And the word today is…

Like many people I have become somewhat obsessed by the New York Times daily Wordle competition. 

For those who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon the challenge is to guess a 5 letter word in a maximum of 6 attempts. Each attempt will show whether you have guessed a letter correctly (yellow) and/or have the letter in the correct place (green). 

I think it started off life in the UK but was bought by the NYT so we do occasionally get some rather dubious words. However, it is very much a group activity and since the Summer we have had a family WhatsApp group where the participants record the number of guesses they have taken (the word changes at Midnight - in your own time zone - daily).

Regular players include V. (who is continually pestering me to reveal the time it takes me to get the answer - her own responses being off the charts in terms of speed. I prefer to take an unhurried and considered approach and can definitely do without the added stress of time pressure!), A. from college in UK, my Father (who has made an exception to his antipathy to using his mobile phone for the sole purpose of using the WhatsApp function), my brother in law B and Mother in Law P (who appeared on Countdown and can therefore be counted as being pretty good at this type of thing).

As you can imagine, it can get quite competitive - particularly where someone manages to get it in 2 (which frankly involves significant amounts of luck) or 3 guesses. However, the real jeopardy comes if you get to guess number 4 or 5 without success and realise that there are potentially 3 or 4 different answers or only a couple of correct letters have been identified. It then becomes quite tricky as it is almost impossible to second guess a likely answer in the same way as you might be able with a crossword answer once you have got to know the style of the setter.

The group chat can also reverberate with complaints about whether the correct word is in fact a word (we had “piney” recently which proved to be a bit controversial). Still it has provided a great way to keep the extended family in daily contact. My only concern is that one day they will run out of 5 letter words (even American ones).