A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1183

Got CWTCH on the fourth try! Heard the word for the first time in a Shashi Tharoor video a few weeks ago. My initial word for Wordle always used to be STARE; patience finally rewarded on my 1070th Wordle attempt when I scored a word-in-one!
-Shyam Prasad, Bengaluru, India (prashyam3 gmail.com)

I’m a Wordle addict. 936 games played. 97% success. I wish they calculated the days I forgot to play so they didn’t spoil my win stats. But really, does it matter? I’m mostly a four-word solver. But I have a few in two. No one word victory yet.
-Ginny Agnew, Austin, Texas (gingia me.com)

Five of our family play Wordle every day and email our results to each other. I am the elder, living alone, and I believe that my children use Wordle every morning to assure themselves that I am alive and well. And still have a brain. Each week, one person assigns the opening word, so we all start out on equal footing.
-Winnie O’Shaughnessy, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire (winnieoshaughnessy gmail.com)

Years ago I loved to play the game Jotto, which is very similar to Wordle, but much older -- it was introduced to the public 70 years ago. The main difference between the games is that Jotto is played by two people, who attempt to discern the other person’s five-letter word. The game was sold with a special form, but the form wasn’t essential to playing -- plain paper worked just as well.
-Leann Fields, Ann Arbor, Michigan (leannfields att.net)

I always use the same two words to start: AUDIO and STYLE. That covers all the vowels AEIOU and sometimes Y. It also gives me an ST combination. And the U in the proper position for all words starting with Q. The letters L and D, also commonly used. Having the E at the end of a word, very common in five-letter words. My solution average is a steady four. Getting it in three is always rewarding.
-Mary Hughes, San Rafael, California (futonmary aol.com)

I recently wrote a Sherlockian paper that links Wordle (and similar word or code-deciphering games like Mastermind) to Sherlock Holmes, quantum decryption, and one of the earliest and most famous telegram code-breaking stories in history, known today as the Zimmerman Telegram.
-Max Magee, Madison, Wisconsin (maxpmagee gmail.com)

I play Wordle in Turkish and in English first thing (not in the morning :-) after midnight. My strategies for both games are different. Let me not bore you with Wordle Turkish but for Wordle English my starting word is IRATE. In English, my idea is to find as many vowels as possible. In Turkish, quite the opposite (we have eight vowels in the Turkish alphabet, therefore finding the right vowels is not that easy; finding the right consonants is a better strategy). Let me confess that I am more successful in Wordle English than Wordle Turkish, which is my mother tongue :-D
-Kaan Kiziltan, Istanbul, Turkiye (kaan kiziltan.com)

My daughter in Illinois, my niece in Pennsylvania and I in New Jersey share our Wordle scores each day. So far we are well over 800 games. We each have a different way to play. My daughter actually keeps a spreadsheet, I don’t know my niece’s method and mine is a different start word every few days. The game has been a good way to say Good Morning.
-Portia Asher, Monroe Township, New Jersey (portia2 comcast.net)

I used to always start with OPERA, but then one day, that was the word! I tried PATIO and AUDIO for a while, but now I swap every week or so.
-Suzanne Duell, Adelaide, Australia (suzanne.duell optusnet.com.au)

I try to include lots of vowels in my initial word choice, so I sometimes begin with PIOUS or AUDIO or OPERA. If I’m feeling particularly snarky, I start with the worst choices ever, like KAZOO, IGLOO, LLAMA or KAYAK, just to see if I can recover!
-Georgette A. Rogers, Pepperell, Massachusetts (georgette visionariesevents.com)

My Wordle strategy is nonexistent. Although many folk have a stable of starter words, that practice bored me pretty quickly. I prefer to go rogue, which might actually be a good starter word. When I’m ready to play, I check my surroundings for inspiration. I prefer beginning with consonants.
-Mary Vella, Tiburon, California (mary usvellas.com)

Besides English, I play it in Spanish, French, Italian, and German. I select my English starting word from words that appear in the crossword I do earlier in the morning. It must have at least two vowels and no repeat letters. The word must not have more than one letter in common with my previous day’s starting word.
-Lucy Kashangaki, Princeton, New Jersey (lkashangaki gmail.com)

Our family (ages 12-75) has a group Wordle Masters and our start word is the previous day’s winning word. Makes for an interesting competition!
-Franklin Corey, San Antonio, Texas (fhcorey hotmail.com)

Playing in English, my opener is always SLATE. In Italian, it’s AMORE.
-Guido Branca, Rome, Italy (guido.branca icloud.com)

I have been playing Wordle since before the NYT bought it. My opening word is always a word related to my day -- it has to have a vowel or two, and I include at least two or three of the commonly used consonants. For me, a winning opening word is one that is used by less than 1% of players or even better, less than 0.1% of players. My opening words are not always the best for getting the word of the day in the least number of tries, but that goal is secondary for me.
-Lauren Waite, Bristol, Vermont (lauren.waitecrew gmail.com)

Statistically, the best starting word is STARE. Ten in my family play it (also Connections and Strands), and share our results on a chat every day.
-Rick Carmickle, Denver, Colorado (via website comments)

I read that some guys at MIT had done an analysis of 5-letter words, and that SALET (a kind of helmet) was the best first word. Interestingly, your STELA has the same letters. I then found the 15 most common letters in 5-letter words, eliminated SALET, and asked an anagram maker for two 5-letter words. It came back with PRICY and MOUND. These three words have proven very valuable in solving Wordle puzzles.
-Lou Gottlieb, Hubbard, Oregon (lougottlieb1 gmail.com)

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy One Up! -- Perfectly-horrible holiday fun.

SOARE (a young hawk) This gives you the top three vowels and top two consonants.
CLINT (a rocky cliff) Here you have the remaining vowel and the next four most popular consonants.
FUDGY (gooey chocolaty goodness) Now you’ve got the next five most used letters.
WHOMP (Hit it! Or WHUMP, depending on if there’s an out-of-place U or O)
These give you the 20 most commonly used letters. Now, if you can’t solve it in two turns with these or the six remaining letters, you shouldn’t be playing this game.
-Timothy Hoskins, Fort Wayne, Indiana (thoskins2 gmail.com)

I wrote a quick program to look through the Wordle answer list and see which letters were most common and then to see where they most frequently occurred. Picked ORATE as a result.
Top 15 letters by occurrence count:
e: 1056
a: 909
r: 837
o: 673
t: 667
l: 648
i: 647
s: 618
n: 550
u: 457
c: 448
y: 417
h: 379
d: 370
p: 346
Most common positions for the top 15 letters:
e: 5
a: 3
r: 2
o: 2
t: 5
l: 2
i: 3
s: 1
n: 4
u: 2
c: 1
y: 5
h: 2
d: 5
p: 1
-Doug Moyer, Troutville, Virginia (shyzaboy yahoo.com)

I have played Wordle a thousand times -- every morning when I get up together with Spelling Bee. My favorite start word is CHEST, with SLATE a second choice. I have failed only a few times, upsetting my win sequence. A.Word.A.Day and those two games with a good cup of coffee start my day, every day.
-Reiner Decher, Bellevue, Washington (reiner54 gmail.com)

I’m a big fan of Wordle (and The Guardian’s Wordiply. For Wordle, I nearly always start with ABODE, IRATE, or ADIEU. It usually works pretty well as a strategy!
-Gemma Brown, Larche, France (littlegemtranslations gmail.com)

I play tons of Wordle variants -- Quordle, Octordle, Hurdle, etc. -- and I also love word scramble games like Quintumble and Waffle. I always start with the same three words, which use up all vowels (including Y) and the most common consonants: 1. LATER 2. SONIC 3. PUDGY. The true trap of Wordle is when you have three or four letters confirmed and you don’t have enough guesses left to figure out the correct option -- especially if the answer contains the same letter multiple times. Is _O_ER JOKER, MOVER, HOVER, MOWER, WOOER, or BOWER? Is _IPER RIPER, VIPER, or WIPER?
-Christina Vasilevski, Toronto, Canada (christina.vasilevski gmail.com)

I follow the Wordle Bot as well. I am entranced by its last page, where they list the top 20 words submitted on the 6th guess. I think my vocabulary of 5-letter words is pretty good, but Bot’s 6th-page list always includes at least two words I don’t know, and sometimes as many as 10 or 12. I find many of the words and their definitions downright funny. Below are a few selections. How many would you have tried in a pinch?
LAITH: lathe
WRIER: more wry
ENATE: related on the mother’s side
NOTER: a person who takes or makes notes
RITHe: a small stream
OILET: a small opening in a wall
STONG: an area of land equivalent to a quarter of an acre
AHOLE: a stupid, irritating, or contemptible person
FUNIC: relating to, originating from, or of the umbilical cord
-Beye Fyfe, Las Vegas, Nevada (beye_fyfe yahoo.com)

I play Waffle each day. I list words each day that have at least two different vowels and two or three different consonants and then use the next on my list each day to start Wordle. So yesterday’s word was ABIDE. Today’s was TRICE and tomorrow I shall start with TULIP.
-Rodney Viney, Banksia Beach, Australia (rod6369 gmail.com)

I built a fun little word game called Squibble. It’s like a mix between Wordle and crosswords where you drag letters around to make words fit both across and down. You get two puzzles each day (one easier, one harder) that take just a few minutes to solve.
-Cullen, Chicago, Illinois (cullen pm.me)