Another week, seven more on the streak (if you didn’t get got by a certain word that ends in -ATCH. No, not that one). Wordle served up another septet of tricksy solutions for us, with an accidental almost-theme around time.
Purely because for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about this, here are the past week’s Wordle words, ranked by how good they would sound spoken out loud by the man with possibly the greatest and most resonant speaking voice in showbiz: the once and future Professor Charles Xavier/Jean-Luc Picard, Sir Patrick Stewart.
1. TODAY (Saturday)
That rich O sound. The grand sweep of the AY. I can just hear the hint of vibrato he would put at the end of this, in full King Richard mode. It would sound like a proclamation, even if he was just telling you when to put the bins out.
2. HOARD (Monday)
Another O, this time in the form of a delightfully subtle diphthong. Sir Patrick Stewart would make you know that he was saying HOARD and not HORDE.
3. FOCUS (Sunday)
There’s that O again — this time, the same deep, crisp one you get in “Make it so“. I have serious attention span issues, but if Sir Patrick told me to FOCUS, I think I could do it.
4. WATCH (Friday)
It’s another sneaky O sound, because the English language is absurd! And Stewart’s Shakespearean diction would make that TCH sound like ASMR.
5. LAPSE (Thursday)
No O here, and not much room besides for that resonant rumble with all those consonants. He’d make a meal of that PS, though, lingering a little on the sibilance.
6. SWEET (Tuesday)
Nice crisp edges, but for some reason I cannot stop picturing him saying it like Ashton Kutcher in Dude, Where’s My Car, as an exclamation. It is discomfiting in ways I cannot describe.
7. MONTH (Wednesday)
Honestly just not a word with a good sound to it? At all? No, not even with Sir Patrick bringing every bit of Royal Shakespeare Company oomph he has to it. A flat, U-like false O, and kind of squishy-feeling at the end there. Something has to be at the bottom, and this is it.
Now, if you need me, I’ll be watching my dude read some sonnets.
