“Nobody told me there would be American English in my word game”
(Picture: Wordle)A quick flick through social media will show feeds inundated with photos of grids with grey, yellow and green squares. This is all thanks to Wordle, a deceptively simple word puzzle that has snowballed into a viral sensation.
Each day, players have six attempts at guessing the hidden five-letter word. The colour-coded system offers hints to whether they’re close or not.
If a letter tile turns into a green square, the user has got the correct letter in the right place.
A yellow tile means the letter is featured in the word, but it is in the wrong place. Meanwhile, grey means that the letter is not in the word at all.
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While people have been turning to Twitter to showcase their triumphs playing the daily game, Wednesday’s word had everybody riled up – because of its American spelling.
Brits turned to the platform to express their frustration that “word 207” was “misspelt.”
Spoiler warning: The word was “favour”, but the puzzle used the American English spelling, “favor.”
“The Wordle word is a disgrace today, a DISGRACE I tell you,” one player fumed.
Well. There’s a lesson for British English speaking players of Wordle.
— Chris Addison💙 (@mrchrisaddison) January 12, 2022
Right well I’ve had a go at this thing.
— Tom Peck (@tompeck) January 12, 2022
I’m told it’s not always this annoying.
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Stewards enquiry needed on this one.
— Robbie Collin (@robbiereviews) January 12, 2022
Wordle 207 4/6
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Controversial Wordle 207 4/6 🤷♀️
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) January 12, 2022
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Geez, American spwlling nearly got me on this one. I actually thought of the right word at row 2, but didn't enter it as I thought it wasn't spelled correctly! #Wordle 207 6/6 #wordle207
— Arteis (@Roly_NZ) January 11, 2022
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Might have done better if it was my own language!!!!!!!! Wordle 207 5/6
— Olivia Alabaster (@OliviaAlabaster) January 12, 2022
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Wordle making me forget every word that’s ever existed since about a week ago. 207 4/6
— Chris Cox (@bigcox) January 12, 2022
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The Wordle word is a disgrace today, a DISGRACE I tell you.
— Guy Walters (@guywalters) January 12, 2022
Wordle 207 5/6
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Nobody told me there would be American English in my word game.
— Alex Olney (@Alex_Olney) January 12, 2022
Wordle 207 6/6
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#Wordle 207 3/6
— Rathika C (@rathika27) January 12, 2022
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Oof, that took way longer to think about words with those 3 yellow letters in a different order.
Unsurprising when the word is spelled incorrectly, if you’re this side of the pond! 😉
Wordle 207 6/6
— Jamie (@ygbjammy) January 12, 2022
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Me when I realise what the word is: pic.twitter.com/C7bC3g9Sgl
The concept was created by Josh Wardle, a Wales-born software engineer now based in Brooklyn.
The virality of Wordle stunned Wardle, who said: “It going viral doesn’t feel great to be honest. I feel a sense of responsibility for the players. I feel I really owe it to them to keep things running and make sure everything’s working correctly.”
He does, however, seek comfort in the fact that it helped people through such a difficult time.
“I get emails from people who say things like ‘hey, we can’t see our parents due to Covid at the moment but we share our Wordle results each day’. During this weird situation, it’s a way for people to connect in a low effort, low friction way.”
You can have a go of Wordle here – but be warned, it’ll have you hooked.
