In 2021, Wordle, a word-guessing game created by Josh Wardle, took the English-speaking world by storm, particularly in the face of lockdowns across the world thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the return to normalcy in our lives, Wordle has maintained its appeal, with countless individuals still carving out time for the quick five-minute daily challenge.
The game’s broad appeal lies in its elegant simplicity: players must guess the daily five-letter word in as few attempts as possible. Each day, the Wordle answer changes, providing players with six shots at guessing the right answer. As players make their attempts, the tiles change colors to provide feedback: green for correctly placed letters, yellow for letters that are part of the word but in the wrong position, and gray for letters not in the word at all. Persistence is the key as players continue their attempts until they successfully unravel the mystery word.
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Joel C. Wallenberg, a senior lecturer in language change at the University of York in the U.K., explained to Newsweek why Wordle has maintained its appeal.
“Language always seems to be fascinating to people. This is perhaps because producing and understanding language is a fantastically complex process, and we are only aware of the tiniest bit of that process while it’s going on; most of what we do when we speak, we do unconsciously,” he explained. “But it may be that people have an inkling that they’re doing something very involved and impressive when they speak, even if they don’t know the details or why it should be that way.
“Language games poke at how conscious (or unconscious) we are of our own linguistic processes, and maybe give us a little more insight into them than we had before. That might be one reason why humans, maybe universally, have always invented and enjoyed language games!” Wallenberg added.
Watch out—if you don’t want to know the answer to today’s Wordle puzzle, scroll carefully.
‘Wordle’ #817, Clues for Thursday, September 14
Today’s Wordle answer might be particularly hard to guess as it is not a word many would likely use everyday, so Newsweek has put together some helpful hints:
- Hint #1: This word is a noun.
- Hint #2: The correct answer refers to a type of fabric.
- Hint #3: Today’s word begins with “R.”
- Hint #4: The word contains two vowels.
‘Wordle’ #817, Answer for Thursday, September 14
The answer to today’s Wordle is RAYON.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, rayon is a noun which means “any of a group of smooth textile fibers made from regenerated cellulose by extrusion through minute holes.”