W-H-I-N-Y:

According to clinical psychologist Dr Patapia Tzotzoli, the appeal of Wordle is that it conforms to the theory of self-determination.

"The theory suggests we can become self-determined when our three innate psychological needs - autonomy, competence and connection - are met," she says. "Wordle enables autonomy because we choose to take a few minutes out of our day to play it. It offers competence because we can solve a puzzle and fare better than others. And in terms of connection, it fosters a sense of belonging to a wider community. It hits all the right notes to activate our motivation to keep going back."

But the more popular it becomes, the more complaints it provokes. The agitated talk of caulk followed immediately after the doubling-up crisis of the previous day. One of the appeals of Wordle is that everyone tackles the same word, at least within the English-speaking world - there are now versions in more than 90 languages. Players know that when they are struggling to get "knoll" or "siege" it's a specific struggle shared with millions of others. This is the "connection".

But last week there was a sudden disconnect. Instead of a single answer, there were two: aroma and agora, depending on whether or not you were using the old or new URL. The NYT decided to drop agora because it was too arcane (excuse me, caulk?) and replace it with aroma, but some unrefreshed browsers got the original choice instead.

Cue outrage of the kind more normally associated with gross infractions of the moral code, like flashing the Queen or swearing at David Attenborough. The judgment doing the rounds on Twitter was "scandal". And many players felt that the one-word-a-day contract had been irrevocably broken.

Things came to a head last week with a deceptively simple word: shake. That was exactly what many users were left doing with their heads. To complete the puzzle in four guesses seems to be the par score for Wordle. Doing it in three is a jolt of satisfaction, in two is smugly pleasurable, and in one is pure luck. But failing to do it within the allotted six is a wretched study in self-recrimination.

That was the result for large numbers of players when they were lured into writing "shame", "shape", "shave", "shade", "shale" or "share", but not "shake". Disillusioned - or perhaps simply defeated - players began to announce that they were off to Quordle, a more taxing version of the game which involves completing four grids simultaneously.

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