Wordle (NO SPOILERS)

ABORT
PAINT
GAUNT

This round has been a struggle for me

ABORT
CHEAT
SLANT
FAINT
GAUNT

idk how everyone snapped gaunt off

I think what happens is that we all have some suspicious looking outcomes at times, me included. Look at yours above for TINEA on the 8th. Actually, I was puzzled how so many people pulled a 3 on this one.

For you( to get from CABLE to the correct answer) you had over 50 legit options that did NOT start with SH. But, if we just look at the fact that you had a gut feeling that it was SHA_E word, then one could fairly ask how did you skip SHARE, SHAKE, SHAVE, SHAME and SHADE and get right to SHAPE? I think you would agree this looks pretty lucky. But to me it is just a random boink. Even though one could argue that it was over 50 to 1.

Also, there is lots of logical thinking/deduction/etc that goes on in our heads that can make results look more flukey than they are. For example, common word structures are ingrained in our thinking, and they undoubtedly influence our choices. We also use more common letters over less common letters.

So, I think that boink's happen, and that most of them are less random (and more informed) that they might appear at first look.

That said, I still don't think it fully explains how lucky we can be at times as a collective of players. I have posted the same kind of comment as you did a few times in the past. How, with so many options, did 6 out of 9 of us (for example) his the correct one right away and avoid the others? Sometimes it is recalling that one or more legit options have been used as wordle words before, and sometimes is just luck I guess.

yea the 6/9 thing in particular...like I try to go a little contrarian to bink right away as that's prob what it takes to win in this(at least my opinion). But then I've been absolutely punished at times by not guessing vowels while other people do so I've chilled out on that strategy slightly. Gaunt I was just surprised cause I didn't even know that was a word lol, and with other equal "quirky" letter options kinda wild to me that the majority of the field got there so quick.

But yea guess it just happens similar to my cable thing. My logic was try to bink w a neato word turn 2(that still had helpful letters), then ok let's guess some common letters with SH and then let's get a weird letter in the mix like P instead of R for other words and to separate from field if correct.

yarg I shoulda thought a little more, I didn't actually think maleo was a word just fired it

Other than Romeo, which is a name, if it was not CAMEO I was toast, as RODEO was out.
EDIT: I see Xander used Romeo and it took....interesting.

VIDEO
ROMEO
CAMEO

at the risk of being sus....

VIDEO
CAMEO

2 woulda been nicer

I knew ROMEO was at least valid because I've used it as a guess before. Still didn't think it was the answer but was drawing a blank and what else to put. As per normal, didn't think for too long and it's 6am

RODEO was first thing I wanted to put. Wife just flew to stampede this morning.

ALPHA
BRAVO
DELTA
HOTEL
INDIA
OSCAR
ROMEO
TANGO

Think that's all the 5s

Believe it or not, it's ALFA. Which means the Italian auto maker is named after 2 words from the NATO alphabet. (Alfa Romeo).

that is really weird to me. I was in the Canadian army for 12 years. Never once was it ALFA, but google seems to say it is. As well as Juliett. Parallel universe stuff happening right now.

I was in Air Traffic Services in the 80s and was later an instructor. Back then we used the ICAO version and even though ICAO had changed Alpha to Alfa, all our Canadian training materials still used Alpha. I suspect the same for the Canadian Forces as well.

Keep in mind there were many manuals that would need amending, and back then we used to get paper amendments by mail for a variety of manuals and the midnight shift person would wade through and take out old page 2-18 (for example) and replace it with new 2-18 and then make a brief note on the change(s) so we would all stay current.

It would have been a huge PITA for Transport Canada or National Defense to change ALPHA to ALFA everywhere it appeared just because it might be a problem in other countries (the "ph") That might explain why Housenuts and I never encountered it.

ABORT
CHANT
GAUNT