Wordle 671: Tough One Today

 I'm starting with SHEAR today because I saw a popup ad for Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center. I saw it once as a kid when family was visiting us like 20 years ago. Maybe it's time to drive into DC and see it again. As a Wordle guess today, SHEAR was less than ideal. The A is green, but everything else was wrong.

To get to my second guess, I'm thinking about what the last letter could be. I want to end with AD, but that doesn't make much sense. AL is a bit more promising. USUAL pops into my head, but can't be right due to the S. I land on VITAL, which has the added bonus of having a T, so I'm knocking out more common letters with this guess. And then everything turns up gray.

Wow.

I need to find the other vowel in this word. I briefly consider that it may have two A's, but nah. I look at my available letters and see that the word could end with MAN. HUMAN is out, so my third guess is WOMAN. I'm very confident in this guess. Then I get the same result. No correct guesses. Damn.

This is not good. So now I'm looking at the U and wondering where and if it's part of this answer. Spending time with U leads me to Q and I see that all the letters for QUACK are available, but I know that's wrong. I play with AQUA, but can't figure out what the other letter would be or go. Wow, I'm really stumped. I'm more amazed that I don't have any other letters beside the A. I had a run of answers like this the other day, and I'm kind of amazed that having a run of guesses like this is possible. Especially since I've guessed letters that are common, with the exception of the V for VITAL, these are all letters that are used often. 

CUPAD? Is that a word? It would be Cupid's house or something? No. Not a word. Wow. I'm really stumped. To make a groan-worthy pun, I'm at a loss for words. I've seen SQUAD, but that can't be right because S has been eliminated. I've got nowhere else to go, I'm going to have to waste a guess on SQUAD just to see what other letters there are in this word.

And everything is gray! WTF! I was looking at CABAL as a guess, but the L is gone. But this is a word with two As. I'm not going to waste a guess this late in the game, but I have to assume -A-A- is the structure of the word. Unless Y is the other vowel? I'm typing in letters to see if something looks like a word and accidently submit PACAY as my fifth guess. I confirm the second (or first) A and also find out that Y is in the word.

Now I'm even more confused. KAYAK. It has to be KAYAK.

This was a tough puzzle that took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit. When I was stumped after WOMAN, I was certain I would hate this puzzle, but looking back on it, I have an odd respect for it. I think this was a gimmick puzzle, but I respect it. Two double letters?!? C'mon! But I figured it out despite my struggle, so a hat tip to Wordle today.