Never say the Wordle Word of the Day if “a wordler,” someone who works the daily Wordle puzzle, is around.
I’ll explain.
First, Wordle is a five-letter word that can, if you’re aggravated enough, become a four-letter word.
Wait. We better explain some more…
If you are part of the Great Unwashed who don’t know Wordle, consider yourself both blessed and cursed. Same as the ones of us who DO know.
Wordle is the new pickleball of word games, pickleball being our country’s fastest growing sport, not counting Pin the Tail on the Fauci. Pickleball is a combination of tennis, badminton, ping pong, and, of course, cucumbers. Look it up, grab a racquet and a wiffleball and go play — IF you can find a free court.
Not kidding. It’s a 24/7 Pickleball Party out there.
Same with Wordle, except it’s right there on your laptop device, just waiting to either reward you or make you want to hit yourself upside your head with a pickleball racquet.
The game was created in October by an engineer in Brooklyn named Josh Wardle, who was obviously born to create a word game. (“You say Wardle, I say Wordle.”) The game starts with six rows of five blank boxes each, and you get six guesses to figure out the five-letter word that changes every day.
One day this week was “hoard.” Others were “cloth” and “brine” and “mourn.” March 1 was “rupee,” a unit of Indian money, which apparently a lot of people didn’t know, and we know this because It Was In All The Papers, stories about Wordle-ites who felt they’d been ripped off — an interesting take on the American mindset since Wordle is, after all, free.
(I got rupee; sixth and final try. Makes me think of another five-letter word: lucky.)
The Guardian reported that Wordle had 90 players in November, 300,000 by January, and now more than three million around the world. Mankind is caught in a Wordle vice of biblical proportions. The game’s traveling faster than gossip down a church pew.
Its charm is that it’s not overwhelmingly hard to solve — but it’s hard enough. Simple, but keeps you on your toes. Sort of like your colon does as you age.
Sign up through Google, or wherever you subscribe to your addictive, fun, time-wasting, sucking-the-life-out-of-you word games. Again, it’s free, and the rules are simple, which the Wordle site will explain.
The first day I played, a good friend — my “Wordle dealer/supplier” since he got me hooked — gave me a two-minute tutorial. One minute I’d only heard of Wordle and the next, I was a Wordle Junkie.
A Final Word to the Wordle Wise: Do not casually mention to anyone the Wordle Word of the Day unless they ask. My rookie day, I said, “Hey, took me four shots but I figured out ‘shake’ was the Worldle wor…”
“Nooooooooo!” That was the sound from a friend (now ex-friend) walking by; they had not Wordled yet on that day.
Wordle word for me at that moment? Idiot. Or loser. Either five-letter word would have worked.
Moral of story? Keep your Wordle to yourself. Otherwise … “YIKES”
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
