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There was a NY Times article about it. IIRC there are ~12000 5 letter words and he got his partner to go through the ones she knew which was ~2500. Those 2500 were randomised to be the answers but the guesses can be any legit word. So the answer will always be reasonably common and there are loads of obscure words that never will be the final answer but are obviously still useful as guesses. But there is no reason skill should be more likely than swill or argon less likely than train. I think.
villa-ru-
Thank you for taking my shrieking seriously enough for a considered response. This is calming.
However, you stated that, of a total of ~12000 words, ~2500 are not just more likely than the remaining ~9500; the ~2500 are the only solutions in the game. That would contradict the final statement on skill/swill.
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IIRC there are ~12000 5 letter words and he got his partner to go through the ones she knew which was ~2500. Those 2500 were randomised to be the answers but the guesses can be any legit word. So the answer will always be reasonably common
This tallies up with my experience and what I posted a few days ago about 'trying to be too clever'. In my experience the answer is more likely to be a common/simple word than a more obscure word. So skill is more likely than swill and train more likely than argon.
snoops
ElGonzo
My understanding is that if it’s in the ‘word list’, as in it allows you to guess it, then it could be the solution. I’ve no idea, though, if the word list is referenced randomly each day to assign a solution, or if it is biased in some way (frequency, wife says it all the time, etc).