Wordle answer not in list
March 27, 2023 11:17 AM Subscribe
I've been working on a program like WordleBot to try out different words and see which ones seem to work better for an opening play. As part of this, I've been using the 2309-word list that has been around on various websites, and today's Wordle answer is not on this list.
I was under the impression that the list was hard-coded in the program, so I wonder if the program's been changed.
I don't see any mention of this out on the internet. Any idea what's up?
Best answer: More specific article about today: A New Era for Wordle
posted by papayaninja at 11:21 AM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by papayaninja at 11:21 AM on March 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Probably nobody cares, but: I have a system of three words that I usually use to start solving. They use all the vowels and many common consonants, and I'm almost always able to solve the puzzle without too much trouble -- and honestly, I'm not that great at puzzles.
Anyway, my first guess had one letter in the correct position, my second had two other letters in correct positions, and I was able to solve on the third guess.
posted by amtho at 12:04 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Anyway, my first guess had one letter in the correct position, my second had two other letters in correct positions, and I was able to solve on the third guess.
posted by amtho at 12:04 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
> ... and I'm almost always able to solve the puzzle without too much trouble -- and honestly, I'm not that great at puzzles.
I think this is the entire point of Wordle. It is fairly accessible and forgiving. You can personally decide "I solved it!" is an acceptable outcome and be happy every day, where I can decide "I solved it in 3 or less" as an acceptable outcome and be just as happy playing the exact same game you're playing.
Today was the first day that a Wordle answer was not one of the predefined words loaded into the game at the very beginning. Up till now they have only shifted around or skipped. To most people who just play it won't mean anything different, but today shows that they are no longer restricting themselves to the original solution list set.
posted by cmm at 12:14 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think this is the entire point of Wordle. It is fairly accessible and forgiving. You can personally decide "I solved it!" is an acceptable outcome and be happy every day, where I can decide "I solved it in 3 or less" as an acceptable outcome and be just as happy playing the exact same game you're playing.
Today was the first day that a Wordle answer was not one of the predefined words loaded into the game at the very beginning. Up till now they have only shifted around or skipped. To most people who just play it won't mean anything different, but today shows that they are no longer restricting themselves to the original solution list set.
posted by cmm at 12:14 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I mean, that's what I thought, but I just read two different accounts saying how hard today's word is, so I decided to not just say: But it's so easy what are people complaining about?
posted by amtho at 12:41 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by amtho at 12:41 PM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I haven't seen the list (and I don't use the same starting words every time as that would be boring for me), but I'm surprised that today's fairly common word wasn't on it.
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:20 PM on March 27, 2023
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:20 PM on March 27, 2023
Response by poster: I knew there was an editor, but I hadn't heard of any changes to the answer list in over a year.
I had been wondering what I would do for my program if the answer was not on the list. I guess I'm not going to worry about it, although it looks like another 'surprise' word is due on April 9.
Yeah, some folks are saying they've never heard the word, while a lot of us think it's common.
I got interested in 'popular' words after reading that WordleBot factors that in, so I incorporated that in my program, but after very mixed results, I'm not sure it's worth it.
I started with a list from Google of the 1/3 million most common English words, which lists today's answer at 68,674th most common. (7,978th most common 5-letter word)
If I just restrict it to those words in the Wordle master list, it's still in the bottom half, below such words as RESID(2248), SABHA(3390), and BRULE(4344).
I'm not that happy with the Google list, as it's probably based largely on internet chat, (email is the 12th most common 5-letter English word?) so I guess I'm going to scrap that. But what to do....
Going back to all 14854 legal words just takes a long time, and who's to say the editor won't pull a real fast one and select a word not on the master list.
(Although that's hard to imagine. XVIII is on that list for some reason. I guess she dould try XXVII, which is not)
Thanks.
posted by MtDewd at 6:13 PM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I had been wondering what I would do for my program if the answer was not on the list. I guess I'm not going to worry about it, although it looks like another 'surprise' word is due on April 9.
Yeah, some folks are saying they've never heard the word, while a lot of us think it's common.
I got interested in 'popular' words after reading that WordleBot factors that in, so I incorporated that in my program, but after very mixed results, I'm not sure it's worth it.
I started with a list from Google of the 1/3 million most common English words, which lists today's answer at 68,674th most common. (7,978th most common 5-letter word)
If I just restrict it to those words in the Wordle master list, it's still in the bottom half, below such words as RESID(2248), SABHA(3390), and BRULE(4344).
I'm not that happy with the Google list, as it's probably based largely on internet chat, (email is the 12th most common 5-letter English word?) so I guess I'm going to scrap that. But what to do....
Going back to all 14854 legal words just takes a long time, and who's to say the editor won't pull a real fast one and select a word not on the master list.
(Although that's hard to imagine. XVIII is on that list for some reason. I guess she dould try XXVII, which is not)
Thanks.
posted by MtDewd at 6:13 PM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you want, you could get google's original ngram datasets and compile your own word list out of them. It looks like (if I found the same file that you did) the "1/3 million words" word list was summarized from google's datasets by an individual, not by google, and they might have made different choices than you would.
Looking at google ngrams for the words you mentioned doesn't line up with the popularities that you listed, so I suspect that there is a more intuitive ranking hiding in the underlying data.
posted by Lirp at 12:53 PM on March 28, 2023
Looking at google ngrams for the words you mentioned doesn't line up with the popularities that you listed, so I suspect that there is a more intuitive ranking hiding in the underlying data.
posted by Lirp at 12:53 PM on March 28, 2023
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Wordle’s gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun, accessible, lively and varied.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:20 AM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]