How I solved Wordle No. 750 🧩

This post was first published in This Weekend I Noticed. a weekly-stitch journal exclusive to The T. subscribers.

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

🐈‍⬛ 🐆🐅🐘🦓🦒

This weekend I noticed.

A Weekly-ish Stitch Journal
100 words or less. Sometimes more.

8-9 July, 2023

ENTER 🔓

This weekend I noticed a metaphorical door open, so I walked in. I found the key in Wordle No. 750. This is how I solved the puzzle to unlock the door. As always, I began with a random five-letter word – the first five-letter word that popped into my mind as I began, not really believing that anything is random.

F R I E D

R was in the word but not in the right place. E was in the word and in the right place. I then began to apply some strategy. If E & R are both in the word, and E is in the right place then it’s likely that the word I’m looking for ends in ER. What words end in ER with vowels that are not I & E? I always try to determine my vowels first. Influenced by my first word and the previous DONUT challenge,

I tried B A K E R as my second word.

Both E & R were now in the right place as predicted but I didn’t uncover any more vowels. Just to be sure, I tried

H O M E R. 

O was not in the word. I was stumped. With only three remaining attempts I knew I could not carry on in the same way but still I wanted to find out if the word contained a U. In a wildcard attempt, I typed in

P L U G S

Although I knew for a fact that this was not the word I was looking for, there was method to my madness - find all the vowels and eliminate as many other letters as possible. It worked! Somewhat. Although I was no closer to solving the puzzle, I had whittled down the remaining letters to QWTYJZXCVBN + E & R which were already on the board.

But I was more confused than ever. What five-letter word could these letters possibly spell? In a desperate attempt I went back to my old strategy and typed in

C Y B E R

Wrong! I was now on my final attempt. I knew I needed a new perspective, so I took my remaining letters into Notes and lined them up just so QWTJZXVN + ER. I could see more clearly now.

I tried a combination of letters, but nothing seemed to work. I was about to give up when it dawned on me that I was working on the assumption that E & R could only be in one place! What if the word I was looking for had more than one E and more than one R? It seemed so obvious now, and I couldn’t believe that this thinking had eluded me for five attempts! The answer came easily once I changed my perspective and opened up my mind. I returned to Wordle and typed in

ENTER, duh.

All the letters turned green, the door unlocked, and I walked in with a sign of relief. That was a close call, one that almost ended my four-day streak ⚡

en·ter
: used as a stage direction to indicate when a character comes on stage