It’s Saturn’s Day, December 9th, and already this month seems to be racing by, hurtling us ever closer to the end of the school semester, to Christmas, and ultimately to the new year. I’m not sure I’m ready for 2024!
Next year is also a leap year, which means February gets a 29th day and the year itself is one day longer than usual. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a leap baby, with your birthday falling on February 29th. Maybe we’ll have to do a special Wordle post on that day this year. It falls on a Thursday.
In any case, it’s the weekend and a shockingly chilly day. Friday’s high was 47. Saturday’s is 35. Good grief! Thankfully, things warm up after that a bit, up to the 50s for the next couple days. We won’t freeze to death just yet!
Let’s Wordle!
How To Solve Today’s Word
The Hint: To rearrange or change. Also a segment of time often used to describe scheduled work hours.
The Clue: This word has two of the same letters as yesterday’s word, and in the same exact boxes.
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See yesterday’s Wordle #902 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.
This was a bit of a frustrating Wordle for me. I thought awoke was a decent opener, what with three vowels, but the entire word came up grey. Lucid did little to clear things up, slashing the 373 remaining solutions down to a still sizable 66. One yellow ‘I’ hardly did much to raise my spirits.
Pithy certainly helped, however, giving me three yellow boxes and leaving me with just a few words I could think of including shirt, shift, thing, thigh and smith. Those are the words I could think of, in any case, and I wavered between guessing a ‘TH’ word and an ‘SH’ word. What swayed me was smith. Three words I could think of had an ‘S’ in the beginning so I picked one of them and—luckily—went with shift for the win. Huzzah!
Today’s Competitive Wordle Score
My guessing game was much luckier yesterday. Today I get zero points. I get a big fat 0 for guessing in four and I tied the Bot, which gets me another whopping 0. Zeroes all around!
Today’s Wordle Etymology
The word “shift” has an interesting etymology, tracing its origins back to Old English and other Germanic languages. Here’s a brief overview:
- Old English (circa 5th to 11th century): “Shift” in Old English was “sciftan” or “scyftan,” which meant to arrange, divide, or allot. It came from Proto-Germanic roots.
- Proto-Germanic Roots: The Proto-Germanic *skiftaną, a cognate of the Old English “sciftan,” meant to divide, arrange, or change. This root itself likely originated from the Proto-Indo-European *skei-, meaning to cut or split.
- Middle English (circa 12th to 15th century): In Middle English, the word evolved to “schiften” or “shiften,” influenced by Old Norse “skipta,” meaning to divide, change, or arrange.
- Modern English: From the Middle English forms, the word evolved into the modern English “shift,” retaining the core meanings of change, movement, and rearrangement.
The word “shift” has maintained its core sense of change and movement through its linguistic evolution, reflecting its Proto-Indo-European roots of cutting or splitting, which metaphorically relates to dividing or changing something.
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.
Read the full article here
