Happy New Year’s! 2024 is here. Burn your calendars and drown your expectations. Pin those new year’s resolutions on the wall. Fire up the barbeque and turn on the football game. It’s time for one last day of merrymaking before we get back to brass tacks, back to the business of starting anew—again.
January 1st has been the first day of the new year for quite some time now. It dates all the way back to 153 BCE—though it’s likely the day was considered by many the start of the new year much earlier, beginning with Roman king Numa Pompilius who replaced March 1st on the Roman Republican calendar sometime during his reign between 715 and 673 BCE. It was Julius Caesar and his sun-based Julian calendar that solidified the day as the start of the new year in 46 BCE.
Over 1,600 years later, the Gregorian calendar solidified January 1st as the new year even further. Many regions had begun celebrating the new year on Christmas (December 25th) or the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th after the fall of Rome, and Pope Gregory XIII sought to not only unify, but rectify, the calendar for all of Christendom in 1582. Great Britain and the American colonies didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar for nearly two more centuries, and continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on March 25th until 1752.
China still celebrates Chinese New Year, but adopted the Gregorian calendar and January 1st as New Year’s Day in 1912. The Orthodox Church celebrates New Year’s on January 14th. Ethiopia celebrate the New Year—called Enkutatash—in September. Whenever you celebrate, have a terrific New Year’s Day!
If you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, check out my streaming guide here.
Alright, let’s Wordle!
How To Solve Today’s Word
The Hint: A very large painting.
The Clue: This word ends with a consonant.
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See yesterday’s Wordle #925 right here.
Wordle Bot Analysis
After each Wordle I solve I head over to the Wordle Bot homepage to see how my guessing game was.
I opened with nadir because often by the end of the year, we have reached some kind of low point in our lives and thus come up with all these resolutions in order to make changes for the new year—changes that will renew and revive us.
This was more of a unique opener than it was a successful one, leaving me with 142 remaining possible solutions. Then I got lucky with a pretty bad follow-up guess. Cloud, you’ll notice, re-uses the grey ‘D’ from nadir. I blame someone else—anybody else, god or the president or maybe my dogs—for this blunder. Far be it from me to take personal responsibility!
Thankfully, I lucked out and was left with just three options, though I could only think of two: Rural and mural. I went with the word that didn’t have a double letter in it, as I often do, and got lucky. Huzzah!
Today’s Competitive Wordle Score
A sad, sad wash today. I get 1 point for guessing in three but lose it immediately for losing to Wordle Bot, who snagged the answer on guess #2. I guess slate really paid off today!
Today’s Wordle Etymology
The word “mural” comes from the Latin word “murus,” which means “wall.” This origin is reflected in its usage, as murals are large paintings or artworks directly applied or affixed to a wall or ceiling. The term “mural” started to be used in English in the mid-19th century to specifically refer to these large-scale wall paintings. The practice of creating murals, however, dates back thousands of years, found in ancient civilizations such as those in Egypt and Mesoamerica.
Play Competitive Wordle Against Me!
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.
Here are the rules:
- 1 point for getting the Wordle in 3 guesses.
- 2 points for getting it in 2 guesses.
- 3 points for getting it in 1 guess.
- 1 point for beating me
- 0 points for getting it in 4 guesses.
- -1 point for getting it in 5 guesses.
- -2 points for getting it in 6 guesses.
- -3 points for losing.
- -1 point for losing to me
You can either keep a running tally of your score if that’s your jam or just play day-to-day if you prefer.
