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28th Jan 2022

Countdown’s Susie Dent shares tips for mastering Wordle

Ellen Fitzpatrick

Definitely trying this.

Countdown’s very own Queen of Dictionary Corner Susie Dent has given her insight into internet phenomenon Wordle, giving her top tips and advice when it comes to the game.

While she has said she’s not great at the game herself, we still trust she’s a lot better than most of us and says the way to get through it is “not to be too tactical.”

If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what Wordle is the daily game that gives users six chances to work out a five letter word and it’s been all over Twitter recently.

“Sometimes I’m fairly systematic in that I will go with an opening word that has a lot of vowels,” she explained to Metro.co.uk. “I know that’s what a lot of people like to do. But vowels for me alone, don’t really do it. So, if I got sort an “o” and an “e” in there, depending on their position, it doesn’t always make it more straightforward.

“So I tend to just dive in, to be honest, with an opening word, and the joy for me is then trying to crack the code.”

Revealing what letter she uses as her opening word, she said the letter “e” is the most used in the English language, with “t” and “r” and “m” also being used a lot. She then noted that “t”, “w”, “d”, “a”, and “o” are all common at the beginning of words.

While these may be helpful tips, she did note that there might be some mistakes we’re making that could be easily avoided.

The biggest one, she said, is to repeat a letter early on which is “slowing things down a little bit.” Once you’ve made this mistake, you’ve “lost a move.”

By simply paying attention and not acting too quickly, you may be able to find the answer in fewer steps.

The game became a viral success created by Josh Wardle during the pandemic as a distraction for him and his girlfriend to play, and now it has reached millions around the globe.