle "adherent" and i don't post about Wordle on social media - but it's really actually harmless

@ johnny fever are you suggesting that ..... we are running out of words after 200 games?

.....

Nope, I'm just guessing that Wardle, when developing the game, probably used a lot of commonly used words first before poring over his dictionary for stretching out the game's lifespan. NYT is still following the original game's numbering and wordlist afaik, so the words are only going to get more obscure before it circles around and gets easy again.

so its creator is called Wardle ffs

I feel this fact will have been discussed to death on corners of the web I've thankfully not encountered yet

some words that have already appeared as answers: rebut, humph, whelp, wooer, agora (last one removed by nyt). i'm guessing he randomised the list (of 2315 words, enough for over 6 years of gameplay), which was already had very obscure words filtered out by his girlfriend.

wooer some bullshit

Semantle is better

I like it because it's only once a day--it's impossible to develop the kind of addiction I have to internet Scrabble and internet backgammon. Half the time I forget to even check for that day's Wordle. I've done about 40--only got it in two once. I don't think I'd ever post on Facebook about it...though I do post Scrabble screenshots here and on Facebook.

It seems like the bulk of people came to Wordle very late in its run (the first time I remember seeing results shared en masse was somewhere in the 190s), so I have to imagine many of the most familiar words had already dropped off the list before people noticed it.

(xps & ledge has already got there first but)

I agree that this could happen (though have not paused to guess how many five letter words might be reasonably familiar to most people) but the 3rd and 4th Wordle answers were "sissy" and "humph"!

Can only imagine the reaction to those on Twitter now, "sissy" with a triple letter and a word I would not care to use in conversation unless very obviously joking, and "humph" right on the onomatopoeic word-or-not faultline (although I think it came up in Dordle or Quordle or Octordle recently).

(Yes I have been playing all 4 of these games lately; Wordle is a nice quick thing to do when you have a spare minute, and Quordle hits the a better sweet spot for actual puzzliness for me. Octordle is just too much, although possibly only because the UI is horrible and you can only see two of the words at once.)

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck

Half agree with this. One weird thing is that getting it in two (where's there's at least some reasoning involved) is more impressive than getting it in one (100% blind luck). I feel like I've used a lot of reasoning in the ones I've gotten in three and four.

I mean there’s the same amount of luck involved as other letter guessing games like wheel of fortune & hangman

xp yes, picking a second or third guess to eliminate as many alternatives as possible is definitely something you can do to improve on blind luck.

here's a few out of many non obscure words in the last 50 or so (apologies if anyone remembers this six years from now and complains about spoilers): hello, adult, rival, piece.

I'd say getting it in 2 is mostly just luck, though you can boost your chances a bit, and there can be a large amount of luck even with the 3s; if you're unlucky and/or don't pause to think through all the options you can lose, but most players will get there in less than 6 most days. So from the game design point of view Wordle is not perfect, but it's a fun enough pastime for a tea break, anyway.

And I admit when I see the green and yellow squares popping up I mostly think "nobody cares how many you got it in" (but yes, I've still talked about the day's puzzles online, so guilty too) but it's kind of nice to see the internet talking about something so harmless imo.

Working from home, I get to watch a TV quiz show called "Lingo".

This, basically, is the same as Wordle. Or so it seems.

I have not signed onto "Wordle" or anything similar, as the TV show is enough already.

(xp to self) Or, a month ago there were a lot of squares on my timeline and I'd think "nobody cares" but now there aren't so many, so when they do pop up it can be vaguely interesting to see if I can work backwards a bit to guess what word the poster started with.

(If I know them well enough to care at all what random words they typed into a webpage, which tbh is probably a stupid thing to think about at all.)

I just tried Semantle! God it is hard. I guessed the second-closest word on my 25th guess then spent my next twenty guesses on variations of that word instead of... something immediately adjacent to that word

Wordle is fine. I'm less interested in it now that it's on the Times website, and presumably will be paywalled soon. I still do them some days. It was fun when it was just a random web thing, sort of felt like a 90s internet throwback. I knew it wouldn't last that way.

I think its neat that it's a one-a-day thing and everyone gets the same word. the communal aspect of that is cool & I like that it only asks for a couple minutes of your day. watching Twitter bitch about a word like TACIT is kinda fun

Yeah, this. I don't post my own results on social media, but my wife and text them to each other every morning, and I'll occasionally chime in on someone else's Wordle post. I think it's a charming little game, with a charming little backstory, and it's charming that the dude got a million bucks from the NYT for something he made just for fun. Hard for me to see the harm.

my wife and I, that should say.

man alive otm

the original site's code was 100% client-side so you could just save the webpage to your computer and it would work offline for another 6 years until it runs out of words. i.e. it was made in a way thats impossible to paywall. the times basically just bought the name & idea.

My favorite thing was the pissy person on Twitter who scraped the word list from the code and made a bot that would post spoilers for tomorrow's word on everyone's results, I have never been irritated by something so much that it made me go out of my way to be an ass to people I don't know

i found the posts a little annoying at first, but now i don't care

I like it. It's like when people used to do the crossword on their commutes but now they do it before they start their day WFH

That person is a cunt but that was kinda funny, also the fact that they got banned within like a day - Twitter does have community standards! xp

yeah 100%

taylordle.com

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck, and few don't eventually guess the word

Getting the word is a given, the fun part is getting it in as few tries as possible imo.

I usually do it within a few moments of waking up, posting squares is lame though.

not skill but knowledge, the bigger your vocabulary the better obv

Wordle is mmorpg daily quests for boomers and the NYT ruling class. And that's okay.

I do wordle and quordle every night and have a running competition with my partner. It's become a midnight routine. Agree with a passing spacecadet that quordle is the copycat that feels like a real game and not a gimmick. Octordle is just ridiculous for the sake of it. And the quordle UI is good, they've gotten it so the whole playing board fits on your screen at once

I dislike the culture of secrecy-at-all-costs around wordle. People can get so weird about acknowledging any aspect of the word itself, even if it's like deep in someone's Twitter replies where no one would go if they hadn't already done the word that day. People will get weird when someone else types out yesterday's word. Can only assume this type of person is aroused by the inherent taboo of wordle

those are the same people that say "you telling me you enjoyed the show is a spoiler!!!"

run through wordle, quordle and octordle at midnight - it's not really rewarding at this point but it's like doing sudoku on my phone when I'm waiting around staring at the wall. Five minutes to run through all three, a miniscule serotonin hit at having won something.

I am obsessed with sedecordle now

If ever a word should have been solved in one try--I took five--it's "karma." Sorry, John Lennon.

It seems like the bulk of people came to Wordle very late in its run (the first time I remember seeing results shared en masse was somewhere in the 190s), so I have to imagine many of the most familiar words had already dropped off the list before people noticed it.

I thought the dude (and his partner) pared down the list to 2,500 or so familiar five-letter words, and then hit a randomizer that essentially set the word list for the next 6+ years. So there's no reason to think that earlier words were any more familiar than current or later ones.

Someone mentioned that upthread. I didn't know the backstory.

Ha ha - my recall can't claim to be very good but some more distinctive words do stick in my head. And it helps that I'm in a WhatsApp group for it with three pals as the associated discussion might help to lodge things a bit better.

I hate it when my first word leaves me with an A in the middle and an E at the end, which has happened at least a few times in recent memory. No matter how many consonants or vowels I think of to add to the second choice, there are so many possibilities that answer is always elusive

yesterday's was a close SHAVE - on my fifth guess I had SHA_E, with V M D K and L still available

Yeah, I had SHAME on my second guess, but it took me all 6 to get to SHAVE argh.

I got that one in 3 which is about the only time Wordle has been kind to me in the last few months

Back to 4 today sigh

Can I complain about Connections in this thread too? Because I have an issue with today’s.

i love to gripe about connections, let's hear yours!

xp hero?
I've only recently started playing it but today's was the first I didn't get in time. for a UKer some of the options are a bit baffling.

Yes, hero. That’s a sandwich (in parts of the US) not a type of bread.

noun. a large sandwich, usually consisting of a small loaf of bread or long roll cut in half lengthwise and containing a variety of ingredients, as meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Notice it doesn’t say “usually consisting of a small hero,” because that’s completely wrong.

my american colleague says "an american regionalism... very New York. “Would you like that on a hero or a roll?”"

Which may explain why a NYT puzzle setter would think that’s well known. I’m in Minnesota and have never heard it.

There are definitely regionalisms in terms of words and associations in Connections! Idk I consider both to be part of the assumed cultural capital… as in, even if you don’t live in/near NYC, you should know these NYC-isms… the “purple” ones also assumed certain cultural capital

The descriptions for the connections are often not how I would articulate the connection…

my american colleague says "an american regionalism... very New York. “Would you like that on a hero or a roll?”"

idk, what about a sub or a hoagy?

jfc it was bad enough having to know about american sports!

i get it, it's basically revenge on all those cricketing terms in uk cryptic crosswords.

Xp … yes a sub and a hoagy and a hero and a grinder… I see as different names for the same thing?

Xp ledge … it took me way too long to figure out what a “spag bol” was … i thought it referred to a bowl of spaghetti

See I would consider the hero bread to be a kind of roll!

That’s my issue with this. It’s a hero roll, some people are just skipping the “roll” part. “Do you want that sandwich made as a roll or a hero?” The bread itself is not a hero. But whatever. Sandwiches, that’s where I’m a Viking!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagie_roll

But it’s the description of the connection that is the problem, as opposed to being able to identify a hero as a type of sandwich that is connected to the other three terms as “sandwich related “

At least that’s my issue

I love all of the fronting as if the UK doesn't pack five different bread-roll-based shibboleths in an area the size of NYC.

yeah exactly; meanwhile the UK has more words for "bread roll" than any other word in the English language and this didn't have any of them

How many ilxors playing connections got the purple one first today? I am guessing a lot of you did too

yes

Yes

yep

Haha, yes!

I got the green and yellow no problem but couldn't get the blue and purple! I swore loudly when I rushed into getting it wrong so I could see the solution. I'm almost ashamed to show my face around here tbh.

I didn’t believe purple was what it was and did yellow first

yes, I got purple first as well

For me the tipoff was seeing Nicks and Mercury. I always see if I can figure out what to do with the oddball words.

yup

I did wonder if GALL was also part of the group though

pretty straight forward one today (though I’m kicking myself I subbed in an option from the yellow line to the blue line)
https://i.postimg.cc/Ghv92JqL/IMG-0602.jpg