On Automatic Correction and the Futility of Wordlists.

Preface

Five tiles of gray flip left over right; a graceful reveal of each letter beneath. Yellow encourages, green offers dopamine. Open each day with a reliable word—crate, crane, lane. Cover the fundamentals; R, S, T, L, N, E. Splendid. Never waste a letter, do not be too ambitious, should one search for narrow five letter words, a plague upon their home.

Under the weight of social distance and unwilling witness to the near instantaneous politicisation of the pandemic, Wordle was a humble, unassuming vehicle for connection. Stagnant message groups with friends and family came alive with new purpose; the daily wordgame continues to be a regulated dose of personal growth and shared activity.

Genius. Impressive. Even the sympathetic “Phew!”. Every line of code in Wordle is written with pleasantry. Unless, of course, you seek the gratification that only exists outside of the code; an animation that is meant to say no, incorrect. This word does not exist. ERR: failed to process request due to uncaught exception. When the five tiles that shake in synchronicity— this is valuable territory for intellectual curiosity. When a player is short on guesses, or more bluntly, when one is toiling in the final stage of vocabular desperation, it is common to enter any number of available letters. It is not wholly unexpected that the game reject such attempt.

Now, this area is also where Wordle rebellion thrives– along the border between expectation and reality. Instead of rejecting the attempt with an opinionated sforzato, the five tiles roll across with a tenuto so sweetly orchestrated to say, congratulations. You have unlocked a secret word.

Five green tiles means the player has read the rules. Putting one’s phone down in disbelief that such word actually does exist– that is the objective.

I began keeping a list of these words. As of this writing, it stands with the health of thirty-two words, and continues to grow.