The Lemon Fool

If you don't know it, Wordle is an online game where you get six tries to divine what their five letter word word is. Each day there's a new word, and I have a friend who also plays, and each morning we swap results. The technique is, start with a word, and if letters change colour they indicate if they're in the right place, or if they're used but in the wrong place, or not used at all. For that reason, the initial word is very important.

Now, I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H- so I always start with TRAIN, to help me towards a solution. My friend starts with the word HEART, and its been annoying me a bit that, if I solve it in four, she solves it in three. If she solves it in four, I solve it in five - you get the idea, she's always a bit better than me. Today, I decided for the first time in months to vary my strategy and level the playing field. For the first time ever, I started with her preferred opening word, HEART.

Took me four goes to establish that today's word was TRAIN (which she solved in three.)
If I'd stuck to my usual routine I'd have had a record solution with one guess, but instead, it's an "I could have been a champion" moment.
Bah humbug!

That's bad luck!

My starting word: IDEAS helped me to get TRAIN in two lines today, and HAIRY yesterday in three.

Watis

I start with OCEAN. A and N suggested that there had to be a vowel before N so I went for TRAIN, got it in my second line.

Yesterday I got -AIRY, but had several goes before I found the right one for the start. Too many possibles. FAIRY, HAIRY, DAIRY, LAIRY

TJH

NomoneyNohoney wrote:Now, I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H-

Although the letter frequency of words in Wordle answers (pre-NYT) is [minor spoiler]
E, A, R, O, T, L, I, S, N, U, C, Y and for instance, Y is more useful than its reasonable frequency would suggest, because it is almost always (86%) the last letter and greens are more useful than yellows.

Not happy about today's word, a dictionary suggests one meaning is very American, the other has a strong American feel, and by far the most common usage is as a name.

ALIEN TRUTH are the recommended starting words, as I read somewhere that all the answers form a coded message slowly revealing the truth to the public. Versions of wordle are being installed across the globe in preparation for the Great Reveal.

NomoneyNohoney wrote:Now, I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H- so I always start with TRAIN, to help me towards a solution.

My approach has been to build three distinct opening words using fifteen letters from that sequence starting left to right: IRATE, CONUS, LYMPH. I use the list as published on Wikipedia which is slightly different to yours: EARIOTNSLC... (A minor point of order - the letter frequencies across five letter words only are almost certainly slightly different, but I would likely end up with the same words anyway.)

Counter-intuitively perhaps, I tend not to repeat green or yellow letters within the first two or three tries unless I am very confident of solving on that attempt. Otherwise, since I already know what/where those letters are and can come back to them on the next but one attempt, I aim to eliminate as many more different letters as possible. This obviously works in "easy mode" only. Sometimes I use the third word, sometimes I don't; sometimes I skip the second word if I have bagged two or more vowels with the first, and use the third instead - they are interchangeable.

JohnB wrote:Not happy about today's word, a dictionary suggests one meaning is very American, the other has a strong American feel, and by far the most common usage is as a name.

Today's word is a good example which I effectively found with my three words, using the fourth attempt to "tidy up" and solve.

_Y__Y
_G___
__G_Y
GGGGG

moorfield wrote:

NomoneyNohoney wrote:Now, I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H- so I always start with TRAIN, to help me towards a solution.

My approach has been to build three distinct opening words using fifteen letters from that sequence starting left to right: IRATE, CONUS, LYMPH. I use the list as published on Wikipedia which is slightly different to yours: EARIOTNSLC... (A minor point of order - the letter frequencies across five letter words only are almost certainly slightly different, but I would likely end up with the same words anyway.)

Counter-intuitively perhaps, I tend not to repeat green or yellow letters within the first two or three tries unless I am very confident of solving on that attempt. Otherwise, since I already know what/where those letters are and can come back to them on the next but one attempt, I aim to eliminate as many more different letters as possible. This obviously works in "easy mode" only. Sometimes I use the third word, sometimes I don't; sometimes I skip the second word if I have bagged two or more vowels with the first, and use the third instead - they are interchangeable.

JohnB wrote:Not happy about today's word, a dictionary suggests one meaning is very American, the other has a strong American feel, and by far the most common usage is as a name.

Today's word is a good example which I effectively found with my three words, using the fourth attempt to "tidy up" and solve.

_Y__Y
_G___
__G_Y
GGGGG

And I used my method of using a first word containing many of the most common letters (shine, stone, dream, trade, I switch them around) and also solved on the fourth try, as I most commonly do. I'm not convinced your method is any more successful. Incidently I stopped using words with three vowels for the first go, I tend to find that finding a consonant much more helpful than finding vowels.

Gersemi wrote:
And I used my method of using a first word containing many of the most common letters (shine, stone, dream, trade, I switch them around) and also solved on the fourth try, as I most commonly do. I'm not convinced your method is any more successful. Incidently I stopped using words with three vowels for the first go, I tend to find that finding a consonant much more helpful than finding vowels.

Probably not I find am consistently solving in four tries also. I take your point re the vowels and have also been thinking about using more consonants, three words to use there might be: STERN, CLAMP, BOUGH , which would have got me there in four again...

__YY_
___Y_
_G__Y
GGGGG

NomoneyNohoney wrote:I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H-

Many years ago, I suspect in the Meccano Magazine in the 1940s, it was stated that the most frequent letters are ETAON, and this was used for code breaking. I wonder why R has crept in?

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

NomoneyNohoney wrote:I've know for years that the letter frequency of words in the English language is E-T-R-A-O-N-I-S-H-

Many years ago, I suspect in the Meccano Magazine in the 1940s, it was stated that the most frequent letters are ETAON, and this was used for code breaking. I wonder why R has crept in?

TJH

Possibly Harrow felt that they required further representation - the sop of an A was insufficient. But they didn't get the W.

Wow, the list of future words is actually contained in clear text in the javascript of the page.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/want-to-up ... n-the-page

Of course cheating is pointless, and anyone can mock-up a good result, but you'd have thought they'd had served a new page with each word or done some trivial encryption.

There are TWO possible answers to today's
Wordle - one of which is visible in that link, to The Guardian, together with an explanation of the issue!

Watis

Suits me - the new word gave me three greens on the first line, so got a rare two, or "an eagle" as I think of it.

I had 1,3,4 and 5 on the third line, but then too 2 more attempts to get the second letter. Swine!