Wordle is a popular online word game that was created by New York-based engineer Josh Wardle during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It was released to the public in October 2021 and quickly gained popularity. The game requires players to deduce a secret five-letter word within six attempts, using a color-coded tile system for feedback. A green tile indicates a correct letter in the correct position, a yellow tile signifies a correct letter in the wrong place, and a gray tile means the letter is not in the word at all. Wordle exploded from 90 users on November 1, 2021, to 300,000 on January 2, 2022, prompting The New York Times to purchase the game for an undisclosed seven-figure fee.
Erhan Aslan, an expert in applied linguistics from the University of Reading in the U.K., provided useful advice for Wordle players. He suggested starting with commonly used vowels and consonants, as well as drawing on knowledge of phonics to narrow down or eliminate potential words. The New York Times announced an expansion of the game for subscribers to access more than 1,000 past puzzles from the official Wordle archive. This expansion aims to deepen the connection the community has with Wordle and with each other, making the daily puzzles more engaging and providing moments of surprise and delight to share with friends and family.
The answer to a specific Wordle puzzle was revealed in an article, providing hints and clues for players to solve. For example, the answer to a specific puzzle on July 31 was “penne,” defined as “short thick diagonally cut tubular pasta” by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Newsweek continues to provide hints and tips for each new game, encouraging players to challenge themselves and have fun with word-based puzzles such as Typochondria and Spellspire while waiting for the next puzzle to become available. Newsweek’s commitment to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground is reflected in their coverage of games like Wordle, which bring people together in a shared love of wordplay and problem-solving.
