That’s it! Rumor. It has to be rumor!

Gray, green, green, green, green.

You have GOT to be kidding me!!! What else could it be?

Oh. Humor.

Green, green, green, green, green. 

Five tries. Ouch. 

Luckily, it took my dad four attempts so I did not feel like a complete failure. 

Wordle, the letter-based, daily, strategy game that is sweeping the nation.

Quicker and easier than crosswords, although I may just be biased because I suck at crosswords, Wordle has wormed its way into our LIVES and HEART(s). 

How do you START your Wordle? Are you a strategic player who consistently uses the same word like ADIEU or AUDIO?  Do you live life on the edge guessing whatever five-letter word first pops into your head? Personally, I use the latter method, with a dash of logic thrown in. If the first word I think of has a double letter or only one vowel I will not try it. I like to test words with some of the big ticket consonants R,S,T,L,N (thank you Wheel of Fortune), often with multiple vowels. Some of my recent favorites have been ROUTE, STAIN, and OLIVE.  

Obviously, the first word you guess is extremely important, or the second in cases of the dreaded all gray first guess; however, “winning” the game often comes down to the way you think. A few days ago my first guess was QUAIL and from there I went to LIGHT. I explain it by saying I had used RIGHT as a guess the day before but really I’m just a genius. (I was also playing at 4’oclock in the morning so maybe that had something to do with it. And no I did not get up that early just to play Wordle, but what else am I supposed to do while waiting for my friend to pick me up and drive us to our morning practice other than play the game that I am totally not addicted to?) Yet the other day I went from BLEAT to CLEAT to finally PLEAT. (I swear my dad cursed me because he almost always tries a word that is off by a letter or two before reaching the correct conclusion). Some days it feels like I stare at those tiny boxes for five minutes trying to come up with any five-letter word, and don’t even get me started on when there are limited letters left and I still can’t figure it out.  

One of my favorite stories that demonstrates the ubiquity of Wordle occurred in my English class. Before the period started one of my classmates was working on the Wordle of the day. My teacher became very interested in what he was doing, and, along with his tablemates and most of the class, watched (from a COVID-safe distance of course) him try to puzzle out the answer. She became curious as to what the word was and quietly asked a student at another table. It got to the point where my classmate had all the letters but one: S_ARD. 

My teacher ultra-casually began dropping hints. “I have this glass.” One of the boys at his table started playing along, “Oh no, it fell.” “Look at the pieces.” The Wordler did not pick up on their meaning at all. “Just go through the alphabet.” He pulled out a notebook and wrote S_ARD on the cover. He started talking it out, going through each letter. Saard, sbard, scard… “H? No.” I swear the entire class sighed, laughed, or otherwise expressed complete disbelief in his momentary stupidity. 

He kept going siard, sjard, and finally my teacher made him realize he had passed the proper letter. He typed SIARD into the computer even while saying that it was not a word. I’m amazed no one jumped out of their seats and typed the correct word for him. But finally, he typed in SHARD. Even with the correct word staring him in the face it took him a second to try it. As the letters slowly flipped to green he realized. He even mentioned something about the internet making us dumber and ruining his vocabulary. 

 Have you started to get bored of Wordle, or fed up by the lack of theme? Well, there are plenty of Wordle spin-offs and one just might be for you. There is Taylordle for the die-hard Swifties, and Worldle for the geography nerds (just a warning that it is extremely difficult unless you have a map next to you… or are just an absolute know-it-all about the shapes of countries). 

However you play, it’s safe to say that Wordle is here to stay. At least until The New York Times decides you have to pay to play. 

All the five-letter words used in this story that could be your next Wordle:

• Rumor
• Could
• Humor
• Tries
• Comes
• Daily
• Lives
• Heart
• Start
• Adieu
• Audio
• First
• Table
• Logic
• Swear
• Vowel
• Words
• Route
• Stain
• Olive
• Guess
• Cases
• Often
• Class
• Think
• Quail
• Light
• Right
• Maybe
• Early
• While
• Drive
• Other
• Along
• Bleat
• Cleat
• Pleat
• Swear
• Feels
• Point
• Doing
• Along
• Wrote
• Green
• About
• Theme
• There
• Might
• Nerds
• Until