Have you heard about or played Wordle?

Wordle is a word game where you have six tries to guess the word of the day. It was developed by John Wardle and PreNus Games in October 2021 and sold to The New York Times Company this year for an estimated $1,000,000.

It is said millions play this word game daily.

You can play this game on a computer, a cellphone or an iPad by going to https://www.nytimes.com or type Wordle in your search bar. It is free to play.

“Play Wordle with me,” my sister said. “It will be fun.”

Fun is not the adjective I would use with this game. Other adjectives to counter “fun” might be torturous, trying and agonizing.

You begin by picking any five-letter word you can think of. If you find a letter in the correct placement in the word of the day, the letter will show in green. At the bottom of the puzzle is a keyboard that shows you remaining letters available, similar to Wheel of Fortune. If you see a letter in yellow, it means the letter is in the puzzle but not in the proper place in the word.

Here was my try April 23:

The first word I tried was PLAYS. The game said I had the “L” in the correct position.

The next word I tried was OLDER. I had the “O” and “L” in the correct positions and the “E” in the wrong position.

The next word I tried was OLENT. The “E” was still in the wrong position.

I tried another word that was not in the Wordle dictionary, so it wouldn’t let me use it.

The next word I tried was OLIVE - turns out it was the word of the day. Four tries is pretty good for me. There are many times I don’t get the word at all and twice I guessed the word in three tries.

When you have the word or you don’t get the word in six tries, you can hit the share button and share your results with your friends and family.

My sister shares her results every day. My son shares his results sporadically.

When I can’t get the word after six tries, I share the results with my sister with an emoji of me slapping my head or falling on the floor.

May I remind you this is the same sister who said, “Play Wordle with me; “It will be fun.”

This isn’t like Jeopardy; you don’t have to be super smart to play this game - which is where my frustration comes in.

When I can’t get the word in six tries, the game reveals the answer, and I can’t believe I didn’t guess it. Only once did the reveal show a word I didn’t know, which, if I remember correctly, was Tamil, an Indian language.

For some unknown reason, I continue to play this word game, although I’m sure my blood pressure rises with each incorrect guess.

I put Wordle in the same category of paper cuts, hangnails, inconsiderate drivers and general annoyances.

I will continue to look for the “fun” in this game and hope the longer I play, the more successful I will be.

Let me know if you play Wordle and what you think of it.

Debbie Galbraith

editor

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press