Today is one of America’s greatest days of sorrow. September 11th—aka 9/11—when the Two Towers fell. On that day, radical Islamic terrorists coordinated four suicide attacks using domestic passenger flights. The first two planes crashed into the Two Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC.
The next two flights were aimed at Washington, D.C. One crashed into the Pentagon. The other was brought down in rural Pennsylvania after passengers—grimly realizing what was at stake—heroically fought back against their assailants, saving countless lives in the process. Nearly 3,000 people died that day, and the Bush administration quickly ramped up the War on Terror.
The Patriot Act soon followed, as did wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the world was never the same again. Under this pall of fear and violence, the housing bubble grew and burst. The smart phone was invented, and social media rose up among us. What a strange world our children have inherited, though I suppose every generation says the same thing for different reasons. Before all this madness, there were other horrors, other major technological and political sea changes. World Wars and genocides. Combustible engines and printing presses.
But enough about all that. It may be a day of remembrance and grief and national tragedy, but come rain or shine we do our daily Wordle. On we go.
How To Solve Today’s Word
The Hint: We all get this and none of us get its opposite.
The Clue: This word begins with a vowel.
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See yesterday’s Wordle #813 right here.
Wordle Bot Analysis
After each Wordle I solve I head over to the Wordle Bot homepage to see how my guessing game was.
A fitting word for a day like this. I was 20 years old in 2001, when the towers fell. Still a kid, really, and in and out of all kinds of trouble back then. Now I’m in my early 40s’ with kids of my own. The world before and the world after are two worlds, and in one of them I was young and in this one—this new world—I am older. Not old, not yet. But older.
My guessing game was sort of all over the place today! I began with metal because—speaking of older—I was chatting with friends about Metallica. One of my good friends just saw Metallica twice. Once this weekend and once last weekend. So we were joking about metal music, and my brother joked that Metallica is old people metal and he only listens to children metal himself. And so metal was on my mind and it’s just funny that the age of metal bands was jokingly bandied about and then this was the day’s Wordle.
For its part, metal left me with 110 words according to the Wordle Bot. Guile only beguiled 83 of these into oblivion, leaving me with 27 and the same two yellow boxes, though in different positions. I wanted to eliminate more letters with my third guess, so I left the ‘E’ out and guessed block, which got me down to just two. All I could think of at the time was older, but Wordle Bot informed me after that olden would have worked as well. No matter, older for the win. Huzzah!
Today’s Score
Alas, I get zero points for guessing in four and -1 for losing to the Bot who guessed in three. -1 total. Boo!
Today’s Wordle Etymology
The word “older” is derived from the Old English word “ealdra,” which means “more ancient” or “elder.” In Old English, “eald” meant “old” or “elder,” and the suffix “-ra” was used to form comparative adjectives. Over time, “ealdra” evolved into the Middle English word “older,” which retained the same meaning. This word has remained relatively unchanged in its basic form and meaning in Modern English, where it is used to compare the age or seniority of two or more people or things.
Play Competitive Wordle Against Me!
I’ve been playing a cutthroat game of PvP Wordle against my nemesis Wordle But. Now you should play against me! I can be your nemesis! (And your helpful Wordle guide, of course). You can also play against the Bot if you have a New York Times subscription.
- Here are the rules:
- 1 point for getting the Wordle in 3 guesses.
- 2 points for getting it in 2 guesses.
- 3 points for getting it in 1 guess.
- 1 point for beating me
- 0 points for getting it in 4 guesses.
- -1 point for getting it in 5 guesses.
- -2 points for getting it in 6 guesses.
- -3 points for losing.
- -1 point for losing to me
You can either keep a running tally of your score if that’s your jam or just play day-to-day if you prefer.
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