Wordplay

The amount of time I spend on social media is dictated by a few things.  First, my job with PAN requires that I do some work with producing social media posts.  Second, I have found that many people who read this blog come here when they just happen to see one of my posts linking to the blog - so I guess I need to keep posting there.  And third, if in my quick perusal of content in recent posts shows me something of interest, I might dig a little more.

I had been noticing odd posts from people I know and I really was not sure what was going on.  Things that looked like this:

Eventually I figured out that people were sharing their results for a word game that is available on the internet called Wordle.  Every day, a new five letter word in the English language is chosen and you have six tries to guess what it is.

Each guess has to be a valid word (you can't just spill out a batch of any five letters).  Once you submit a guess, the game tells you which letters are in the word or not.  If they are in the word, but in the wrong place, the letter is shaded yellow.  If you got the right letter in the right place, it is green.  So, you can see from the image above that I got one letter correct in the first guess, but it was in the wrong place.  My second guess had two letters correct and they were in the corrects spots at the front of the word.

This is what the actual puzzle looks like. When people share their results, they share the image I showed at the top so that they are not showing other folks the answer in case they also want to play.  I am willing to show this answer because it is from last week (a new puzzle is introduced each day and I presume older ones are no longer accessible).

Your life experience matters

Some time ago, someone asked me why standardized tests could possibly have a bias towards one population over another.  Well - you have an example above.

After guess number three, we KNOW four of the five letters and where they belong.  There were TWO word choices that could have been correct (unless I am missing a word option, but I do not think I am).

I chose the word "Tansy."  A tansy is a flower that is not native to North America and is considered by some to be a dangerous invasive plant.  Meanwhile, others might think of it as a beautiful garden addition that might have some other benefits as well.  So, who would recognize the word "tansy" more readily than the word "tangy."

Someone like me.

I could take a wild guess that the majority of the population in the US would recognize "tangy" as a word and not even know that "tansy" was one.  So, if you want to write a test that favors people like me - make the answer "tansy."  If you want to favor everyone else.... 

I think you get the point.

Or maybe it's just me?

I have only played a few Wordles thus far.  But, I do like word games, so I suspect I'll enjoy it for a while.  It doesn't take much time to do and it is a good brain exercise.  But, I will say this - my luck with Wordle is the same as it seems to be with many other games.  If there is a perfectly equal chance that an answer is one of two options, I'll pick the wrong one.  If there is a perfectly equal chance of one of three options, I will pick a wrong one and then another wrong one.

Case in point?

I knew the first three letters of a word and they were all in the right place at the front of the word.

The letters?  D  R  I ........

Take a moment, what five letter words start with DRI?

I first tried DRIFT

Well, I had an impending snow storm on my mind, so perhaps that's why it was my first guess.  Regardless of the motivation - it was wrong.

I then tried DRILL

I had used our cordless drill earlier in the day.  Maybe that's why I chose this next.  But, it was still wrong.

The answer was DRINK

Probably the most common of the three words and I chose it last.  

Yep, it's just me.