Today’s Wordle #515 Hints, Clues And Answer For Wednesday, November 16th

Well I’m happy the mid-term elections are over. I won’t get into my own politics here—this is a Wordle column!—but one thing I think we can all agree on is a brief respite from robo-calls and all the political ads and campaigning is a win for America. Naturally, the 2024 campaign crap will start soon enough, and that’s bound to be even worse. Alas.

Anyways, Thanksgiving is almost here, so I think it’s worthwhile to get into that mindset, to meditate on gratitude and all the things we’re lucky to have (rather than all the things we’re unlucky to not have). Politics is, understandably, almost always focused on what we don’t have. What’s broke and needs fixing. What’s wrong and needs justice. Why the Other Guy is bad and Our Guy is good. Even the best politicians and the most honest campaigns run by the most positive and affable people have to point out why something is wrong that they can make better.

So I’m going to step back from it all for now and try to get into the thankful mindset. There is so much to be grateful for, so much that could be so much worse. It’s been a rough couple years—and 2022 has certainly been a year of enormous change for me—but I see lots of silver linings as well.

I’m certainly grateful for Wordle, which has been great fun this year. It’s been lovely writing these daily guides / journal entries as well. So let’s do today’s, shall we?

Today’s Wordle Solution (Spoilers!)

The Hint: Last seen in the company of two sea-drenched men. One carrying a meat cleaver, the other’s fingers covered in what appeared to be wax.

The Clue: There are no repeat letters in this word.

The Answer:

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub, And who do you think they be?

The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker, And all of them out to sea.

I thought that was one of my finer hints, though I worry it was either too obvious or too opaque. Balancing the hints out can be super tricky.

In any case, my opening guess—crime—did not pay off. Truly, crime does not pay. With 226 options left, thankfully, about narrowed the field to just 10. Beard was not quite as good as I’d hoped, leaving me with lots of yellow boxes but getting me the ‘B’ in green at least.

Thankfully, my next guess was lucky. Baker was one of three remaining options (along with barer and baler apparently, though I didn’t even consider either of those) and I snagged the win in four. I wouldn’t normally say that’s Huzzah! worthy, but it turns out Wordle Bot took five whole guesses to get the word today:

Slate, armed, guppy, barer, baker. I’m actually surprised the Bot went with barer before baker, but maybe that’s the nature of AI. They don’t always go with the more obvious answer.