Wordle Scam

Have you discovered Wordle yet? My sister mentioned it first, saying she had found a new game online. My brother then admitted he played it too, and they started to compare scores. Then my daughter joined the club, and started to reveal her score. My sons tried to beat her, failed, traded insults. This is my family. But then suddenly, both sons managed to get the highest score, every day. They told me they are magic (I guessed this was probably not true.)

Wordle is basically an empty grid and a keyboard. You write a word in the grid, it tells you which letters are in the ‘word of the day’ and which of those letters are in the correct place. You try again on the next line, and so on, trying to guess the word before you have filled all the lines. It’s fun, passes the time, and seems to bring out a competitive streak in my family.

I told my mother she ought to play, as it would help to keep her brain young. I often tell my mother things like this. In return, she tells me to eat less dairy food and to eat brazil nuts every day. We mostly ignore each other.

I was fascinated though that my sons were managing to guess the wordle word every day, first try. They told me they had hacked the system, discovered the algorithm. Tried to appear disapproving but was secretly very impressed. Such clever sons, so impossible to parent.

My brother then pointed out that if you change the time and date on your phone, you can complete Wordle in the future, thereby knowing the word when it appears in your real time zone. Not so clever. But hush, don’t tell them that I know…