INDIGNITY: Wordle Postgame Report

Wordle Postgame Report, February 28, 2023

Tom Scocca — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 20:51:01 GMT

Ambrotype Of Three Women In Dotted Calico Dresses - A black-and-white photograph of three African-American women seated in a row with their arms linked together at the elbows and their hands placed in their laps right-over-left. All three women wear dresses made from a dark fabric with light-colored POLKA dots. Each wears a small white collar of slightly different styles. The woman in the center and the woman at the right facing side have gold rings on their fingers. All three women wear their hair tied back. The photograph is housed behind decorative gold foil inside a black leather-covered wood case with a missing lid. Artist Unknown. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

The Wordle Postgame Report is a brief analysis of a game of Wordle, the five-letter-word guessing game now owned by the New York Times. If you do not play Wordle, Indignity encourages you to please skip this item. The existence of the Wordle Postgame Report does not constitute an endorsement of playing Wordle, of not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.

February 28, POLKA, 4/6

WITH THE BIRDS twittering in the slushy trees outside, I played CHIRP and got a yellow P. The next place to try it was in the front, but then instead of trying to fill two or three sensible vowels, I had the urge to be unreasonable and try PSALM. The P was green; the A and L were yellow. If the L went with the P, the A couldn't follow the pair; what about PLEAT? No to both placements. The next logical-seeming structure would be to make something out of PAL-. Instead, I shoved the A to the end, with POLKA. The letters did their little two-beat rhythm of triumph.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of Indignity, a general-interest publication for a discerning and self-selected audience. Adjust your settings to have the Wordle Postgame Report delivered via electronic mail! Head to Manage your subscription, where you can select and choose which sections to receive. More info here.

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Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, February 22–27, 2023

Tom Scocca — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:01:43 GMT

Group of Beachgoers - Left to right: Mrs. Harvey Shaffer, Southhampton, New York, Mrs. Philip Corbin, New York, Mr. Kenneth Van RIPER, New York, Mr. Blaine Webb, New York, Mr. Albert H. Dewey Jr., Washington, DC, Mr. Maurice Fatio, Switzerland, Miss Marjorie Oelrichs, Newport, New York, Mr. Christopher Dunphy, New York, Mrs. Jack Rutherford, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on beach. Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

February 22, RIPER, X/6

THE WRECK BEGAN with TRUCK: only a yellow R. EARLY got a yellow E, and the R stayed yellow. OWNER placed the E and R in green, in the most useless way. At least there was only one vowel left to try. I played DIVER and the game went into free fall. Blank-I-blank-E-R. Two rows left, and it could be FIXER, MISER, FIBER, RISER... Obviously it was time to bail out of voluntary Hard Mode, but even then, what could help? SMURF couldn't be a legal word. BOXES? FOXES? How could I test the annoying possibility of an initial R, while still fitting the other consonants into a word? The best I could come up with was BOSOM. Gray all across row five. It would be FIXER, or it would something I hadn't thought of. The F and X were gray. Wordle informed me the real solution was RIPER. A stupid comparative, not even a real word. In her interview earlier this month, the Wordle Editor had smirked about how there was a tough one coming at some point in February. Here it was, apparently, sending a quarter of the day's Wordle players off the bottom of the board, according to the WordleBot's tally of results. The time had come; the answer was mushy and rotten.

February 23, VAGUE, 4/6

STILL SPITEFUL TOWARD yesterday's lousy answer, I opened with BADLY and got a green A. HASTE got a green E to go with the A, and that seemed to open up a pair of chutes. The guessing game ahead wasn't quite as boring as it looked, though, because of that double-wide gap in the third and fourth slots. The supply of blendable consonants was already running low. CADGE was out. BARGE or LARGE would fill the space, but their initial letters were gone. What if one of those spaces wasn't a consonant? I played CANOE and the pattern of green and gray repeated itself, heading down the grid, or up the creek. I thought about ditching voluntary Hard Mode again, even earlier—PURGE seemed like it should help clear the way—but that was residual resentment from yesterday clouding my thinking. That two-space gap was not going to keep its secrets for more than three rounds. I tried another vowel: VAGUE. Green on the V, and green the rest of the way. A clear and certain success.

February 24, ARBOR, 5/6

NO NOTE OF recognition came from CHIME, just an opening row of gray. RUSTY continued the slow start with a single yellow R. FRANK made it clear the game was not going to go well, turning the R green and adding only a yellow A. Finally BROAD delivered a wide swath of usable information, surrouding the R with a yellow B, yellow O, and yellow A. Planted in a new order—ARBOR—they made a solid patch of green.

February 25, FIFTY, 4/6

THE TRAIL WAS cold and gray after I started with HOUND. RAISE barely increaded the yield, with a single yellow I. The vowels were down to the I and possibly a Y; what would fit with those? FIFTY would, but the doubled F seemed risky with so many spaces still blank. More responsible to try more variety: FILMY. Green, green, gray, gray, green. FIFTY, after all. One more missed opportunity to regret in midlife.

February 26, SYRUP, 4/6

HOW LONG HAD it been since I ate any CAROB? The word got me a green R to start with. FIRST, going second, added a yellow S. I still hadn't played a E, so I tried SURGE: no to the E, but the S was green and the U was yellow. S-blank-R to start, wth the U presumably in the next spot. The first three letters could be SHR-, but the B in SHRUB was out, and what else was there? The C in SCRUM was also gone. If it wasn't a three-consonant combination, the only vowel left was Y—as in SYRUP. Slow getting there, but sweet.

February 27, 2023, WORSE, 4/6

CTRL-F TOLD ME I'd used the word "weird" a lot in these postgame reports, but never as a guess. Opening with WEIRD this time got me a green W and a yellow E and R. A good win had to be in reach. Didn't that R just want to be with the W? No, it didn't. WRECK kept the E and R yellow. The E would be at the end, then, and the W would pair up with something else. An H seemed good. WHERE was no good, because of the E, and surely Wordle was not asking for WHORE. Trying to pull out of that thought-spiral, I suddenly saw WHOSE and played it in a flash, forgetting the R entirely. The S and E were green, and the O was yellow. Move it over, bring back the R, and there was WORSE. Not one of my more successful Wordle sessions.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 21, 2023

Tom Scocca — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 23:21:06 GMT

RUDDY Plover, 1834. Artist Robert Havell. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

February 21, 2023, RUDDY, 6/6

ANOTHER ALL-GRAY first row came up when I played FLAKE. POUND started off gray too, but yielded a yellow U and D. The U wasn't likely to go up front without an N for company, so I tried DUSTY. That was where the U belonged, and the Y, but the D was yellow. Without an L to make an adverb, the space between the U and Y seemed like it would have to take two D's. How many blank-U-D-D-Y words were available? RUDDY, BUDDY, MUDDY—was that all? Three guesses, with three rows left? I'd thought of RUDDY first, but I liked it least. BUDDY confirmed the D's were right, but the B was gray. MUDDY? Gray M. Five rows gone, one left, and I hoped I hadn't overlooked something. RUDDY: the danger light was flashing red, but the row came up all green.

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Wordle Postgame Report, February 20, 2023

Tom Scocca — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 20:31:05 GMT

Giving the Medicine - circa 1906 Navajo medicine men assist a man in a ritual SWEAT during a Yeibichai ceremony. (Photo: Edward S. Curtis/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

February 20, 2023, SWEAT, 4/6

THE ROW WAS dry and empty where I played GULCH. Turning to vowels and common letters with RAISE got three yellows on A, S, and E. Put the E and the A together, put the S at the front, fill in the gaps efficiently: STEAK. The old letters were green and the T was yellow. Send the T to the end, plug in an W. No problem.

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Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, February 17–19, 2023

Tom Scocca — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 20:31:09 GMT

Bigtooth maples display their red and orange fall foliage. CACHE National Forest, Idaho, ca. 1980s. Photo: Scott T. Smith/Corbis via Getty Images

February 17, 2023, CACHE, 3/6

THERE WAS NOTHING but gray to be had from BLOND; still, that was five letters out of the way. SCARE got a yellow C and A, and a green E at the end. Where could the C go, without an S or N to keep it company? And what would fill the two-letter gap between the E and the A when the A moved out of the middle spot? There almost had to be an H in there. MACHE would fit, but I will never believe it can be a Worldle answer. CACHE, though—green straight across. Another three-round win to add to the hoard of successful games.

February 18, 2023, AVAIL, 4/6

THE CHATBOT DISCOURSE was still going on, and I realized I'd never tried opening with THINK. That got a yellow I, and I moved it off center with LIVER. The L, I, and V were all yellow—and the E was gray, which seemed to limit the things the V could do. I tried writing out the possible permutations and it felt like playing with Roman numerals. VALID was a real word and it fit the possible patterns, but it came up with yellow on the first three letters and with only the I in green. At least the permutations were easier to look at now; the V and the L would have to be in the second and fifth spots, one way or the other. And what word could end in -IV? So blank-V-blank-I-L, with an A in one blank—or both. AVAIL. All green. It was what was handy and would work.

February 19, 2023, KIOSK, 3/6

THE QUEST BEGAN with GRAIL, but that only got a yellow I. I moved it to the center, with NOISE, and got a strong but baffling signal: yellow O, yellow I, green S. The most available spaces for the vowels were the ones that made the least sense, at the beginning or the end of the word. I-blank-blank-S-O? O-blank-blank-S-I? The only way they would fit in the middle of the word was as an awkward -IO- combination, in blank-I-O-S-blank. I kept trying to wedge PIOUS in there but the S was unmoving. I stared at the permutations, at the remaining letters, at the permutations again. This had to be the endgame because nothing was working at all. Then I realized: not only was there only one combination that would fit the form, there was only one letter for both spaces. KIOSK. Post another victory on the board.

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Wordle Postgame Report, February 16, 2023

Tom Scocca — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 17:39:58 GMT

Camera obscura, 1646. A double camera obscura, rather out of scale, showing an image of a man burning in Hell. The image was produced by light from a lamp which travelled down the lens and through one of the movable slides to project the image onto the wall. These demonstrations eventually resulted in the birth of the MAGIC lantern. Plate from Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae by Athanasius Kircher, (1646). (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)

February 16, 2023, MAGIC, 4/6

PEOPLE WOULDN'T STOP talking about the new AI chat engine in Microsoft Bing, so I played BINGE for a yellow I and a yellow G. Having a G and an I without an N made things tricky already. I moved them around to make GRIST, to get more material for solving the puzzle. They stayed yellow. What positions would work? I got a pencil and started putting down the permutations: I-G-blank-blank-blank, I-blank-G-blank-blank... INGOT was out, thanks to the N and the T. I kept going. IGLOO would work, but would Wordle use IGLOO? Blank-blank-G-I-blank could be—LOGIC. A solution that made sense. I tried it. Gray on the L and O, green the rest of the way. Not my carefully worked-out LOGIC but something else. MAGIC.

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Wordle Postgame Report, February 15, 2023

Tom Scocca — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 21:23:55 GMT

Actor Draco Rosa and actress Angela Alvarado on set of the Cannon Films movie "SALSA" in 1988. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

February 15, 2023, SALSA, 5/6

THERE WAS NO green to be seen at all after I played DIVOT, nor any yellow. I reloaded the grid with PLANE and got a yellow L and A. Placing them seemed more urgent than any other intermediate solving goal, so I chanced a repeated letter with RURAL. Still the wrong place for the A and the L, and no new gains. I moved them back to the middle front and tried another repeating letter with BALSA: green everywhere but the B. An S instead. Almost challenging but somehow bland.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 14, 2023

Tom Scocca — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 03:01:52 GMT

The Voodoo Guitar used by Don Moser of Swampkat. The 6-string electric guitar is wooden with metal-plated head and body. A plaque on the head features text that reads [KATRINA - AUG - 29- 2005]. Metal letters are adhered along one side and the bottom of the head, following the curve [NEW ORLEANS / VOODOO]. Multiple "windows" were built into the guitar head. Contents include objects such as a voodoo doll and rhinestone fleur de lis brooch. At the center of the head, a figurine is attached atop the strings. It is shaped like a cross. Its top half is black, while the bottom is white and covered with multi-colored beads. Brown hair-like fibers extend out of the top and two arms. A handwritten letter on white paper with rough, burned edges is attached under the strings. It visually blocks part of the head and reads [DEAR KEVIN, / THANKS FOR ALL THE HARD WORK YOU AND / YOUR TEAM HAS PUT INTO THE VOODOO GUITAR / PROJECT. / I'VE ENJOYED EVERY MIN. OF THE JOURNEY. / THIS IS THE VOODOO GUITAR. PLEASE TAKE / EXTRA CARE OF HER, I GROWN QUITE FOND OF HER! / THE GUITAR IS SET UP AND PLAYS GREAT, SHE SOUNDS / LIKE THE DEVIL MOVING FURNITURE! / BLESSINGS / DON]. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Musician/Artist Don Louis Moser.

February 14, SOUND, 4/6

I DIDN'T THINK about Valentine's Day and so I didn't have to think about whether the Wordle editor was doing something dumb for the day. I opened with CRISP, got a yellow S, and moved on to STALE, which made the S green. Not much positive progress, but eight letters off the board, which didn't leave a lot of consonants to pair with the S. SWUNG missed on the W and G, but turned green on the rest. Not a consonant after the S, then, but a vowel: SOUND. A decent, reliable solving strategy.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 13, 2023

Tom Scocca — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 20:02:02 GMT

San Diego Citizens Being Trained on Gas Mask USAGE: This is a gas mask drill, which is serious business. A chemical warfare officer, (at left), instructs civilians of San Diego how to guard against surprise enemy gas barrages. Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images.

February 13, USAGE, 4/6

NOW THAT I knew the corny presence of the Wordle editor was lurking behind the empty grid, I refused to open the morning after the Super Bowl with CHAMP. The next word to mind, CHOMP, came up all gray. READY got a green A, where CHAMP's A would have been, and a yellow E. I thought about where to put the E—front? End? Both? Blended in an AE combination? Three rounds in, it was time for a standard-issue starter word, with SLATE. The E was right, and the S was yellow. There didn't seem to be enough consonant combinations left unused to fill the first two slots if I moved the S out of there. A vowel? USAGE was the right word in the right place.

Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, February 9–12, 2023

Tom Scocca — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:02:07 GMT

Pantomime for Kids performed by kids, Children wearing penguin costumes on the STAGE, 1936 (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

February 9, 2023, STAGE, 5/6

I'D COME UP with CRONE as today's starter yesterday so I played it, but I was in a gloomy state. I'd read an interview with the person the New York Times assigned to be the "editor" of Wordle, and she'd confirmed that she was deliberately being cute when the game spat out DRIVE and FEAST during Thanksgiving week. Now I faced the grid in the knowledge that behind it wasn't the pure spirit of five-letter vocabulary—words chosen for their own sake, at an ever-shifting conjunction of shape and meaning—but some cornball puzzle-dork trying to force their idea of playfulness onto millions of people. Anyway, I got a green E with CRONE, and I hoped it wasn't my first glimpse of some new twee joke. PLATE got a green A and a yellow T. I tried TRADE (surely the Wordle Editor hadn't stayed up to force a joke about the Kevin Durant situation) and the T stayed yellow, meaning the word had to fit into blank-T-A-blank-E. I still had S available to put in the front. STAKE? STAGE? The wandering T had already ruled out STATE. I tried STAKE and missed. STAGE it was. Who was performing on it?

February 10, 2023, HEADY, 3/6

WHAT I HAD in my brain was BRAIN, and that got a green A. I assumed it was worth sticking with a single syllable and tried GLADE; it added a green D to the A, plus a yellow E. The E had to move, and that space after the AD would almost certainly have to be filled with a Y, and the natural space for the E would be right before the A, and that would make blank-EADY, and with R for READY already gone that would leave HEADY as the next word up. All green, with the uplifting feeling of fast and sure success.

February 11, 2023, DEBUG, 3/6

SOME DAYS, IT feels like there aren't any good starter words left unused; some days, something like TIGER springs to mind. TIGER! What a great word. Vivid and structurally sound, moving brightly through the dim linguistic jungles. TIGER! Good for a yellow G and a yellow E. Also good for disqualifying the other words I could think of that would move the G and E around: LARGE, AGENT, GUISE, SURGE... Playing GUESS would be a wasteful move this early in the game. Finally I came up with GLADE. The G and E stayed yellow, and a yellow D joined them. Now—now the game that started with such free-ranging inspiration was getting stuck. WEDGE was out, DEIGN was out, EDGY was four letters, WEDGY would be spelled with an -IE. I wrote down five blanks and an oscillating pattern of the one-to-three eligible yellow letters for each blank. The D's and E's clustered toward the front, and the G's clustered toward the end. Finally, in the code, I saw the answer to the problem: DEBUG. Lousy word.

February 12, GIANT, 3/6

NOT ONE BUT two unplayed words suggested themselves: GROAN and GROIN. Of those, the obvious choice was GROIN, for a green G and a yellow I and N. Painless start. How close would the N move to the G? Nothing with a GN- suggested itself, so I tried GLINT. The N and T were green, but the I was still yellow. Only one other place to put it, and only one other letter to put beside it: GIANT. A big, friendly win.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 8, 2023

Tom Scocca — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 21:56:10 GMT

The young Khrishna strikes the cow with his cowherd's FLAIL. The cow, with calf, stands beneath the Bo-tree, with Khrisna's half-brother Bala Rama standing behind. from the V&A's collection, 10th century. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

February 8, 2023, FLAIL, 4/6

AN OPENING PLAY of TONIC brought only one positive result, and it was a mildly confounding one: a green I in the fourth spot. Was it the second independent vowel in a two-syllable word? Part of a vowel combination following a consonant combination? I guessed the former, with SERIF, and got a yellow F. That seemed like it had to go to the front of the word, probably paired with something else. FLUID felt like it had the structure of a winner. It came up correct on the F and L, but the U and D were wrong. The only workable vowel left was A, and the R for FLAIR was gone, so: FLAIL. All green. Just took one extra round of swinging to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 7, 2023

Tom Scocca — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 19:01:07 GMT

Chiryu, The Horse Fair, in The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido Gojusan Tsugi-no Uchi), Ando Hiroshige, Japanese, 1797-1858, Hoeido firm, Woodblock print (ukiyo-e) on mulberry paper (washi), ink with color, Groups of horses tethered in tall grass. Upper center, tree with crowd of horse dealers at its foot and some buildings. APPLE-green grass. Japan, 1833-34, figures, Print. (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

February 7, 2023, APPLE, 4/6

IT TOOK SOME stretching out for starter words before I came up with RANGY. I tried centering the A in PLACE, but that wasn't where it went; still, the P, L, and A came up yellow and the E was green. The answer presented itself obviously: AMPLE. The answer was wrong. The M stayed gray. APPLE. Green and sour.

Wordle Postgame Report, February 6, 2023

Tom Scocca — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 21:46:36 GMT

The St Annes Old Links golf club. The famous NINTH. (Photo by Sarah Fabian-Baddiel/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

February 6, 2023, NINTH, 4/6

IT HAD COME up as an unused possibility last week, but I'd never actually played CRATE, so I tried it. It got a green T. Did that mean a -TH ending or a -TY? I thought of FIFTH, which felt like a good fit, and then POTTY, which was funny, but both had repeating letters, so for the sake of letter variety, I played DUSTY. Again nothing but the T came up green. That eliminated POTTY and any other -TY ideas. Back to FIFTH, then. It was, in fact, a good fit: it came up gray on the F's and green everywhere else. Not FIFTH but NINTH. The end of the game.

Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, February 1–5, 2023

Tom Scocca — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 15:05:32 GMT

Detail of Woman SCOLDing a Youth from Topsy-Turvy World by Jan Steen (Photo by Burstein Collection/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

February 1, 2023, SCOLD, 2/6

I THOUGHT ABOUT starting with CAPER, like the stunt, then I thought about CAPON, then I thought about CAPER like the food item and went with that. Yellow C, nothing else. I decided to move it over only a little. Still a lot of game to go, best to work through it methodically. SC- would make sense to try. Should it take an I? I thought of SKINK, but that repeated a letter and had a K instead of the C. I thought of SKIFF, but that also repeated a letter and also had a K instead of the C. R and E were out, so SCORE wouldn't work. SCO-what, then? SCOLD would test a nice assortment of letters. Good intermediate step toward finding the answer, I thought. It went green from end to end. I could already picture the WordleBot, ever judgmental, telling me I'd won it on pure dumb luck.

February 2, 2023, SHIRK, 4/6

I WASN'T FEELING especially creative, so I went with PRICE to open, a word that had been rattling around in my middle rounds before. Yellow R, green I. I guessed the I was going to be the pivot of a single-syllable word and swung the R around to the other side, in SKIRT. That was right about the R, and right about the S, while the K came up yellow. Only one missing letter, and the other four could lock in place: S-blank-I-R-K. SMIRK or SHIRK, then. I played the M; it was the H. Normal results for no real effort.

February 3, 2023, TASTY, 4/6

I THOUGHT ABOUT using GRAVE to start, but it had already been an answer, so from a nearby mental shelf I picked GRAND, and I got a yellow A. I moved it over for the very satisfying letter-testing word PASTE, which came up green on the AST part. With the E out, that meant -ASTY. Here was the endgame, quick and simple; unhesitatingly, I played an H. H was wrong. That left repeating the T, and a lingering bitterness.

February 4, 2023, UNLIT, 4/6

WORDLE HAD ALREADY lowered itself to using TIBIA as an answer, so why not open with FEMUR? It got a yellow U. I slid it over with DOUBT, and it stayed yellow, with a green T showing up to anchor the end. I could try moving the U to the front, with UN- something, but the first thing that came to mind was UNCUT, and the second U wouldn't work. It felt more satisfying to keep marching the U steadily from right to left, taking a chance on a Q, with QUILT. No to Q, and yellow on the -UIL-. It was an UN- word after all: UNLIT. A boring negative, not worth all the groping around in the dark for.

February 5, 2023, DANCE, 5/6

OTHER PEOPLE WERE broadcasting the color grids for their two-round wins in my peripheral vision as soon as I looked at the internet, but I had insulated myself from being influenced by that fact, thanks to having already scribbled down GAMUT as a starter yesterday. The A was green. I kept not thinking about what other people were doing and played WAVER, adding a yellow E to the grid. So much for a two-round win. I played LAPSE and turned the E green, but the other three squares stayed gray. The blank-A-blank-blank-E pattern looked like I'd built a double chute, but it was the opposite of one: I couldn't think of any workable words to shovel into it at all. What consonant combination would fit in those third and fourth spaces? Or was there some vowel combination with the A? BADGE was already out. CABLE, also out. GAFFE, likewise. CADRE, ditto. The word-chute was in my brain, and it had no bottom. Finally I realized CACHE would fit. It wasn't right—the first C turned yellow, and nothing else hit—but it was something. The C went somewhere in the double-wide gap. With what for a partner? An N, and a D at the front of the word. The green boxes belatedly did their little victory jig.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of Indignity, a general-interest publication for a discerning and self-selected audience. Is it for you? It could be!

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Wordle Postgame Report, January 31, 2023

Tom Scocca — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 21:10:50 GMT

Citroën 2CVs at an auto-CROSS. (Photo by National Motor Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

January 31, 2023, CROSS, 5/6

I REASSURED MYSELF I was playing a higher-variance strategy but really FILMY was the only word I could come up with as a starter. The sight of it turning up all gray made me come up with PASTE, which I'd somehow also never played, but which only came up with a yellow S. It was going to be this kind of a game, fumbling around in the dark. I used up the rest of the vowels with SOUND, but only added a yellow O to the yellow S. By now, though, the eliminated letters were telling me something. The O had to hold the whole word together, so it would go in the middle spot, after a consonant combination, and then—well, the letter supply was so depleted, it seemed safe to double up the S. If I was going completely wrong, I still had a spare turn to try something else. I played GROSS. Gray followed by four greens. Right concept, wrong consonant combination. The only alternative was the C. The sort of game that leaves one irritated.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of Indignity, a general-interest publication for a discerning and self-selected audience. Is it for you? It could be!

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Wordle Postgame Report, January 30, 2023

Tom Scocca — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 01:37:14 GMT

Liam Byrne 6-years (L) rubs his cheek against a baby 'Minmi' dinosaur puppet (R) during a welcome to Clark Island on Sydney Harbour on August 19, 2009 as part of a media preview for ‘CRAVE Sydney,’ being held from October 1 to 31 is a major new celebration of Sydney's unmatched way of life, offering 31 days of food, outdoor art and fun and includes a Sydney Harbour island hopping experience. (Photo: Greg Wood/AFP via Getty Images)

January 30, 2023, CRAVE, 2/6

I COULD SEE from Twitter and messaging that people were having a bad time with this one. I unfocused my eyes from the blank grids and chutes so as not to think about the patterns, and I tried to come up with a normal, well-reasoned starting word. Or were people struggling because the answer had some hard letters in it, and they were trapped in an extended guessing game? Not my business, yet. My plans about what to play were so standard I had to ctrl-F three or four prospective starter words against the file of Postgame Reports before I came up with one I hadn't used before: GRACE. Gray, green, green, yellow, green. C to the front, then, and C-R-A-blank-E. CRAVE. Or CRATE. Or—they couldn't do CRAPE. CRAVE was first into my mind, so it was first into the grid. All green. The easy win I'd been hungering for.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of the Indignity newsletter, and on Popula, which we encourage you to support. Thank you for reading!

Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, January 26–29, 2023

Tom Scocca — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 16:23:11 GMT

BEEFY The Skateboarding Bulldog visits Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium on August 26, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)

January 26, 2023, BEEFY, 4/6

THE PASTORAL IMAGE of a GLADE got only a yellow E. Should I put it in the boring and obvious middle, or play it at the beginning in the hopes of finding something interesting? I went with the former, with STERN, and the E turned green. There weren't all that many consonant pairs left to fill up the double spaces before or after it; it felt like this one called for a second vowel. And EE seemed at least likely as any EI or IE combination—especially without another E at the end—and much more likely than an EO or OE. But would that EE be shifted forward or rearward? I could make CHEEP, or I could make BEEFY. Both were funny, but I'd thought of CHEEP first, but BEEFY was funnier. I played CHEEP. Three grays, and the second E in yellow. BEEFY still fit, and obviously I wasn't going to try to think of something else. All green. Solid, meaty answer.

January 27, 2023, WORRY, 3/6

WHAT LIVELIER WAY to start off than with PERKY? It got a green R and a green Y. Maybe it was building a pair of chutes, but it didn't seem like it. I felt confident enough in the start to play a double R in the next round, with SORRY. Or could it be WORRY? Going from PERKY to SORRY would be funnier, so I did it. Four green squares, gray in front. It was the W after all. Nothing to be concerned about.

January 28, 2023, FLIRT, 4/6

IN ALL THIS time, I'd never played GLOBE before. It turned up a green L. I tried making it part of a consonant pair in FLASK, and the F came up green too. FL-what? A, E, and O were all gone. FLINT? A green I and T chipped away even more of the gray. Not an N, but an R. Encouraging all the way, and only slightly hard to get.

January 29, 2023, FISHY, 3/6

LOOKING MORE FOR a useful assortment letters than for the inherent entertainment value of the guess-word, I started with TORUS. All that tactical-mindedness got me was a not-very-helpful-looking yellow S. I moved it to the front and stuck with shape-related words, with SPIKE. The S stayed yellow, and the I came up yellow, too. Still not that much to work with, but the S needed to move toward the middle and the I needed to move away. It seemed like there must have been lots of words that would fit that pattern; the first one that came to mind was FISHY. I played it, and it went green all the way across. A suspiciously easy win.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of the Indignity newsletter, and on Popula, which we encourage you to support. Thank you for reading!

Wordle Postgame Report, January 25, 2023

Tom Scocca — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 18:29:23 GMT

Aztec volcanic rock statue of Chicomecoatl the Goddess of MAIZE and groundwater. Dated 14th Century. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

January 25, 2023, MAIZE, 3/6

WITH A SORT of protective jinx in mind, or just the inability to think of anything else, I opened with STUMP, and got a yellow M. To compensate for playing the U so early, I tried a batch of more common vowels with MAYBE. The M, A, and E were all green—the two gray spaces looked like a chute, but there didn't seem to be that many letter combinations to shovel into it. MAIZE would work if the answer took another vowel, or otherwise what? MACHE would be an awful answer. MANGE would fit. Did I want to think about MANGE this early in the game, this early in the morning? The game was in good shape; I could risk a Z this early. I played MAIZE, and it sprouted up all green. Sort of an embarrassing puzzle-word, but it was right.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of the Indignity newsletter, and on Popula, which we encourage you to support. Thank you for reading!

Wordle Postgame Report, January 24, 2023

Tom Scocca — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 13:24:49 GMT

January 24, 2023, COUNT, 3/6

WITH THE SPRING semester underway, I tried TEACH and learned a lot: it delivered a yellow T and yellow C, while eliminating any TH or CH possibilities, as well as any -CK endings. And it knocked out two common vowels. With all that in hand, I tried the C at the front and the T at the end, with CLOUT. They came up green, and the -OU- came up yellow, for COU-blank-T. COUNT or COURT? I played the N: one, two, three, four, five green boxes.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of the Indignity newsletter, and on Popula, which we encourage you to support. Thank you for reading!

Wordle Postgame Report, January 23, 2023

Tom Scocca — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 03:52:13 GMT

Spray paint graffiti on a wall of the Railway Square pedestrian tunnel. A spray-can graffiti artist has struck in the tunnel Railway Square tunnel despite a supposed 24 hour police patrol. The midnight marauder, armed with a spray can of red paint, left his message on the tiled walls of the main section of the tunnel this week. Commuters have been puzzled about how he managed to ELUDE police who are rostered to patrol the tunnel around the clock. But elude them he did and sprayed letters about a metre high over the tiles. August 17, 1976. (Photo by Grant Peterson/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

January 23, 2023, ELUDE, 5/6

NOTHING BUT SILENCE came up from an opening move with BATON. WHELP delivered a yellow E and L. DEVIL kept me ignorant of their true positions, keeping them yellow and adding a yellow D—that last detail was somehow lost on me as I thought about MULED and instead played FLUME, giving myself a rougher ride than necessary. Still, the misplay gave me a green L, green E, and a new green U. ELUDE. I'd messed up, but the answer didn't get away from me.

The Wordle Postgame Report will be posted semi-regularly on the website of the Indignity newsletter, and on Popula, which we encourage you to support. Thank you for reading!