Wordle in a Minute - 29th August 2024

Another #Wordling fiasco yesterday - can Mark recover some lost ground?

[roiporat]

Mark’s opening word sequence in full:

SMALL STALL STALE STARE STARS SEARS SEALS SELLS BELLS BULLS BULLY BULGY BULGE BUDGE BADGE BARGE LARGE

Theme: Word Ladder - every day, only one letter changes

That’s the end of the word ladder from SMALL to LARGE!

[emilywilliams]

It took me forever to think of flunk. In my family we always said ‘failed’ … and we never did it! 😂Thanks, as always, Mark.

[HaldaneSmith]

The Shrinking Wordle-verse

Words left after Large - 147
After Doily - 19
After Pluck - 2 (Slunk, Flunk)
After Flunk - 0

Best second guesses after Large were Coils and Pills. Wordlebot will often use a repeated letter to nail down where a common letter like L goes.

Skill: 95/99
Luck: 44/99

Data is from Wordlebot.

[nonumbersinusername]

LARGE->DOILY should have been such a great start for literally any word other than FLUNK

[Anne_Mahoney]

Got this in 3: shirt, gland, flunk. Of course "flunk" is easy for me as I'm both an American and a teacher -- it's the thing I don't want to see my students doing. (To be fair, in a university like this one, they generally don't flunk: they're too ambitious for that. I like my students a lot!)

[HaldaneSmith]

Wordle by the Numbers - Flunk
Standard mode failure rate: 1.7%
Standard mode average guesses: 4.1
Hard mode failure rate: 0.6%
Hard mode average guesses: 4.0

Standard / Hard
08/29/2024 Flunk 1.7% 4.1 / 0.6% 4.0
08/28/2024 Lithe 2.4% 3.7 / 0.9% 3.5
08/27/2024 Crown 2.5% 3.6 / 1.7% 3.8
08/26/2024 Stake 4.2% 3.8 / 3.0% 3.8
08/25/2024 Skate 1.0% 3.5 / <1% 3.3
08/24/2024 Filet 1.5% 3.9 / 0.6% 3.7
08/23/2024 Leech 1.4% 3.9 / <1% 3.8

<1% probably means <0.5%. Wordlebot uses <1% for small values, but it also uses values of 0.5% to 0.9%.

Me: ta(l)es > cLimb > pLUNK > FLUNK
Hard-mode streak: 21

Data is from Wordlebot.

[jvx]

Well done, Mark!! 👏👏👏
This was a difficult 5 for me. Wish I'd started with "adieu" 😬

[onceafiend]

and with that my streak has hit a full year
ARISE
CLOUD
FLUNK

chnaged to hard mode 2 months ago and now will try to follow Mark's starting pattern

[RocksterOO]

A L I E N
C L U N K
P L U N K
F L U N K

[Vitar]

LARGE->PILOT (Mark, you this word! Pilot and Golem are very useful)->FLUSH->FLUNK

[marcograzioli]

Four guesses for me too:

Spawn - Toner - Linky (messed up here, with the N in third position, but it was useful) - Flunk

[MaxYT]

3 guesses for me.
Story -> Chime -> Flunk

[jon]

4 for me. Stale>Clown>Fling>Flunk

[MarionFerris]

A bit of HMH for me but got there in the end with still one more guess up my sleeve if needed.
FOAMY
FETID
FLUSH
FLUFF
FLUNK

[ZorlockDarksoul]

CRASH -> NIFTY -> FOUND -> FLUNG -> FLUNK

Slow and steady progress on this one.

[blcmd]

This would appear to be the end of the series, despite no announcement from Mark.

[Railbird_]

Not the most common word but still found it in 4.
NAVEL - SLING - BLUNT - FLUNK

[EvanSawyer]

Stare > Cloud > [3rd >](?) Flunk

I don’t remember if this was a 3 or a 4, lol.

[SirExal]

MARVEL CHARACTERS BONUS ROUND DAY 112
CUPID-GRUNT-SLUNK-FLUNK

Oops, used Venus twice. Ah, well.

[andymerrett]

Now it's a NYT entity I have to remember it's likely there will be a lot of American English words being used — nearly caught me out on this one.