Member-only story

Happy 1,000 Games of Wordle!

What started as a pandemic diversion has grown into a wonderful practice — and an enduring way to connect with friends.

Dana DuBois
4 min readMar 14, 2024
A redheaded woman on a green wall, with glasses, showing her Wordle stats page.
Me and my Wordle stats. That’s a 98% win rate! Photo is a selfie.

On March 15, the New York Times will share Wordle #1,000.

And just like (nearly) every other evening, I shall complete that puzzle, probably in four guesses, if one believes in averages, as I do. Then I’ll share my scores with the usual suspects: Sunny Hong, Imaginary Liz, and the family text thread with my ex and our two kids.

It takes mere minutes out of my day, but it’s one my most beloved rituals.

I first learned about Wordle when most of us did, during peak pandemic. It was a collective source of joy around words, which of course resonated with me. The world was in a state of absolute crisis, and isolation had us all stir-crazy, fun-starved. But for a moments each day, we had one thing going for us: we got to Wordle, which is both a proper noun and a verb, and then share our checkerboard scores on Facebook. And most astonishing, in spite of the ubiquity of the game, no one — and I mean, no one — violated the Wordle unspoken code of ethics by revealing the daily word.

How did humanity collectively honor this unstated rule? Can you think of any other…

--

--

Dana DuBois
Dana DuBois

Written by Dana DuBois

Publisher for Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls & genXy. Boost nominator. I'm a GenX word nerd living in the PNW with a lot of little words to share.

Responses (4)