Staunton Star - Times - Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years

By: Jill Pertler

There’s a new game sweeping the Internet. It’s called Wordle and the premise is pretty simple. You get six chances to correctly guess, ascertain and or sleuth out a random, five-letter word. With each guess you are told which letters are in the word, which are not and which are in the right space within the word.

If you correctly guess the word in four guesses or less you earn bragging rights on various social media platforms. Any game that sets up bragging rights on social media is destined for stardom. In that regard, Wordle is already a celebrity.

There are a couple of magical things about Wordle. First, it spans generations. My son introduced me to the game; and I know friends who compete in family challenges with their 90-something grandmothers as well as their 10-year-old fifth graders. There aren’t too many activities that can appeal to boomers, the X, Y and Zers and those who’ve lived through realities like the Great Depression and WWII. Wordle does just that.

Second, you can only play one word each day. You can’t get consumed by it and spend hours on word after word after word. It’s a one and done. You do the Wordle and wait until tomorrow for a new word to become Wordle-able. Well, unless you are an addicted fanatic, and find the Wordle archive online. Then you’ll have access to all 200-plus Wordle words. It could keep you busy for days – not that I’d know from personal experience.

Wordle may be based on a simple premise, but the way one approaches the game varies from person to person. This reveals a good deal about us as individuals.

There’s been much speculation about how to select the first word for your daily guess. There are two distinct groups of Wordlers in this regard. The first are the foot loose and fancy free. They choose a word based on a feeling or a sign or maybe a dream they had the night before. Every day it’s a different word, because playing any other way would be boring.

Then there is the other group, to which I belong. I call us the rigid Wordlers because we have standard words to start our journey each day. Within my first two words, the goal is to use all five vowels along with a handful of the most popular consonants. Lately, my first word is “autos.” For the longest time, my second word was “brine,” but a couple of weeks ago I changed that to “diner” because I thought having the “er” at the end might be advantageous.

Within a week of that change, the Wordle for the day was (wait for it…) brine. Exclamation point. So much for the “er” on the end being advantageous. Suffice to say I didn’t do any bragging on social media that day.

Once I start a game, I finish it within minutes. One of my sons will take a guess or two and then ponder it for an hour or more while he goes about the rest of his day. There are as many techniques to Wordle as there are five-letter words in the English language - and that’s a lot.

Some days, the word is tougher than others. This happens (in my opinion) when one letter is used twice in the same word. For instance you know there is an S or a V or an I in your word, but you might not consider two of each of those letters. Consider “vivid,” “eases” and “shush.”

A year ago, Wordle wasn’t in my vocabulary, because it hadn’t been invented yet. Now, according to the New York Times, more than 300,000 people play it daily. I’m one of them. And other countries are jumping on the bandwagon. Canada has its own version called Canuckle.

In times that can seem scary and bleak, Wordle is a vivid bright light. It eases us toward peace, and when we solve, we shush so we don’t spoil the quest for others. It can bring about a sense of pride and unity with other Wordlers. From my perspective, there’s only one thing that could make it more perfect: If Wordle itself was a five-letter word. But that would be asking a lot – or better put in Wordle terms – heaps, loads and scads.

Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.