August 1, 2024 - Ramblin' with Roger

There was a Wordle mystery that I needed to try to solve. On July 23, 2024, someone posted on a Facebook Wordle site this result:

Wordle 1,130 X/6

The correct answer was PRONG, which means the player had PRO as the first three letters on their first turn but never got the five-letter result, or even another letter, in six turns. For my own sake, I had to determine if this outcome was possible without using the same letter twice. This is in no way meant to mock or disparage the player.

I went to Word Unscrambler and found these five-letter words starting with PRO:

proas probe probs prods proem profs progs prole promo proms prone prong proof props prose proso pross prost prosy proud prove prowl prows proxy

Mystery solved!

Wow, it IS possible. In no particular order: PROOF or PROMO; PROBE, PRONE, or PROVE; PROXY; PROWL; PROPS or PROGS; PROUD. As it turns out, PROBE, PROVE, PROWL, PROXY, and PROUD were used, but the user likely did not know this. Several sites online, including WordFinder, reveal these words.

I limited my choices to words I actually knew. One could trade out PROPS/PROGS in favor of PROAS, a word my spellcheck does not like; it doesn’t like PROSO, either. Other combos are likely possible.

One commenter recommended picking words ending in a list of letters, which might have helped. I rearranged them to a more memorable NERGY ST. I imagine the player likely did use words ending with E, S, and Y but not G.

I might have added H. CH, GH, PH, SH, and TH, which are common word endings I tend to use.

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