Update: This blog post, which superceded another blog post, has since then itself been superceded. Try to keep up. Also, my "only root words" explanation wasn't quite right. Apparently, non-root words with unusual grammatical endings are fine. E.g. BOXED will never be a Wordle final answer; but AROSE could be.

I changed my mind about my Wordle starter word. Now I like SLATE. (I'm not the first/only/whatever person to figure this out.)

Someone on the internet pointed out that Wordle's source code contains its word list. (Well, there are a couple of word lists in there. I don't know for certain, but one looks like a list of awesome words; and one looks like a list of ugh-acceptable-words.) When I picked my earlier starter word, I considered many many five-letter words. I worried that my word-list wasn't like the game's word-list. It turns out I was right to worry. The game favors, uhm, root words. E.g. BOXES is a lovely five-letter English word in my word list, but it is not in Wordle's word list—I bet that's because BOXES is a plural, not a root. When I search Wordle's list for other lovely plural words, I don't find 'em. My previous starter-word-picking system thought S was a very likely last letter. But if you cross out plural words, S isn't so common.

Anyhow, now I like SLATE. SAUCE and SLICE are nice too.