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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Richard Godwin

THE TRUTH ABOUT: Spell bound the enduring appeal of word puzzles - The Untold Story

What’s in a Wordle? For some reason the simple daily puzzle really took off.
What’s in a Wordle? For some reason the simple daily puzzle really took off. Illustration: Lisa Sheehan/The Observer

I scored a two in Wordle the other day. God. The rush, as the five squares in the second line blinked green, one by one, touched on the sublime. I felt like Mary Magdalen in the Caravaggio painting, lost in ecstasy. Oh mama.

Up until this point, I had considered that those who found the solution in two guesses were simply lucky. Consistent threes and fours – this was a surer marker of Wordle prowess. Once I had scored a two myself, however, I began to doubt this hypothesis. Surely, only the most elite players could manage such a feat. Surely, I was now part of this pantheon.

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