Wordle Postgame Report, November 30

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.

November 30, STUDY, 5/6

STARTING THE GAME off with SNACK brought only the brief and fleeting satisfaction of a lone green S. STOVE added a green T, and knocked two more vowels off the board. STING and STUNG were already gone, thanks to the N—what if it opened with a triple set of consonants, as in STRIP? Nope: three gray spaces, no positive progress. The vowel possibilities were down to U. And Y, sure, OK, yes. The consonants available for the ending were pretty well depleted, too. STUFF got the U in place, but the last two squares were gray. A little panic began to stir. Was it time to burn round five guessing a whole new assortment of letters, for fear of falling off the board? Were there even enough usable letters remaining to make that worth doing? What if—what if my whole line of attack had been pointed the wrong way, locked in on one-syllable words? There was that nearly overlooked Y, patiently waiting for a syllable of its own. STUDY. I'd just needed to look at the problem more carefully.

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