Wordle Postgame Report, December 21

GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE DEP'T.

Wordle Postgame Report, December 21
Lunar-shaped Ring Bezel and Grotesque Figures, circa 1620-30. Artist Noel Rouillard. (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, not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.

December 21, LUNAR, 3/6

Playing high-frequency consonants with a lower-frequency vowel feels like a good strategy, whether it really is or not. TRUNK gratifyingly came through in both categories, with a yellow R, U, and N. How to rearrange them? I immediately saw URBAN, with a flash of certainty, then had to put some effort into making myself unsee it, because the R was in the wrong place. There really were a lot of possibilities excluded: no -URN endings; no two-consonant combinations with either the N or the R, fore or aft, because the U couldn't go in the middle. I abandoned all interest and guessing new letters, and focused entirely on positioning, with RUNNY. Yellow R, green U and N. Nothing with a -UNR- came to mind, leaving it at  _ U N _ R. TRUNK had ruled out TUNER, so...LUNAR? The full right answer was shining there.

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