Another day, another Wordle.
The wildly popular word puzzle game created by Josh Wardle continues to not only be a big hit, it continues to inspire a puzzle renaissance. Here at Forbes, we have the anagram game, Frase, which is a lot of fun.
The hot new game at The New York Times is Connections, which is all about grouping words into thematic bunches. Then there are all the myriad games inspired even more directly by Wordle, from Nerdle to to Quordle and plenty others.
It’s a good time to be a puzzle-gamer, in other words. Of course here in this column, every Wednesday is Wordle Wednesday, where we up the puzzler ante. Each Wordle Wednesday I dish out a new logic puzzle, brain teaser or riddle for readers to solve. Here’s today’s:
If eleven plus two equals one, what does nine plus five equal?
I’ll post the answer in tomorrow’s guide. In the meantime, if you think you have the answer, feel free to shoot me a message on Twitter or Facebook.
Alright, let’s do this Wordle!
How To Solve Today’s Word
The Hint: An enemy of the olfactory.
The Clue: This word has a double letter.
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See yesterday’s Wordle #843 right here.
Wordle Bot Analysis
After each Wordle I solve I head over to the Wordle Bot homepage to see how my guessing game was.
It’s interesting that we got skunk one day after snail, but I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. I suppose while both are animals they’re rather different in just about every way. For one thing, I’ve eaten a snail but I don’t think I’d eat a skunk!
In any case, it took me four guesses today and I was pretty lucky on my last one. Clone narrowed the field to 77 and wails dropped that number to just 7. I screwed up with sunny, but wanted to guess something with both a ‘U’ and a ‘Y’ since I had no vowels still but had eliminated everything else.
Thankfully, despite having six words remaining, the first one that popped into my head was skunk, probably because we had one nearby the other night and I only just got the dogs inside in time. There’s nothing worse than dogs getting sprayed by a skunk (that’s not true, but hyperbolically there’s nothing worse!)
Today’s Score
Both the Bot and I got this one in four, which means zero points all around. Zero for the tie, zero for guessing in four. Just zero. Huzzah!
Today’s Wordle Etymology
The word “skunk” has an interesting etymology. It is believed to have originated from the Algonquian languages, which are a family of Native American languages spoken primarily in the northeastern part of North America. In particular, the word is thought to come from the Massachusett or Abenaki language.
In the Massachusett language, the word “seganku” or “segekun” was used to refer to the skunk. Similarly, in the Abenaki language, the word “zegankw” referred to this distinctive animal. Over time, these Native American words were anglicized and transformed into the English word “skunk,” which has been in use to describe the animal since the 17th century.
The term “skunk” is now widely recognized as the name for the small, striped mammal known for its distinctive black and white coloration and its ability to emit a foul-smelling spray as a defense mechanism.
Play Competitive Wordle Against Me!
I’ve been playing a cutthroat game of PvP Wordle against my nemesis Wordle But. Now you should play against me! I can be your nemesis! (And your helpful Wordle guide, of course). You can also play against the Bot if you have a New York Times subscription.
Here are the rules:
- 1 point for getting the Wordle in 3 guesses.
- 2 points for getting it in 2 guesses.
- 3 points for getting it in 1 guess.
- 1 point for beating me
- 0 points for getting it in 4 guesses.
- -1 point for getting it in 5 guesses.
- -2 points for getting it in 6 guesses.
- -3 points for losing.
- -1 point for losing to me
You can either keep a running tally of your score if that’s your jam or just play day-to-day if you prefer.
Read the full article here