A Year of Wordle

Partway through the second week of February 2022, a global phenomenon named Wordle captured my attention. At first hesitant, I dismissed the word game as another millennial fad. But I couldn’t ignore the growing number of people—many in the over-fifty group—who flaunted their successes in my Twitter feed.

A brief recap

All players have to guess the same five-letter word in six attempts. After each attempt, the tiles turn gray to show which letters are not in the word, gold for which letters are in the word but in the wrong position, and green for which letters are in the correct spaces. Players have one day to solve the puzzle before the game resets with a new word.

Determined to stay current, I made two feeble attempts before achieving my first Wordle success. While it took five out of six tries to get that coveted row of green letters, I was overjoyed. Most days, it takes three to four attempts, slightly below the global average of 4.016 guesses. I also enjoy receiving complimentary comments from the Wordle powers-that-be:

# of Tries	6	5	4	3	2	1
Comment	Phew	Great	Splendid	Impressive	Magnificent	Genius

Afterward, I share my successes on Twitter and welcome the likes and “thumb-up” emojis from fellow Wordlers.

My strategy

While sipping my morning coffee, I input one of three “vowel-heavy” words [audio, ounce, canoe] in the first row. I use the second row to test for any remaining vowels. Once I have my vowels, I experiment with consonant pairs like bl, ch, dr, and st.

So simple, yet so satisfying, Wordle has an intriguing back story:

Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, wanted to alleviate his partner’s boredom during the pandemic, so he created a guessing game for the two of them. As a play on his last name, he called it Wordle. After playing for several months, Josh introduced Wordle to his relatives. In October 2021, he released the game to the rest of the world and later sold it to The New York Times for a seven-figure amount in February 2022.

Wordle is now available in 64 languages, including natural languages and made-up ones from Star Trek and Lord of the Rings.

Any other Wordlers out there? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Where to find Joanne Guidoccio…

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