Have you been caught up in the latest viral craze? My son introduced me to Wordle last week. I struggled to solve the puzzle. You get six guesses to solve the five-letter word of the day. Then I noticed Wordle was trending on Twitter. Then one friend and fellow blogger sent me a link to play. Everywhere I looked there was Wordle.

The topper was a blogger I follow, “Tater,” who was interviewed by the Washington Post in an article about Wordle. You can read the story called “Wordle is our New Drug” HERE and visit his blog “The World’s Common Tater” HERE.

What makes the puzzle so much fun? I think it’s the simplicity and that it’s only one word per day. It’s much easier than a crossword. And it only takes a few minutes.

My son came up with a surefire winning strategy. He looked up the most common letters used in the English language. It was a list of 15 letters and he came up with three words: earnt (which is a word in the UK), coils and dumpy. You type those words in and presto! You get four out of five of the letters — or at least enough to solve the Wordle.

I found that to be almost like cheating, so I came up with two words that cover all five vowels and the letter Y. Yearn and moist. I still solve the Wordle, but it’s a little harder.

Here’s an excerpt from from a Wall Street Journal article by Joseph Pisani called “What Is Wordle? How to Play the Viral Word Game and Tricks to Impress Your Friends: Everything you need to know about the online game that has taken the internet by storm.”

Wordle, an online word game, seems like it is everywhere these days. Here’s what you need to know.

What is Wordle? It is a once-a-day word game that has gone viral in recent weeks. It only can be played on a website.

Who brought this on us? Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer from New York. He created a prototype in 2013 and dusted it off during the pandemic for his partner, who likes playing word games.

How do I play? Go to the game’s website on your desktop or mobile browser. The URL is: https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

Wordle is simple: You have six chances to guess the day’s secret five-letter word. Type in a word as a guess, and the game tells you which letters are or aren’t in the word. The game is free and has no ads. The aim is to figure out the secret word with the fewest guesses.

What do the green and yellow squares mean? When you make a guess in the game, the letter tiles change colors to show how close you are to the secret word. If you guess “weary,” and the “W” turns green, that means the secret word starts with a “W.” If the “E” turns yellow, the letter is in the word but not in that spot. Any letters that aren’t in the secret word turn gray.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wordle-what-is-word-game-11642016202?mod=life_work_lead_pos1

Are you playing Wordle? Do you have a strategy or do you wing it with guesses?