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Comment by mk_stjames | Hacker News Reader

The word list being checked against isn't quite the same as whatever Wordle is using for possible guesses (this is mentioned on the page); for example, "DUCKY" is a valid Wordle guess, but shown as invalid when entered into this tool.

The original Wordle word list was contained in plaintext in the game's javascript (which is what is used for this map), however I believe the current version used on NYT is using a different list. I don't know that the current set of guessable possibilities / the list of words possible to be chosen is known. I think some people have mentioned the list may have been expanded.

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The important point is that there are 2 lists:

1. Words that can be entered as valid guesses

2. Words that are ever used as solutions in Wordle

I think this is a great design choice (and IIRC was part of the original game). That is, Wordle doesn't want to use really obscure or uncommon slang words as the solution, as that would make the game less enjoyable (I wouldn't like it so much if the solution was a word I'd never heard of). But, when I get stuck and can't think of a word that will fit as my next guess, sometimes I just go into "mash keyboard mode" so hopefully I'll find something that will fit and get more information about the solution. More often than not something fits, and I'm usually surprised my guess is an actual word.

So, to your point, DUCKY is a valid guess but will never be an actual solution in Wordle.

I think the design choice is key to the game, but for a different explanation. “Be liberal in what you accept” -> don’t reject a valid but obscure word as a guess, because people who know it’s a word will be rightly annoyed that the game is kneecapping their play.

NYT's Spelling Bee game is an example of the opposite case. It's a little bit like Wordle (you're given a set of letters and need to make words), but it doesn't accept obscure words. So I'm constantly coming up with words that fit the letters nicely and get rejected. It drains away a lot of the enjoyment.

I think the NYT's argument is that allowing obscure words drains excitement from those who don't know the word. They can't get a perfect score. So they have a choice of annoying you or annoying them and they chose to play to a broad base.

Squaredle [1] accepts many obscure words as bonus words that don’t count toward the canonical maximum word score but do serve as a tiebreaker for the leaderboard.

[1] https://squaredle.app/

While I had kind of intuited this (I’ve developed my strategy over time to always favor the more common word when choosing among multiple possibilities), I didn’t realize some of the places where Wordle cuts its solution set. Specifically, I somehow never noticed that solutions are never s-suffixed plural, but you can clearly see it in the visualization if you try entering a word with four letters.

This is an important feature in fact, as otherwise the space of possible solutions grows to include nearly all 4-letter nouns (and verbs) +'s', and this is too large. I believe that regular pasts in -ed are also excluded for the same reason.

The iPhone app on the other hand includes -s plurals in its solution set, which makes for a markedly inferior game (it also has an error in its use of the yellow indication, which also impacts negatively)

> otherwise the space of possible solutions grows to include nearly all 4-letter nouns (and verbs) +'s', and this is too large. I believe that regular pasts in -ed are also excluded for the same reason.

Regular pasts in -ed would pretty much restrict you to four-letter verbs that are spelled with a silent E (kite ~ kited); that will be a much smaller class of words than the ones that get excluded by the "s" suffixes.

There is a weird tangential observation we can make here, which is that the plural suffix -s, the verbal suffix -s, and the verbal suffix -t all behave exactly the same way - they are ordinarily zero syllables matching the voicing of the consonant that precedes them, but when that preceding consonant is similar to the consonant of the suffix, they grow an epenthetic vowel (becoming one syllable instead of zero) and become voiced - but the -s suffixes are only spelled with their epenthetic vowel when it exists (compare mats versus masses), while the -t suffix is spelled with its vowel whether the vowel exists or not (compare mopped versus modded).

Wordle seems to favor base words generally but it doesn't seem to be as rigid about it as with plurals ending in an "s" (which I don't think I've ever seen one of).

ADDED: Looking at the visualization tool there are a few past tenses. A couple of them seem to be of the form like PLIED where singular is actually 3-letter word ending in Y.

>I somehow never noticed that solutions are never s-suffixed plural

This is something I noticed that improved my wordle scores a lot.

First I'd heard of it. Although looking back, I've tested lots of plurals and can't recall one ever being right. Sort of degrades the game to have an unwritten rule like that.

There are actually 3 lists if you count the Wordlebot 2.0 [1] list:

1. The words that are solutions in the current game

2. An approximately 2x size list that is the space Wordlebot uses to "play" in. Supposedly it's still common words though some seem pretty weird to even a native English speaker (and some British slang leaks through as well). For example, titer was one of Wordlebot's recommended guesses today which I correctly sort of assumed had something to do with titration but would probably never have guessed it.

3. A larger pool of words that Wordle will let you enter as guesses

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/upshot/wordle-wordlebot-n...

This is why "which of the possible words is most common?" is an important question when solving.

I'm still sore over HUNKY.

Slangy words seem to be one area where Wordle can be all over the map where something may be a valid solution or it may not even be a valid guess.

what you say is somewhat correct, but this site says that these are the valid answers, not including the valid guesses, so DUCKY wouldn't be expected here.

personally, I'd prefer a tool that included all balid guesses and wouldn't lead me so precisely to answers. there's small c cheating and big C Cheating :)

the tweaks introduced by the Times, etc., yes.

Wordle has been trivially cheatable from day one using any of the gazillion scrabble solvers out there. Treat unknown positions as wildcards.

At the risk of sounding like your fourth grade teacher, you’re only cheating yourself.

I would argue that using a dictionary is a tactic and one to better help you better play the game by introducing you to the idea of a decision tree. You can ask Wordlebot how you did and see how it approaches the problem with all the knowledge short of knowing the actual word.

It depends on whether you play for the love of puzzles or the love of words.

If the appeal is puzzle solving, then you may want to use a dictionary as part of exploring a puzzle solving technique.

If the appeal is words, then you may enjoy plumbing the depths of what words you know, why you know them, and how they are put together.

I did use Word Hippo as a bit of a crutch sometimes when I was starting out and got stuck but haven't looked at it in many months.

Obviously. I’m not saying I do itZ I was just confused why GP thought being able to cheat at wordle is somehow new.

i wasn't thinking it was new, so wasn't trying to say that, i was talking about what constitutes cheating by degrees.

I clicked on the 'z's and noticed the same for "WHIZZ"

I guess the article does say: > Note that these words only represent the list Wordle uses for possible solutions; there are many more guessable 5-letter words.

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