Wordle Postgame Report, August 2

August 2, COYLY, X/6

The Wordle Postgame Report is a brief analysis of a game of Wordle, the five-letter-word guessing game now owned by the New York Times. If you do not play Wordle, Indignity encourages you to please skip this item. The existence of the Wordle Postgame Report does not constitute an endorsement of playing Wordle, of not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.

A SLOW START, and a stumble all the way down a chute. SNAKE got nothing to open with. BROIL got O and L, both in yellow. I chanced a repeat letter on LOWLY—lots of letters already eliminated, some progress underway—and got three green letters out of it: _ O _ L Y.  Seemed like there were a few different possibilities left, but how many could it be, really? LOWLY had sealed off the steepest chute, the old Absurdle slide through HOLLY...JOLLY...FOLLY...DOLLY...GOLLY... Get two fresh letters, and try to wrap it up. HOTLY? Not HOTLY. What else was there? Oh, let's go from LOWLY to GODLY, that would be a funny finish. GODLY didn't get it either. Five down, one left, and it still didn't feel like that much of a crisis. What letters were even left that would work? The possibilities were so sparse, it still might take a repeat to fill it up: from HOTLY to COOLY. And...C was green, aha, got it. O was still green, of course. The next O was...gray. Gray? Six turns, no answer. Defeated by Wordle. The failure pop-up delivered the news: COYLY. Yes, a repeat letter, but no, not the O. A second Y—a mid-word Y, even. Too cute and too evasive for me.

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