Finding bite-sized, five-letter moments of instant gratification – in a crazy world

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By Mary Kay Roth

Azure. Daddy. 

Two simple words.

And yet over the past two days, they brought hundreds of thousands of people together, worldwide.

You see, lately I’m obsessed with how many five-letter words exist in the English language.  It varies. The Free Dictionary lists more than 158,000 words with five letters – the official Scrabble Dictionary puts the number around 9,000 – and after sorting down to a more reasonable list of easily identifiable words, you come up with 2,315.

Whatever the number, when you find the right five-letter word out of all those possibilities, you find the magic of Wordle – that aha moment – the self-affirming fist pump – a wave of triumph quietly reverberating across the planet.

Took me three tries for azure, on Friday.  Four for daddy on Saturday (those three bothersome D’s perplexed me). And yet it still made me ridiculously happy when I got them right.  

OK, I know all the bad stuff going on. This weekend the government almost shut down. Apparently, Covid is coming back. Icebergs are melting,  mosquitoes are thriving.  And I’m pretty sure there’s a nail in my tire.

None of that matters.  

Because the moment I conquer Wordle, all’s right with the world.

When you Google the question – “Why is Wordle so popular” – you’ll find hundreds of explanations. It’s a simple yet addictive game with easy access.  It’s free, no pop-up ads, no paywall.  You don’t have to register.  It’s limited to one a day.  And in all honesty, it’s not that tough.

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But for whatever the reason, an estimated three million players (“whordles”) are now signed up – attempting to guess that golden five-letter word.  

Sometimes you breeze through in minutes.  Sometimes you get miserably stuck.  For me it’s a practically perfect combo of challenge and luck – smarts and serendipity.  

And each day we all come together to solve the same puzzle.  Seeking that delicious, bite-sized moment of instant gratification when all five letters come up – gloriously green. 

For the uninitiated, here’s how it works:  Open up the game and you’ll see five empty blocks across, stacked in six rows down – one row for each guess. You have six chances to puzzle out one five-letter word.  And after guessing each time, the game tells you whether your letters are in the secret word. 

• Green means the letter is in the word and in the correct spot. 
• Yellow means the letter is in the word, but in the wrong spot.
• Gray means the letter is not in the word at all. 

In fact, there’s nothing like the feeling of dread when you type in your first guess and all the letters come up gray. Or when you have identified three or four letters and for some infuriating reason – after frantically scribbling preposterous possibilities on scratch paper – you are completely gutted.

 Good grief, I majored in English and Journalism.

The overall average number to nail the secret word in the United States is 4.019.  Sweden is home to the best Wordle players, who complete the puzzle with a 3.72 average, followed by Switzerland (3.78) and Poland (3.79). The USA ranks an uncomfortable No. 18.

North Dakota is the state in this country with the highest success rates.  New Hampshire has the most Wordle cheaters. 

And according to the PGA, the odds of an average golfer making a hole in one are 12,500 to 1. The odds of solving Wordle on the first guess are around a couple thousand to one.

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I don’t watch my stats all that much.  But I do know that twice I have guessed the Wordle in two guesses.  (Never in one.)  And I’ve been completely stumped by one completely silly word.  Froze.  Go figure.

Some all-knowing psychologists believe you can tell a lot about a person from the way they attack Wordle.  

Many people watch their statistics meticulously. Lots of folks post their results in social media. Some begin with the same word every day, often drawn to words with two or three vowels and common consonants: audio, adieu, alone, canoe, edits, least, media, sauce, slate, train.

I use a different starter word every day (which supposedly means I like taking risks).  I keep a running list of past Wordle words (which means I am methodical).  

And I refuse to look at any of the Wordle spinoffs (which means I am a traditionalist). However, if I were curious, I could choose among variants that include Absurdle, Wordle’s evil twin where the secret word keeps changing – and Sweardle, a four-letter puzzle limited to swear words (damn, how many obscenities are there?).

The origin of the REAL Wordle is a sweet story. Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, knew his partner Palak Shah loved word games – so he created a guessing game during Covid for just the two of them. The game went online November 2021 with 90 players – and grew to 300,000 in just a couple months. The New York Times Company acquired it in January 2022 and today it is recreated in 50 languages for more than three million players of all demographics and ages.

In truth, when I pick up my granddaughters from school these days, they come running into my arms, give me a hug – then ask whether or not I’ve done Wordle yet.

And yes, I know there are snobs who look down their noses at this inane little game, probably people who do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink.   

I still like a good crossword puzzle, a robust game of Scrabble. I am even lured by the likes of other New York Times games like Spelling Bee and Connections.

But thank goodness there are enough five-letter words to get us through at least seven years of Wordle, because of course it’s about more than guessing an elusive word. 

Wordle is about celebrating the small stuff, a spark of momentary happiness and grace, a tiny semblance of peaceful control over my small space in this chaotic universe.

Each day, for one sweet moment, all those letters eventually will come up green.

And whether I get the Wordle in three, four, five guesses, or – dang it – six, I know it will all soon be forgotten.  Tomorrow I’ll have a clean slate, another try, a fresh Wordle word.  

And life will be good. 

Whether or not the government shuts down.

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