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Wordle Postgame Report, January 9, 2023

GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE DEP'T.

Tom Scocca

Jan 11, 2023 — 1 min read

Child with a Brownie camera, c 1900 - ENGLAND - AUGUST 06: A snapshot photograph of a little boy dressed as a Brownie, taken by George Alfred Wyatt (1870-1922). The child is Frank Morrison Wyatt, the son of the photographer. Frank's mother, Rosemary Brookes Wyatt, made the toadstool and costume. The camera held by Frank is a Kodak Brownie, made by Eastman and designed to retail at a low price. The camera was literally a cardboard box with a wooden end, yet it took perfectly good photographs. First produced in 1900, the camera was named after characters from a popular series of children's books by the Canadian writer and illustrator Palmer Cox (1840-1924). Kodak advertising featured drawings of these PIXIE-like Brownies. (Photo by SSPL/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.

PIXIE, 4/6

OPENING THE GAME with TRIAL was more useful for what it eliminated than for what it kept. The positive result was a yellow I; the negative result was that the words I could think of with I's in them kept also having T's. I thought of AUDIT, a great vowel-testing word. No good. PICKY would work, and it got me two green letters in the front, which sent me back to useless T words: PIVOT...PINOT... Something was missing, or I was missing something. PIOUS would fit, but the last three squares stayed gray. The vowels were nearly depleted and the consonants just wouldn't fit. Time to consider a different approach: a repeating vowel, and a consonant from the rarities. PIXIE. The grid ceased to resist.

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