Wordle Wrapped
Bests, worsts, and most insane.
I’m in the middle of writing one of my long ol’ weaving-shit-together posts and idk when it will be done and for a minute it seemed like that was that on the new content front but then my friend Katrina gave me this idea for a stack and we’re doing it. You’re welcome! And thank you.
Wordle. Everyone’s 2022 obsession. For me, it’s still a non-negotiable part of my morning routine. I look forward to it every day. When that first sip of coffee hits, I’m opening up the Wordle tab I keep perpetually open in my iPhone browser. (It’s how I avoid getting the ugly font change you all got.)
Before I get to the good stuff I need you to know what kind of Wordler I am. Here are the rules I abide by.
1. Every day means a different starting word.
This is non-negotiable. Oh, you got the Wordle in 3 after using CRATE as your starter? I literally don’t give a shit. I also, sorry, don’t really care if you got the Wordle in 1 because the solution was finally your starting word. Like it’s cool, sure, but there’s no joy for me there. This brings me to my next rule.
2. You don’t “win” at Wordle.
A lot of people out there seem to think that Wordle is something you “win,” and so they do things like use the same starting word every day that Wordle Bot has told them is mathematically the best to use in order to get the most letters in the eventual solution. These people are fools. Wordle is not about winning. If it was, that would be, idk, embarrassing? Like, great job, you’re an adult and you guessed a five-letter word! There are way more impressive things to win, and you should focus on those things instead, and let the rest of us who actually enjoy Wordle enjoy it. What do I mean by this? What in Wordle is there to enjoy?
3. Wordle is about the love and appreciation for words and word formation.
I guess the proper word for this is linguistics or something. The joy I get out of Wordle is not in “getting” the word; it’s in sleuthing out what the fuck kind of word is —Y—NA???1 It’s in noticing how many beautiful words there are with the letters A, G, and L (aglow; align; gleam; agile; along; gloam; glass; glare). It’s in realizing that PIQUE has all the same letters as EQUIP. It’s in sharing your screenshot with your fellow Wordlers and getting “Ooooh, I love your words!!” Thanks! I love them too! That means, for me:
4. No made-up words.
I’m not exactly against other people doing this, it’s just not something I would EVER do, and it blows my mind that other people do it regularly and makes me sooo curious about what it’s like to live with their brain. Like, how did you come up with SEMEE and SINKY before SENSE??? (Hi Katharine!) Also, even though I’m not out here trying to “win” Wordle, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get it ASAP — like, I’m proud of all my twos and threes — and the Wordle will never, ever be SINKY, even though, for whatever reason, they accept it as a word.
5. AER is the kiss of death and you must avoid it at all costs.
And to be honest, I think Wordle Bot suggests CRATE because it has great disdain for us. Do you know how many words can be made with the letters A, E, and R?2 Why would you want to start with CRATE and then spend five more rounds battling your way to LAYER? You could’ve gotten LAYER in 2 if you’d been like, fuck it, let’s start with YODEL.
6. Please use Wordle etiquette.
You’d think it would be common sense not to say the word out loud until you have confirmation everyone in the room has completed the Wordle, but, you’d be surprised.3 Similarly, don’t send raw screenshots of your words to someone until you have confirmed they have completed the Wordle. Don’t post your words on social media until the next day. And when you share your grid in the group chat, try to avoid saying anything about whether you like or dislike the word (I honestly break this rule a lot, which means I avoid looking at the group chat altogether until I’m done with Wordle, so as not to put pressure on everyone about this). Basically, do whatever you can to NOT spoil someone else’s Wordle, because there is only ONE per day, and when it’s over, I have to find other shit to do while drinking my coffee!
Now that you know what I’m all about, we can get into the good shit. Because something crazy about me is I save my Wordle screenshots. Like I’ve got em going all the way back to the beginning. I’ve gone through and deleted some “whatever” ones a few times (like, who needs to remember the time they guessed PLANT, TIRED, TRUCK? Those words are very normal.) but for the most part, I’ve got em. And we’re gonna take a look at some Bests, Worsts, and Most Insane. Within each broad category, there will be several subcategories, because not all bests and worsts are made the same. Got any memorable Wordles that I missed? Drop em in the comments, obviously!
Bests
How TF Did I Get Here
Sometimes you just get the Wordle for no reason.
Hard For Good Reason, But I’m Not Mad
These are the words that had me cursing Wordle until I figured them out, at which point I was like, okay, that’s a good word.
Wordle’s got a Z? Hell yeah, instantly not mad. CLEFT!! Add the F, T combo to the beautiful words compendium: aloft, befit, afoot, drift, bereft, softly…
The funny thing about KHAKI is my friend whose first language is not English helped me with that. On a worse day, a word like KHAKI could easily land in my Hard And Therefore Stupid category, but I remember being like, okay wordle, that was a fun challenge. ALOOF!!! Yes! AXIOM is BRUTAL but sick af.
INDEX 🫶
Best Wordle Stories / Thematic Wordles
Sometimes your words all just go together, and that’s worth something, in my book.
Will do; hope that guy fixes his boat // gets to shore somehow!
The American health insurance industry; a good conclusion to bad behavior
Violent pillaging; bit of falconry
“This is a business, not a charity! You think we can just be giving away toast for FREE? Do you know the cost of crude toast these days?”
Dealings to avoid 🤥
Revision process; the goal
A poem; a greenhouse
RIP, AWASH
There are some words that sort of get into my “rotation” to guess, either because they have good letters, or I just love them and always think of them. AWASH was one of these words. If I had a chance to guess AWASH, I would guess it. In 2024 we bid goodbye to our dear friend AWASH. A best word if I ever met one.
Q, X
Every time Wordle does Q it feels like the first time (QUART). The thrill of a Q or X never goes away.
It’s also UNIQUELY thrilling when you choose a starter with Q or X because fuck it and it’s RIGHT.
Absolute Bangers
Just, yes.
🫠🫠🫠
Worsts
Hard For Good Reason, And Therefore, Also Stupid
These are the words that Wordle honestly had no business choosing as a Wordle.
They did ^^ these two ^^ on back to back days, also. Fuck them.
COYLY? Come on. That day also pissed me off because they accepted COOLY when we all meant COOLLY. Also, I even use BORAX in the laundry, but that shadn’t have been a word.
Chefs everywhere were like, even we wouldn’t pick these dumb ass words.
VOILA is one that like, it’s not a bad word necessarily, but it’s still total bullshit. And GLYPH? Unless I’m playing a Nancy Drew computer game, that word doesn’t exist on its own. It’s merely a morpheme (yeah, I’m using linguistics now).
No. Too niche.
Again, what is INTER but a morpheme? (Fuck, as I was writing this, I realized it’s a word, like, to inter a body at the cemetery. Still tho… no one’s going to read it as IN-TERRRR! they’re going to read it as INNNNN-TER!) And finally, UNLIT… like, WHO uses that? Hey, did he unlit the lights? That room is unlit. The ONLY time I might actually use UNLIT would be talking about a mint-condition candle, and even then, I’d rather say, “never lit.” Okay maybe I would talk about windowless living conditions by being like, “They woke up each day in an unlit room.” But would I??? Would you???
Doesn’t Fit The Vibe Of My Other Words >:(
Ugggg it’s just classic Wordle to pick a dumb ass word to fuck up the cool vibe you had going.
As you can see, food words tend to be vibe killers. (So do animals, and animal sounds. NEIGH? Are you serious?)
Wordle Fucking With Me On Purpose, I Swear To God
I need you guys to understand how many times I guess a word as my starter, and then a week or few days later or even the VERY NEXT DAY, it’s the god damn Wordle.
GHOUL was particularly egregious. Like, it’s MAY.
Can Go To Hell
These words are just, absolutely shameful.
MATEY? Are you for real? And what is FLYER even referring to? Like, someone who flies planes? Or fliers being handed out? Regardless, these are perfect ways to waste a Y.
So what, jocks are picking the Wordles now?
Fuck off out of here with your triple and double letter bullshit. Honestly surprised I even still have these, I deleted DADDY for sure.
Literally fuck off.
Absolutely disgusting.
DINGO is stupid, and CRONE is pejorative and especially RUDE as the Wordle on T & P’s WEDDING day when I chose BRIDE which Wordle KNEW because they FUCK WITH ME ON PURPOSE I STG
Get real.
Insane
Hard For No Reason
These are words that are honestly normal but literally impossible to figure out.
I’m pretty sure both of these took me all day. ALBUM? Why is that word SO fucked up? And DENIM? Insane. What other word is like that?
U-s are just insane, okay? Why was HUMID so hard I infamously used one of my most hated words, GUMMY, out of sheer desperation??
It legit gives me agony that I would think of TALON and ANCHO (????) before AGONY. Never again. And ANGST is an insane fucking word. ONE vowel???? At the START???
This is when you’re doing that thing where you’re missing one letter and you’re going through all the letters and saying the Wordle out loud but still not getting it because you’re pronouncing FULLY like GULLY and you’re like well that’s not a word! Guess what, it is! And so is HALVE, even though NO one pronounces it like SALVE and VALVE so good fucking luck figuring it out!!!!!
Honestly, I couldn’t decide where to place COCOA, but it was so hard I broke one of my own rules of gameplay and made up a word in peak level frustration (and let’s be real, if Wordle ever chose YOWZA, I would chuck my phone at a wall, so, basically two fake words).
Anyway, you tell me. What is COCOA?
Cool Thing That Happened Once
Just thought it was kinda insane.
Insane Word Telepathy
This is when I or my mom or my friends are psychic.
On the morning of September 2, 2022, my mom and Katrina sent me their Wordles, both with a timestamp of 8:15 AM. I don’t recall either of them having any reason for starting with FAIRY.
This is when Katrina and I saw Claire Saffitz speak and the next day chose the exact same words for our Wordles.
For whatever reason my mom and I both started with FRESH one day and then both did FRONT too because I guess that’s what you do.
This again is me and my mom, and again, what?
The Holy Grail
Yes, that’s right. The Wordle in 1s, with a random starter.
This was Alyssa, and the first time it happened to anyone I knew personally. An absolute thrill. Bravo, Alyssa!
One fine summer morning I was sitting on T & P’s balcony looking at their basil plant. When it was PORCH, I got excited, because it was ALMOST like getting it in 1, and then I got excited AGAIN, thinking of my mom at home, sitting on the screen porch RIGHT THEN, doing her Wordle, and I was thinking get it in 1 get it in 1 get it in 1!!!!
She did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩
this has been—
xxx your twin flame
Go to hell, HYENA.
Not to mention that these tend to be the most boring words on the planet. Ohh nice, you had STARE again.. cool..
I will always remember we had PHASE in June 2022 because Sam Bett said it out loud while looking at Alyssa’s screen and I was still on word 3. He apologized but it kind of took me a while to ACTUALLY forgive him.
My mom would like to petition to add ATOLL to Hard And Therefore Stupid
Sooo good!! How we are in Wordle is how we are in life, and that, my friend, is (one of many reasons) why I love you.