Another day, another great debate about the best way to start your Wordle game. Though given the difficulty level of the last few games, I might just start making up words and hoping for the best.
Previously on the Great Wordle Wars, a computer scientist called Chris reckoned he cracked the mystery.
Using a very science-y looking code, Chris figured out that the best starter word is LATER, followed by ALTER, AROSE and IRATE.
Now since finding out that slice of info, I’ve been using LATER as my starting word with moderate success.
Let’s be honest, what you choose as your starting word is deeply revealing.
If it’s ADIEU, you’re pretentious. If it’s SLIMY, you’re fun but doomed to fail. If it’s STEAK, you’re probably just hungry and if it’s STAKE, you’re scared of vampires.
My wordle starter word tends to be “water” but after the last few days I’ll have to try “xylem” or something
— Paddy Duffy (@PaddyDuffy) February 16, 2022
If you don’t have a starter word for Wordle are you really even alive?
— Tori Fletcher (@hellotorifletch) February 15, 2022
I’m beginning to think my go-to Wordle starter word hurts more than it helps.
— Daniel Summers (@WFKARS) February 11, 2022
First date:
Sits at table. Sips water. Nervous shifting. Opens menu. Glances up, back down.
“So, what’s your Wordle starter word?”— Meagan Johanson ✏️ (@MeaganJohanson) February 15, 2022
But a linguistics professor from the UK reckons there’s a superior way of winning the Wordle.
Because let’s be honest, it is about winning. If you don’t have a group chat dedicated to beating your friends at the nice word game, what on earth is the point.
Lynne Murphy, head of English language and linguistics at the University of Sussex in the UK told The Independent her top tips.
“Consonants are more informative than vowels – there are more of them to knock out of contention,” she said
“Things like ‘CLAMP’ or ‘DRINK’, which have either an ‘L’ or an ‘R’ and either an ‘M’ or an ‘N’.
“Whereas if you guess something vowel-heavy like ‘ALIEN’ at the start, you might learn that the word has an ‘A’ and an ‘E’, but a lot of words have those two vowels – you haven’t ruled as many words out.
“I like using ‘L’, ‘R’, ‘N’, and ‘M’ (linguists call them sonorant consonants) early because they combine easily with other consonants.
“Once I know that a word with a ‘P’ doesn’t have an ‘L’, for instance, I’ve ruled out a lot of the possible ‘P’ words.”
My English teacher mum may be ashamed that I’m only just learning about sonorant consonants now but God language is cool!
Now it’s time to start studying the thesaurus for all the words with sonorant consonants before the next Wordle drops.
The group chat won’t know what hit ’em.
