Why I Can’t Wordle

Wordle is the current big thing. Your Twitter feed will be splattered with grids of squares, signifying that someone has guessed a five-letter word through a process of elimination. Twitter being Twitter, you’re almost as likely to see accounts claiming that they’ve muted the word “Wordle”, so players’ results don’t litter their precious timelines. 

I won’t Wordle, but I won’t hate Wordle. I’m not one of the second group mentioned above because I’m jealous Wordlers (for that must be their name) have found a wholesome way to exercise their minds, and share the experience with others. My problem is with puzzles, and to a lesser extent quizzes, in general.

Taking Wordle specifically, my brain refuses to enjoy trying to work out an answer that someone else already knows. The five-letter word already exists, and whether I can work it out or not is irrelevant. This, as you can imagine, makes all puzzles a problem...

Jigsaws: give me a 5,000-piece jigsaw of a Jackson Pollock and I’ll point to the picture on the box and tell you it’s already finished.

Crosswords: the same problem as Wordle, but multiplied. Someone has already put all the words in the grid; hell, they even give you the answers via a link or in the back of the book. What’s the point? Why not just save time and read the answers first? 

“You’re exercising your brain, and learning new words” is the answer, I know... but a) I’m no good at crosswords (don’t even mention cryptic ones), b) I prefer questions where there is no right answer, and c) the idea that the puzzle-setter is sitting somewhere giggling away at my incompetence makes me unhappy.

Quizzes: Only Connect. The Wall on Only Connect. Not only are there four groups of four random things to arrange, but while you watch the teams try and do it the three members of the team are shouting at each other and smashing buttons... *screams* ... and all along some smug git is rubbing their hands together because no one spotted the “red herrings”. And Lord of The Rings. There are always questions on Lord of The fucking Rings.

Hateful.

University Challenge: the only good thing about University Challenge is that none of the students are old enough to know the cool music you grew up with, so when they hear Sex Pistols or Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and look at each other nonplussed, it’s our turn to be smug.

Enjoy Wordle.