Welcome back to Wordle Wednesday, dearest Wordlers! It’s Wordle time! But first, it’s riddle time!

Every Wednesday I spice up this Wordle column with a second puzzle—either a riddle or a logic puzzle of some sort. On Thursday, I give the correct answer. Let’s dive right in!

Today’s Riddle: There are two ducks in front of a duck, two ducks behind a duck and a duck in the middle. How many ducks are there?

If you think you’ve solved it, let me know on Twitter or Facebook. I’ll post the answer here on this blog tomorrow.

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Alright, it’s Wordle time!

The Hint: Health potion.

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The Clue: This word has more consonants than vowels.

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See yesterday’s Wordle right here.

Another win in four, which isn’t terrible but also hardly inspiring. My opening guess was fine, I suppose. Cream gave me a yellow ‘C’ and not much else, but did slash my remaining options down to 78. From here, I wanted to rearrange the ‘C’ and ferret out another vowel, so I guessed botch which wasn’t terrible, either, but left me in a confounding position. I could think of three words that would work at this point: Tonic, toxic and topic. What to do?

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The trouble now is that I knew (or was fairly certain) that I’d get it right by guess #5, so there was no concern with losing entirely. I could have guessed a word that included two of these letters and guaranteed guessing on guess #4. For instance, plant would have told me if a ‘P’ or an ‘N’ was in the word, and if neither was I’d have guessed toxic. But I was faced with a conundrum. While this would guarantee me the right answer in 4 guesses, it would rule out getting the Wordle in 3. I risked it, guessing toxic, and came up with ‘X’ in grey. My next guess was a coin toss: I went with tonic and lucked out.

I’ll just repost what I wrote yesterday: Total wash today. Zero points for guessing in 4 and zero points for tying Wordle Bot for a grand total of zero points. Huzzah for me!

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The word "tonic" has its origins in ancient Greek. It comes from the Greek word "tonikos" (τονικός), which is derived from "tonos" (τόνος), meaning "tension" or "stretch." The term "tonikos" was used in the context of music and referred to the keynote or first note of a musical scale.

Over time, the meaning of "tonic" expanded beyond the realm of music and was adopted into medicine and linguistics. In medicine, "tonic" initially referred to a substance that invigorates or strengthens the body. Later on, it evolved to describe a medicinal preparation, often containing quinine, used to improve or restore health. This usage is still seen in terms like "tonic water," which was originally intended to have tonic properties.

In linguistics, the term "tonic" is used to refer to the stressed syllable in a word or the stressed part of a phrase, especially in languages with tonal features, where pitch variations can change the meaning of words.

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I’ve been playing a cutthroat game of PvP Wordle against my nemesis Wordle But. Now you should play against me! I can be your nemesis! (And your helpful Wordle guide, of course). You can also play against the Bot if you have a New York Times subscription.

You can either keep a running tally of your score if that’s your jam or just play day-to-day if you prefer.

I’d love it if you gave me a follow on Twitter or Facebook dearest Wordlers. Have a lovely day!

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