Today’s Wordle Answer #237: Friday, Feb. 11, 2022
Wordle enthusiasts may have noticed a difference in their game today: The usual Wordle URL (https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/) now redirects to The New York Times platform for the popular word puzzle. There’s no difference in gameplay, though the title of the puzzle is now in one of the Times’ signature fonts. It was announced in late January that The New York Times purchased Wordle from founder and creator Josh Wardle, who previously admitted it was a “relief” for him: He originally created the game just for his partner, having zero expectations of it becoming a global sensation. At this point, the game is still free, though it remains to be seen whether it will be placed under the New York Times’ paywall in the future. In any case, a clue for today’s Wordle answer: It may well give you a belly ache if you didn’t choose your letters carefully. We opted, for the first time ever, to use what may Wordle strategists consider another of the best Wordle starting words: “SOARE.” It didn’t help very much, though it did give us two letters: R and E, which are some of the most commonly used and can be placed just about anywhere. We moved a bit outside the box with our second guess, “REMIX,” just for kicks, knowing the X likely wouldn’t be in play. (We’re now wishing we used “REMIT,” but hindsight is 20/20, right? Especially at 5 a.m.) We followed up with “THREW,” which didn’t work either, and decided to switch up and try out a “U” word for the next attempt. “BLUER” revealed that the letter L was in play and placed the E and the R in their correct spots. There aren’t too many words you can form out of the letters that remained on the board. We opted for “ULCER,” which was easy because having E and R at the end left few other options. A fellow Wordle player who shared his screen with us revealed that his Wordle starting word is always “JUICE,” and it rarely came in handy for him more than it did today. His second guess was “CRUEL,” an anagram of “ULCER.” He won Wordle with just three tries today, a relatively impressive feat for a word with only two (or three if “CRANE” is your starting word of choice) of the most commonly used Wordle starting letters. Next, find out how to access the Wordle archive!
