‘How the Wordle Editor Is Ruining Wordle’

Lizzie O’Leary, writing for Slate:

Look: I’m sure that Tracy Bennett, the Wordle editor, is a lovely person and a skilled crossword editor. But when I do a Wordle and discover I’ve walked into someone else’s pun, I feel foolish. The butt of a middlebrow dad joke. I want to tell Joe Kahn that the Times’ ever-expanding dominion should leave some room for serendipity and strangeness in the world.

No more puns, I beg of you, Wordle queen. I now understand that you started your reign on November 7 with BEGIN. Please: It’s time to CEASE.

I saw the Times’s announcement that they’d hired a Wordle editor, but I didn’t realize she was playing puns until the Thankgiving solution was FEAST. I had that one down to *EAST and guessed BEAST first, thinking it wouldn’t be FEAST on Thanksgiving. And when I realized it was, I was furious. Yes, that’s right, I got furious at a free word game.

Count me in with O’Leary — however central puns are to good crossword puzzles, they have no place in Wordle.

★ Wednesday, 30 November 2022