My Wordle strategy is to start with vowels, then work out what fits best in the in-between spaces. Organised, analytical, knowing when ‘e’ comes before ‘i’ and what words end in ‘int’ or ‘alm’. There is logical progression. This is in sharp contrast to my wife’s technique: inspired, improvisational, with the unexpectedness of a jazz virtuoso. Often the word following has little to do with the previous one. Yet, she usually solves Wordle in fewer moves than I do.
A bestseller waiting to be written is ‘ What Your Wordle Strategy Says About You’. For those who have been living in caves or under water these past few months, Wordle is an online word game of five letters which you have to work out by the sixth try.
Once you have solved it, you then bore your friends and everybody on social media by revealing how many tries it took. Cyberspace is full of green and black squares which indicate this. Luckily, cyberspace, like a mother’s love is vast and inexhaustible, otherwise it would be clogged up by now.
You begin by guessing the first word. As you proceed, you reveal your personality. You could begin with as many vowels as you can get into the five squares: adieu, bijou, and if it allows, aieou (it won’t, although you can argue that this is the sound made by some of us to express disappointment, anger, surprise, shock or awe). Wordle is strict — it will tell you immediately if the word doesn’t exist — but the strictness comes with kindness because you don’t lose a turn.
As an aside, the new superhero is here — Wordman. In the next round of superhero movies, this will be the guy dressed up like a dictionary who flies (5 letters) round (5 letters), while (5 letters), destroying (more than 5 letters, can’t be used) those (5 letters) using (5 letters) large (5 letters) words (5 letters). Wordman also helps those struggling with the game, suggesting a ‘t’ here, a ‘w’ there till the entire population has solved the Wordle puzzle for the day.
Do you begin with a set of vowels? And what does it say about you? That you are soft, mild, musical like the vowels themselves? Vowels make up about twenty percent of the alphabet, and that’s roughly the percentage of the population that is soft, mild and musical.
Is your second attempt related to the first, using the letters that are in the right place (green) or in the wrong (ochre), or do you now go with a word that reveals what some of the consonants are? If I am making this sound more complicated than it is, rest assured it is intentional.
Do you aim to finish as quickly as possible or are you happy just to finish? Do you want to finish just one ahead of your best friend? Soon therapists who are trained to tell you about yourself will be adding this specialisation to their names: Dr So-and-so ( Wordle analyst).
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu).