Worst Wordle Ever

sac said:

As far as I know, none of those "conventions" about what words they choose are written in stone (or in the documentation of the game), but they have been shared in articles/interviews about it from time to time.

As you said, those plurals appear to be the only hard no.

Wordle’s gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun, accessible, lively and varied.*

The answer list will consist of five-letter words that fit those criteria, with the exception of plural forms of three- or four-letter words that end in “ES” or “S.” That is, the answer will never be FOXES or SPOTS, but it might be GEESE or FUNGI. As the game is currently designed, FOXES or SPOTS can be used as a guess word to help narrow down the answer, but FOXES or SPOTS will not be the answer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/07/crosswords/wordle-editor.html

* Perhaps not incidentally, varied and variant share a Latin root.

sprout said:

[Spoiler/hint warning!]   

For today's (2/25) Wordle, I wanted to find out the position of the "t". I was like, there is no way it's going to accept the slang word for breast (singular) that has three "t's" in it. Well, Wordle did accept that word as a guess (in case anyone else was curious). So, I got to find that out, AND also find out what position the letter was in!

Today's was tougher than I thought it would be. I got it in 6 in the end, but my fifth guess was a word I thought I had made up (I do that sometimes just to keep myself thinking), but Wordle actually accepted it. So, of course I had to look it up and apparently it's an old English word for "full of fish sperm" so now I'll have to find a way to use it in a sentence this week.

sac said:

Yes, the word that day was RIPER but, as mentioned, I did not get it in the six tries.  But I didn't think it was a bad word for them to have selected.

The editor of the game can use any word they want to. They have said that they avoid plurals formed with an s, but not other plurals (e.g. cacti.) But I'm not aware that they have said the same thing about the "er" form. As far as I know, none of those "conventions" about what words they choose are written in stone (or in the documentation of the game), but they have been shared in articles/interviews about it from time to time.

It ends up being pretty subjective, but personally I find it less fun. As I noted earlier, I had been under the impression that this had been a rule, and suspected a change by the Times, but my impression and suspicion turned out to be unfounded.

When you've had enough of Wordle, and want to try something different, cast your eye across these:

https://gist.github.com/maxspero/0a2f536b9561d829caf6bd994a34193d

Don't eat them all at once!

marksierra said:

When you've had enough of Wordle, and want to try something different, cast your eye across these:

https://gist.github.com/maxspero/0a2f536b9561d829caf6bd994a34193d

Don't eat them all at once!

Excellent! I'm a fan of framed.wtf and episode.wtf which aren't mentioned in that list. Framed is where you try to id a movie in 9 guesses, and episode is a TV show in (I think 12 guesses). US-centris of course, but still a good challenge. As I mentioned before I used to love heardle.app, but it's been taken over by Spotify and rarely gives me anything I've ever heard of (though to prove me wrong, I got today's in one second.)

Re guess words - It appears that Wordle will accept ANY 5-letter word that is legitimately a word, including plurals. But (as already discussed) it has a more limited list of solutions.

WordleBot quirk: After three guesses tonight, it said, seven possible solutions remained. I chose the right one.

My skill score for that turn: 81. WordleBot’s top three guesses there, all incorrect: 99, 92, 92.

(I get why. Still … grumble, grumble.)

That hit a little too close to 'home': I got the 98 skill score for an incorrect option that had the wrong 4th letter. And yes, while that that skillful-but-incorrect guess did do a good job helping me land the correct one on the next turn, it did take me down to my 5th guess being correct instead of the 4th one (and 4 guesses was today's average).

I got it in two today (hard mode). Wordlebot said that my second guess (the correct one) was very lucky since there were nine words left. 

Today's Wordle should be disqualified. I mean, I got it in 5, because there was literally no other words to make, but seriously NYT? Shame on you.

ridski said:

Today's Wordle should be disqualified. I mean, I got it in 5, because there was literally no other words to make, but seriously NYT? Shame on you.

I woke up to this text from my son: 

DaveSchmidt said:

ridski said:

Today's Wordle should be disqualified. I mean, I got it in 5, because there was literally no other words to make, but seriously NYT? Shame on you.

I woke up to this text from my son: 

I agree! I got it in three because my second word eliminated all other choices but geez!

Text chain, cont’d.

I’m afraid dictionaries will be in alignment against you.

dictionaries constantly get bullied by the general public consistently being incorrect, so I'm not bothered by them

Today's was worse than the worst wordle ever, IMO. I got it in 4 through process of elimination. My son coming over and typing in sikes and enter for the third guess didn't help matters.

jfinnegan said:

My son coming over and typing in sikes and enter for the third guess didn't help matters.

SIKES

Wordlebot says: “Bold choice! Not what I would have picked, but I admire your creativity.”

Partial disclosure: I like the word. If it’s good enough for my 32-year-old edition of the OED (however bullied it may have been) …

Riper? I would think any member of MOL playing wordle is a mature fruit.

Late, crass and dumb.

drummerboy said:

Took me 5 because I refused to believe it was what it was.

Our beliefs get in our way sometimes.

DaveSchmidt said:

drummerboy said:

Took me 5 because I refused to believe it was what it was.

Our beliefs get in our way sometimes.

probably more than sometimes.

I got it in three. And it's a word. 

But it's another of those that would likely frustrate a lot of people if they got the last three letters and had to start guessing. 

Methinks thou dost protest overmuch!

It most certainly IS a word. Check out mainstream dictionaries.

ml1 said:

I got it in three. And it's a word. 

But it's another of those that would likely frustrate a lot of people if they got the last three letters and had to start guessing. 

That's exactly what happened to me. My first 2 guesses eliminated so many possibilities and still I had to get it wrong twice before I I figured it out.

Kind of the opposite problem the other day, when this early combo stumped me with too few options: ___RE.

My keyboard looked like a Spinks brother’s mouth until, in desperation, I guessed UMBRE, hoping Wordle would either reject it as invalid or reward me as a genius. Of course it did neither, taking UMBRE just so it could throw it back in my face.

Only then did WHERE suddenly hit me.

sac said:

It most certainly IS a word. Check out mainstream dictionaries.

Lexicographical sheep.

ml1 said:

I got it in three. And it's a word. 

But it's another of those that would likely frustrate a lot of people if they got the last three letters and had to start guessing. 

yeah. That's where I was. Thought I was gonna get it in three

Grrr.

DaveSchmidt said:

Grrr.

what is that chart?

drummerboy said:

what is that chart?

It’s part of the Wordlebot analysis, which you can click to from the Statistics page.