Wordle isn’t doing what it used to for me.
Wordle had already started when I arrived. A couple of weeks before I started at the company, my mum persuaded me that Wordle was a great tool and showed me how to play the game. As a way to keep in touch, she suggested that we send each other our findings every day.
However, for the last week or so, I haven’t enjoyed the game as much since the solutions available have made it seem more like a guessing game than a mental challenge. Do you hear what I’m hearing? Here’s why I believe Wordle’s time has come to an end.
What went wrong with Wordle?
Like many others, I believed things began to go wrong as soon as the New York Times purchased Wordle. As my colleague Marc McLaren has pointed out, Wordle has not become any more difficult after the acquisition by the New York Times.
The New York Times, on the other hand, argues that this is the case since it hasn’t added any new terms to the list of eligible answers; it has only eliminated a few it judged insulting or obscure. So today’s Wordle answer would have been the same regardless of whether or not the takeover had occurred.
It’s hard to deny that the phrases TACIT, SWILL, and CAULK aren’t prevalent, even if you discount the influence of the New York Times: Unless you work in house remodelling or a pig farm, that is. Since I’ve run out of words to submit when I’m down to the final few letters, I’ve resorted to submitting phrases that sound like words until the tiles turn green.
According to Merriam-Webster, tacit and caul (which I guess is people attempting to write caulk) have been among the dictionary’s top 10 recent searches. As a result, it seems that many individuals are looking up the definition of an unfamiliar term after they’ve come across it.
Words with too many interchangeable letters may likewise be unfairly used, according to this argument Last week, I almost ran out of attempts to obtain SHAKE, but my unfortunate mother lost her lucky streak. We were both exhausted by the time we’d completed the exercises for shade, sharing, shame, and form. It’s all down to chance rather than skill at this point.
How can I fix Wordle’s problems?
It’s certain that there will be days when Wordle’s answer list has more than 2,300 words, and I’ll have to settle for a less-than-ideal term since it’s neither too common nor too unusual.
And maybe I’m over-expecting. You might argue that learning new words is a good thing, but I’m not expecting to ever use caulk in a sentence again and I’m not even sure what tacit means.
My morning commute game will soon be replaced by something else if this trend continues.