Together with half of the known universe, I added Wordle to my daily routine. I was first aware of it when I saw those funny-looking grids appear on Twitter as folks announced their score for the day. Wordle – in case you don’t know is a five-letter word game where you discover the word with up to six tries. It’s now owned by the New York Times.
I do my one-a-day and check my success with the algorithms of the WordleBot. which provides an analysis of your skill and luck. The victory for me is beating the bot in solving the puzzle in fewer tries than the computer. And if you want more Wordles for free you can go here.
But – as with all crazes, it fades. I now find I occasionally forget to do my daily Wordle. And this is mostly because I have discovered Letter Boxed which is even more satisfying as a word puzzle and a challenge. How fickle can you get?
Here’s today’s challenge:
The NYTimes gives a guide to the difficulty by naming the number of words it allows in seeking the solution. Usually, 4, 5, or 6 words. But Letter-Boxed can always be solved with just two words. And that to me is the real challenge. And what I love most about it is that you can have as many attempts as you have patience and time. It’s a game of try, try, and try again. And for me, that means never settling. That’s just a cop-out.
Here was yesterday’s challenge along with the NYT’s solution
It took me a while yesterday and I found two solutions – neither of which were the “official” one. I find that often happens and it’s part of the fun.
My solutions were:
WAXEN – NECROPOLIS
SNOWSCAPE – ELIXIR
There are a few tricks that you learn by doing. My time-saving, frustration-reducing habit is to make a list of the words I find which makes coupling them together easier than relying on memory.
Each new word must begin with the last letter of the word before. This is where that list comes in handy. And of course, the other trick is to come up with as many words as you can using as many of the “difficult” letters as possible.
Featured image: detail from Broken Typewriter I, by Simon Quadrat
I do love words but I guess I am the only person who has not tried Wordle. Maybe after I finish my master’s degree – right now I have enough distractions!
Getting the hang of Letter Boxed Got it in three words today
Yay! Congratulations. (It does get easier.)
I got yesterdays with two possible pairs –
PATRIOTIC-CRUMBLE
PLUMBIC – CREATOR
The NYTimes answer was something else.
Today’s is a killer. Very few words. I only found ten with six or more letters. But luckily two of them worked.
(Patriotic-crumble has a certain contemporary resonance given events in the UK and US.)
Cant remember mine now but they were more humble
Was that the one with an ‘x’?
If so I had a word that to me is not really a word but they accepted it. I’ll tell you if you’ve done it and get your opinion.
That kind of thing frequently happens to me. And in both directions. I had a perfectly good word – baltering – rejected as “Not a word” and there it was I learned it from an Auden poem. And he knew his English dictionary! And then – I’ll take a stab at a word that is unknown to me yet sounds like it could be a word and up pops “Genius! Can’t think of an example right now.
I expect by now you can’t recall that X word. Today’s has an X in it too. It could be useful.
I can. It was ‘foxier’🙄
I went with foxglove for that one. (Just found the scrap paper I used for the list.) Foxier was the first word on it – couldn’t make it work for the longest. And am still stuck on today’s.
Letter box is WAY WAY harder than wordle. Im a 96% at wordle meanwhile I have yet to get a letter box in under 4 words. And wordle takes me about 2 minutes versus 30 for letter box.
Agreed. LetterBox can be quite the challenge especially if you decide to set the bar high and go for doing it in two words. I always look for possible compound words like say teapot, fireplace, waterworks etc., and also for common suffixes such as -ful, – ably, -ion, – ought, ing, -ight, and – ize. And I fail more times than I succeed.
Having a good starting word helps with Wordle. Mine is CRANE and if that gives just one or none, I follow up with PILOT.
Re:Wordle. I start with saucy. If none, then toile. Gets all the vowels and in the most likely places.
This may be unparalleled as a method for avoiding household chores.
A comment that reminds me of Engels on “The Origin of the Family”, sex-based oppression, and the Wages Due Housework movement of the 1970s.
What have you done? I already do 6 word games every morning. Now this . I’ll be in my pyjamas until lunchtime at this rate And so frustrating to have excellent words in mind and not to be able to use letters onthe same side i had lots of words like yaps and thin. Not at all what I had in mind.
That’s a squishy problem with some piquancy.
Oh Gawd I have a long way to go.
These were also not helpful: iniquity, quantity, antiquity, aquatint, quinoa, and antipathy.
How many words did you find beginning with y?
I will keep letterbox in mind for when I have more time (haha) – I just share Wordle with a friend now. It’s our ‘hello good morning’ WhatsApp message.
I cannot show this post to Pretty – we are already hooked on Wordle with a daily solution required at night – so we must not add another word game!
Looks like fun!
P.S. Despite multiple tries, I couldn’t get “Like” to take. Apparently it doesn’t like me!
I take time to do the Jumble word puzzle in the morning paper every day, so I’ll pass on Wordle because it might become as addictive as Jumble!
I rarely do word puzzles. Maybe I don’t have the patience?
Not another puzzle! I do wordle dordle quordle and phrazle…Letter Boxed seems a bit more challenging.
If you follow the NYT guidelines to solve within a certain number of words then it is an easy challenge. It’s only when you take on the “this can be done in two words” does it become difficult. I like it because it allows for infinite failure.
I like word puzzles but haven’t succumbed to the lure of Wordle, and have been put off by the number of people posting their success on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
However, I used to regularly attempt (and occasionally succeed in completing) the Guardian crossword, but now I prefer filling in codeword-type crosswords where numbers relate to letters, or puzzles similar to Boxed but not with quite the same layout.
What I like most about trying to solve LetterBoxed with two words is that there is n opublic performance component. Just the effort and success/ failure itself. And the sure knowledge that – given enough time and persistence – you will get there. It’s not magic.
Oh moan! Not another challenge and this one requires much more thought, concentration…
I feel a headache coming on. But I’ll be sure to pass this on to my pal Tim!
Yep, every morning I get my fix of Wordle. Great fun 😊
I really struggled with today’s and just got in under the wire.