by How to solve today’s Wordle.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Wordlers! It’s a day for lovers, chocolate, wine, fancy dinners and deep pockets. Or, if you’re like me and happily single, a day to save money (although I could spend dinner on me, me, and me).
The day itself is said to be a celebration of Saint Valentine, as pictured below:
St. Valentine
It’s kind of funny that a day celebrating romance is based on a religious figure, but then again, most holidays are linked to religion and to feast or harvest days, such as the Lupercalia, which commemorates the Ides of February or February 15th. Lupercalia was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, and the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus.
The feast included sacrificing a goat for fertility in the cave where Romulus and Remus were said to have been raised by wolves. The priests dipped the goat skins in strips of sacrificial blood and then went and gently beat women and fields with the bloody skin. This was believed to increase fertility and crop yields. The women would then put their names in a giant urn and later bachelors would draw names and be paired with the women for the following year (which could lead to marriage). How romantic!
This tradition evolved and was eventually Christianized into what we now call Valentine’s Day.
Who Saint Valentine actually was. . . that’s a bit harder to analyze. The Catholic Church recognizes three different Valentines, all of which have been martyred at some point.
One of those valentines was a third-century Roman priest who defied Emperor Clauduis II’s decree that young men should not be allowed to marry legally. He married secretly – until he was caught and executed.
Another was Saint Valentine of Terni. Ironically, Claudius II also beheaded this Valentine. Another legend has it that Valentine helped persecuted Christians flee Rome. Once incarcerated, Valentine fell in love with a woman (believed to be the jailer’s daughter) and sent her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” which started the whole deal.
Whatever the case, Valentine had become one of the most famous and popular saints in England and France during the Middle Ages. We often think of Valentine’s Day as a conspiracy by the florists, chocolatiers, and card makers to get us to spend money (much like the toy companies backed Christmas!), but celebrating Saint Valentine obviously goes back a long, long way.
Okay, let’s make this wordle!
How to solve today’s Wordle
The hint: A smaller body of water connected to an ocean.
The hint: This wordle has more consonants than vowels.
The answer (spoilers):
.
.
.
Today’s Wordle solution
Ouch. That was a tricky thing! my opening guess, Beach, where I would like to be on Valentine’s Day was pretty awful, leaving me with a whopping 498 possibilities. Point shortened that way, down to just 8, but I realized that from here on, a lot of the words ended in good. I decided to just eliminate one and go from there, but in hindsight a word like Drums would have been better than found.
At that point, I knew I had to narrow things down further. I just didn’t have enough guesses left. Worse eliminated wound And round and gave me the ‘S’ for Sound.
I got it in 5 which is a -1 in my rating. I lost to Wordle Bot who got that one out of three so that’s another -1 for a total of -2. lame! I slammed into Wordle and Love this year folks. Sigh.
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