February 24, 2022

"My wife begins with the same optimized word everyday. I change mine up daily. I don’t know how long I can stay married to such a person."

That's the top-rated comment at "When It Comes to Wordle Strategies, It’s Personal/Aficionados of the deceptively simple word game, including Monica Lewinsky and J. Smith-Cameron, weigh in with their opening gambits" (NYT). 

By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle?

ADDED: Meade texts:

50 comments:

M Jordan said...

I often start with “Agile” to flush out the key vowels. But sometimes “Trend” to flush out the consonant cluster letters of R and N. When I’m feeling frisky I might try “Stink” or “Bogus.”

Ha ha, made you read that.

Paul Zrimsek said...

Note to Monica: THONG and CIGAR aren't that bad as starting words, but you can do better.

MadisonMan said...

NYTimes publicizes word game at NYTimes site. I am waiting for all to move on from wordle.

rhhardin said...

For "moo," the best starting word is adieu. Person-to-person moo is played with 5 letters usually.

tim maguire said...

I have an opening word that I always use, but it's become less useful since the Times took over Wordle. It's a harder game with double letters more common and common letters less so.

Narr said...

I've never tried "Penis" as a start word. Maybe I'm not done with Wordle after all.

(Spellcheck checks Wordle.)

Bob Boyd said...

By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle?

Hey, don't shit on the post.

Temujin said...

"By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle?"

Apparently NY Times readers do. Or NY Times writers.

tim in vermont said...

Absurdle is so much better.

Achilles said...

The NYT's trying to break up marriages over trifles.

Their target is boomer women.

wendybar said...

Who doesn't play wordle? I went in to have blood drawn and the ladies in the lab were talking about it. I don't care what word anybody uses and I don't care if they play or not. Sheesh. Bigger problems in the United States than worrying about somebody's word to start wordle with.

J Melcher said...

Monica Lewinsky, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, ... Alec Baldwin, Dave Chappell, Joe Rogan

All are objects (not persons) of concern to "journalists". Headline writers. Click-bait engineers.

Among the three big problems of modern journalism, this is the LEAST. Sensationalism is the worst. Innumeracy is second. But this sort of celebrity pseudo-elitism is the third big problem. What a celebrity says or does or claims is reported with the same media-spotlight and derivative authority as the pronouncements of scientists or bishops.

rehajm said...

It's Vernon Jordan's fault, innit?

Lewinsky's 'celebrity' is fascinating to me. Multiple careers in fashion design, a TED talk or two, occasional dalliances in DC political firms, the occasional mention in socialite press. Would she be more or less than she is were it not for her internship?

It's tough for liberal women to 'badmouth' her, I suppose. Though I bet they blame her for whatever Clinton shortcomings they believe she caused...

tim in vermont said...

Changes the word if you guess 'right' until it runs out of options so it makes you go through every legal word instead of rewarding lucky guesses. I like the words better too.

Absurdle 8/∞ https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

EAB said...

My husband is a same start word every day. I’m a mix it up. That’s the least of our differences…. But I wonder…given he’s the extrovert and I’m the introvert, the stereotype would presume the opposite. I don’t find any difference since the NYTimes took over, and there’s nowhere near enough data to support that view.

Sebastian said...

"Cigar"

Is that still allowed?

rehajm said...

Bob Boyd said...
By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle?

Hey, don't shit on the post.


Re-post worthy...

Mr Wibble said...

I often start with “Agile” to flush out the key vowels. But sometimes “Trend” to flush out the consonant cluster letters of R and N. When I’m feeling frisky I might try “Stink” or “Bogus.”

Ha ha, made you read that.


I start with "ratio" and then "spend" and finally "lucky" which clears the vowels and the most commonly used consonants. Usually I get enough hits with the first or second try that I can figure out the actual word from there.

Curious George said...

Wordle is a quick, fun, daily distraction bur strategy? No. I randomize my first word, usually going with the fist one that pops in my head and go from there.

Joe Smith said...

If you don't start with a word with at least three vowels (and/or a 'Y') then you're doing it wrong.

As for Clinton, how about MIMBO?...

Another old lawyer said...

I can't wait for this fad to be over.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

There’s Quordle, where you guess four words at once:

Daily Quordle #31
4️⃣6️⃣
5️⃣7️⃣
quordle.com
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Left Bank of the Charles said...

“I've never tried "Penis" as a start word. Maybe I'm not done with Wordle after all.”

You want Lewdle.

tcrosse said...

They've thrown a sop to the British users who complain about American spelling.

William50 said...

Meade texts: CIGAR
Winner winner chicken dinner!

iowan2 said...

I got yesterdays in 3, 5 times in 3, 7 times in 5

BarrySanders20 said...

TENDS and STERN and ADIOS and THINS and SAINT are some of my starters, but I vary day by day. Wife hates word games, so no ANGST here.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle?

They printed that at the behest of Hillary Clinton, just to torture Bill.

n.n said...

The white whore (not a black whore... hole h/t NAACP) of Washington District of Corruption. Go Clinton and other socially liberated masculinists.

wildswan said...

I think the NYT wardle is easier but I started late so I have no long-built-up inner understanding. Currently, I ask myself what words would a soccer yob know whereas before I asked myself what words would an Anglo-Saxon major know.

tds said...

I've always started with a lewd word, which was giving me an additional kick, but when Wordle migrated to the NYT, those f*ckers started removing lewd words from the dictionary.

R C Belaire said...

Harsh, Meade. Very harsh.

I like AUDIO as a 1st word -- gets 4 vowels in play.

robother said...

Ah yes, Meade. The man from Arkansas' eloquent rebuttal to Freud's assertion that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

mikee said...

Everyone knows who Lewinsky is, so her inclusion lends some celebrity to the game. And now after googling her, I know who J. Smith Cameron is (actress on Succession, a mildly popular streaming drama on Netflix). This is "product placement" of celebrities, to keep up their worth as celebrities, by PR agents or perhaps by chance. But most likely by PR agents.

Once again bloggers are doing the work of pushing social media advertisements out to the public, when the mainstream media can't get the PR crap out to enough people.

Scott Patton said...

While making the morning blog/twitter rounds and having coffee (insty, Althouse, Reason H&R, Rand Simburg TT Musings, Marginal Revolution, Jonah, Scott Adams, Robin Hanson), I wait for a good starting word to jump out at me, then commence the wordle just as the caffeine is kicking in.
Also, it's a good way to get into work mode - like a mental calisthenic.
Developing strategies/deliberate statistical considerations/dictionaries etc., all would take the fun out of it.
There's a little dopamine hit from allowing the circumstance where learning a new five letter word is more likely than usual. Not necessarily the winning word, but also by trying guesses that are pronounceable but not in my vocabulary.

Duke Dan said...

RAISE and DONUT flush out all the vowels and main consonants in two words

Clyde said...

In Wordle, I don't have a set word that I always use. There are several that I alternate between, and sometimes I just pick a word. I started with HOUSE today.

I also play Quordle, where you have nine chances to figure out four five-letter words. In that game, I always play the same two words to get ten letters in play: LATER and COINS. For a while, I used PUDGY as a third word, but then the best I can get is a seven, so I dropped back to just two starter words.

Bob Boyd said...

@ Narr

I tried "penis" as a start word. The answer that day was "moist"

Stephen St. Onge said...

        I tend to alternate my opening word among several where all five letters are from the most frequent twelve: etaoinshrdlu, in that order.

Big Mike said...

I knew somebody who got it first guess. I asked if he’d buy a MegaMillions ticket for me, but he declined.

Michael said...

I start with AUDIO, ADIEU (which it takes), OR OUIJA - each of which gets four vowels in play. Then I'll chose something with the fifth vowel and some of the more common consonants.

Clyde said...

Also, yesterday was amusing because the Wordle was TROVE, which also happened to be one of the four words in Quordle yesterday!

M Jordan said...

I may have commented on this point before but if so, it was so damn good I must repeat it. Use psychology to play Wordle, especially now that Will Shortz has gotten his grubby little hands on it. For instance, if yesterday's word was a one-voweler, go for two or three vowels. If yesterday's had an American flavor, look for a Brit flavor today (and in fact today's answer Bloke was indeed that). And never expect any word that is anti-woke in any way, shape, or form.

Remember when some guy told us how to beat the SAT by choosing C? They fixed that but he was right. Same goes here.

SeanF said...

Clyde: Also, yesterday was amusing because the Wordle was TROVE, which also happened to be one of the four words in Quordle yesterday!

And I guessed "wrote" before I guessed "trove" - on both games - just because "wrote" seemed a more likely choice.

SeanF said...

Clyde: I also play Quordle, where you have nine chances to figure out four five-letter words. In that game, I always play the same two words to get ten letters in play: LATER and COINS.

LATER and COINS, if I'm not mistaken, have the ten most-common letters in the English language.

I start with LIDAR and STONE, which gives me the nine most common, so I can use CHUMP third if necessary and get all 15 of the most common letters.

Narr said...

Genug mit der Wordle. I had used a surprising number of seed words that others have suggested, but not all of them.

I may take a look at the Lewdle and Quordle sites but I don't need even more reasons to fart around on the computer. Thanks for the suggestions.

Stan Smith said...

The most common distribution of letters in the English language goes like this (thanks to "Mad" magazine, by the way): ETAOIN SHRDLU. A word using as many of those as possilbe is likely to provide the most hits.

I use "STAIN" often.

AJ Ford said...

I always start with yesterday’s word. It neutralizes using strategic words not only on first row but second row as well. Plus, it makes Wordle seem like one long, continuous puzzle.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Lianna is imagining a Times without Wordle.

Freeman Hunt said...

I stopped playing Absurdle when I got a four. If I hear of anyone getting a three, I might try it again.

Wordle, Quordle, Nerdle. A few minutes of fun diversion every day. Also, encouraging proof that there are simple joys yet to be discovered.