Mike Morin

I had no intention of jumping on the trendy train known as Wordle. Avoided it. I steer clear of overly trendy things. That is, until a recent vacation with my brother, Dave, and his wife, Natalie. I was a guest in their Florida home and I chose to be polite and agreed to have my brother show me how it works.

I liked it. Our sister, Lisa, who sucked Dave and Natalie in, said to me, “Welcome to the cult…er…club.” As the oldest of seven, I figured I’d better get with it and not be left behind.

For the uninitiated, Wordle is a fairly new online game. Easy to play. Guess a single five-letter word with six tries. They let you know if you guess a letter correctly and if it’s in the right position. You use those clues to eventually deduce the correct answer. Pretty easy, making me wonder if people ever lose. I asked my enthusiastic Wordle cult member Facebook friends what it feels like to lose such an easy game. In other words, despite six attempts, not guessing the word.

Turns out, losers can be funny. Even inadvertently, as Annette proved, “I lost twuce.” Then she saw her error and changed it to “I lost twice.” At first glance, I could see how “twuce” would out her as a poor speller. I knew better as she is wicked smaht. I mean, smart.

Sometimes, after a few guesses, too many possible solutions exist. From my high school debate partner and award winning outdoors writer Tom, who said of losing, “Yeah, I lost. Once. Too many options. Unlucky in guessing. The word was SHAKE. And I tried shame, shale, shave, shade, shape, share.” Streak broken.

Good one from Jane who commented about words she uses as Wordle’s first guess. “I sometimes use ‘olive,’ because ‘martini’ doesn’t fit.” I’m sure there is a seven-letter Wordle knock off for happy hour players like you, Jane.

Some players post their game results on social media or among friends and family. That, of course, opens them up to relentless ridicule from others, according to Maria. “I’ve lost twice and was humiliated. The first time I didn’t even post it. The second time I did post it and got lots of good humored insults for not getting the word. The word was STAIR.” I envisioned winners STARED at you with the thumb/finger “L” on their foreheads.

Most notable was Cheryl, from the Mike Morin I-Team: “I’m sure you know about New Hampshire being the highest-rated of the states for cheating as it pertains to this game!” Say it isn’t so. The state that brags of being tops in per capita for vanity license plates?

A study by web page “Word Finder-X” looked at Google search trends and uncovered that New Hampshire had more Wordle cheaters than any other state. Rhode Island and Vermont were tied for second.

Nashuan Dave Salvas asks, “WTF = Where’s the finish?” I’d expect that from the runner of over 100 marathons.

Contact Mike Morin at mike morinmedia@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @MikeMorinMedia. His column runs the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month.