Wordle Postgame Report, CATCH up: August 31-September 4

August 31, PRIZE, 4/6

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 oe New York Times.

A DEPRESSING FEELING of sameness set in, as MONEY got me an yellow E, and then TEACH kept the E yellow. Here I was, chasing one piece of not-very useful information around the otherwise unresponsive grid. The worst bits of the last few games seemed to be converging in a single session; now it seemed to be time to think about -IE and -EI combinations. I wouldn't. Consonant combination, I as the vowel in the middle, E on the end. PRIDE? Four out of five green, everything but the D. It looked like the opening of a chute, but PRICE and PRIME were already out. It would have to be PRIZE, wouldn't it? Not much of a reward for winning.

September 1, FUNGI, 5/6

THE DEADEST OF dead starts began with CORPS, since CORPSE was six letters, followed by DEATH: two rows of pure gray. Ten letters played, zero letters identified. Something like giddiness set in at the sight of total failure. BLINK gave the first and barest signs of life, with a yellow I and N. Thirteen letters eliminated, and hardly anything useful to show for it. Maybe eliminating letters was the wrong approach. NINNY turned the N green and kept the I yellow. But it also did rule out a Y. Under the surface, a network of connections was feeding on the decomposing failed guesses. The N meant there were two syllables, each one needing its own vowel. It would be hard to fit the I into the front half anymore, and the only thing that could go there was a U. The unseen answer suddenly swelled up into view: FUNGI.

September 2, CHARM, 3/6

AN EASY AND speedy day, even though the opener of PRONE got nothing but a yellow R. With two common vowels gone and the R on the move, it felt like one syllable and lots of consonants would be the way to go, and SHARD obligingly turned green on -HAR-. Nothing seemed to fit THAR-, so it had to start with C. CHARM or CHART? I played CHARM, and the third turn came up lucky.

September 3, GULLY, 4/6

ANOTHER DRY START, with HATER turning up empty. BLOCK was only good for a yellow L. So many letters were worn away from the pile already, it was time to go to a double: SPILL. The L's were the only letters that hit—the first one green, the second yellow. The vowel or vowels in the answer had to be U and/or Y; every other possibility had eroded away. As I typed in GULLY, the computer or the webpage lagged and then sped up, so that at the bottom of the dry rows, the green of success came into view late but flowing quickly.

September 4, INTER, 4/6

I THINK SOMETIMES I wait too long to play the Y, treating it as a rarer letter than it is, so for this game I tried it right away, with REPLY. That eliminated the Y, and got a yellow R and E—which looked like the makings of another likely ending, so I tried HOVER. The E and R were green; for one bleak moment I pictured an endless stream of -ER words leading off the bottom of the grid. But then TIMER gave me a yellow T and I. I couldn't think of a word that went -TIER or IT-ER. so it had to be I-TER: INTER. All those other possibilities were dead and buried.

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