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Poll: Everyone is obsessed with Wordle - have you played it yet?

You may have seen it mentioned on your Twitter feed recently.

THE WORLD HAS gone mad for Wordle. 

The crossword-style game has gained over two and a half million players since software engineer Josh Wardle created it as a gift for his partner only three months ago.

Every day, players are given a new five-letter word to figure out in only six guesses.

Once complete, they get a block of green, yellow, black and white blocks that they can share on social media, but only other players will be able to understand what it means. 

So today, we’re asking: Have you played Wordle yet?


Poll Results:

No, I've never heard of it (6473)
No, but I've heard of it (3318)
Yes, I play it every day (2711)
Yes, once or twice (1060)

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39 Comments
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    Mute john Appleseed
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    Jan 8th 2018, 6:48 AM

    This is very distressing to read. Survivors of these ‘homes’ need to be recognized and we need to help them in whatever way we can.

    99
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    Mute Tom Molloy
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:49 AM

    @john Appleseed: If this had been a Catholic home it would have got quicker and wider coverage. The word Catholic would be in the headline and by now the usual sectarian brigade would have plastered the place with exaggeration. We might get more constructive attention for the victims when it is treated as a societal issue pre Single Mothers Allowance support.

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    Mute April Showers
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    Jan 8th 2018, 4:50 PM

    @john Appleseed:
    Very well said John. I’m with you all the way!!

    8
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 8:29 AM

    The Bethany Home survivors should be included within the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.

    There should be a full scale forensic investigation of the remains of the child victims which are interred in Mount Jerome.

    48
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    Mute Garreth Byrne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 11:08 AM

    Bethany babies, Tuam babies – they were all unfortunate babies who died too young from composite causes like malnourishment, physical neglect, fever and infections that their weak bodies could not resist. Their unfortunate mothers did not possess adequate education and self-confidence to cope with the situation. Poor and distraught parents and relatives passed problems over to an unaccountable system. Politicians, Gardai, Bishops and medical authorities lacked the will and sense of moral responsibility to call out scandal on a national level. Derek Leinster has been a voice in the wilderness.

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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 11:13 AM

    @Garreth Byrne: a good comment.

    The stigma of illegitimacy was toxic and hugely damaging. There was a perception that children conceived out of wedlock were the products of sin and that the unmarried mothers were “fallen women”. Judgmental moralising impeded humane and humanitarian treatment. It was a cruel nightmare for the victims who knew no happiness in their lives.

    17
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    Mute Tom Molloy
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    Jan 8th 2018, 7:42 AM

    Infant mortality was very high including in expensive hospitals. The single parent Allowence is the modern way of providing for these mothers.

    20
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:10 AM

    @Rosemarie Martin: there are no foetuses buried in Mount Jerome, only the remains of real babies. You intentionally seek to conflate separate issues so to advance an anto abortion position, despite the number of separate articles on that topic. That is the mark of a zealot.

    Evangelicial Protestants and fundamentalist Roman Catholics of the type responsible for Tuam etc are strongly opposed to abortion, that is a point in common, and the other point in common is that both were responsible for the maltreatment of babies and young infants.

    Now back to the topic of the article. The maltreatment of real and actual babies, not pretend babies.

    22
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    Mute Kevin Slater
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    Jan 8th 2018, 11:55 AM

    Malnutrition in a care home. Some care. This state has a lot of examining to do even in retrospect

    16
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 11:00 AM

    I can understand the malnutrition references as a cause of death but the heart references seems odd.

    Some babies may be born with congenital heart abnormalities but it is surprising to see so many references to heart problems in young babies.

    Is there any one with public health knowledge who could clarify this? Was it just a convenient term for the life of babies expiring due to other ailments, such as starvation?

    15
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    Mute Julie Burn
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    Jan 8th 2018, 6:22 AM

    what a disgusting photo ,come on have some respect ,THE JOURNAL.IE

    47
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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:30 AM

    P.S. @ Fiona de Freyne I find your term ‘Pretend babies’ for any woman who has carried a foetus to be totally obscene. You do little for the LGBT community.

    32
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:34 AM

    @Rosemarie Martin: the article is about the Bethany Home babies.

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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:43 AM

    Karen Wellington ~ Thank you, I am not computer literate although well educated, I have a numeracy problem too. Sorry for not being perfect, I did not mean to ‘litter’ the Comments.

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Jan 8th 2018, 10:11 AM

    @Rosemarie Martin: do you mean to continue littering the comments? If you give us a heads-up then those of us who know how to access the options and settings could at least mute your comments.

    P.S. To reply you just need to tap (or click) the curved arrowed at the bottom of the comment you’re addressing.

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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 9:39 AM

    @Fiona de Freyne. Rosemarie Martin can read. Has feelings for babies dead and alive. Has an unhealthy dislike for nuns and does not need your condescending coldness on a Monday morning. Good day.

    13
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 11:29 AM

    @Rosemarie Martin: it is not about you, not even you in the third person, or your feelings. It is about the tragedy and scandal of the Bethany Home deceased babies. It is about the call for an investigation and for full transparency.

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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 4:43 PM

    @Fiona deFreyne: I was not the person who brought up the Relgious element of it. That has been done to death. We all know it was the Religous Mainly Irish Catholic schools, [state funded] who were to blame.

    The Article was always about The Babies, the live, tiny mites that were starved whilst nuns walked up and down saying the Rosary and that ate well from vegetables and delicious Meat, mainly from their farms on land. So eating Roast Beef and tucking in to organic vegetables and a nice sweet whilst the children and toddlers starved, and their mothers lived on Gruel, a sort of watery soup, with white bread. They washed and worked and cleaned right up to the time the baby was coming …

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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 4:51 PM

    @Rosemarie Martin: Marasmus [starvation] causes the Heart to malfunction hence so many babies could be conveniently ‘written off’ with Heart Malfunction without any questioning whatsoever [not that the State or Dept. of Health ever did ].

    3
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 6:01 PM

    @Rosemarie Martin: you brought up the separate and irrelevant issue of abortion. None of the Bethany Home child victims were foetuses. They had nit been aborted. They had been starved to death. They died of conditions resulted from starvation.

    Not only did you hijack the comments to raise a debate on abortion, you accused people who expressed objection to the maltreatment, neglect and abuse of the victims of the Bathany Home of hypocrisy. People are entitled to be outraged by the tragedy of the Bethany Home as an issue in itself.

    The issue here is the maltreatment of the victims of the Bethany Home and the need for a full investigation.

    There needs to be a proper forensic pathological assessment by real experts who have the professional competence and expertise to discover as much as can still be discovered of the remains as to actual cause of death instead of stated cause of death on the death certificates.

    I’m not interested in the emotive side. The babies are dead. The interest is in the exposure of what happened as a consequence of the stigma of illegitimacy.

    7
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    Mute Rosemarie Martin
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    Jan 8th 2018, 6:27 PM

    @Fiona deFreyne: I find it quite offensive that you treat me like somebody with a learning disability. I am very well aware of the Involvement of State and Churches in the horrific Genocide [Nazi type] treatment of the mothers and their babies, [often the result of incest and employers] where families were prepared to keep their pregnant daughter, but the priests [Gods] of the parish, demanded that the young girl be banished to a ‘home’. They never got any letters that were sent to them [as you know].

    You are on a vent. I have a right to express the fact that it seems hypocritical that so many, rightly appalled at the treatment at Bethany home, and the many other, Birds Nest [where Vaccines were tested on the babies ] and the famous Greystones home were the childen were beaten with electric wiring from the fence.
    I simply felt, and still do, that there is something hypocritical about being aghast [rightly so] at the treatment of babies [out of the womb], yet being all for Abortion on demand where the small living creature feels fear, pain and is killed. The truth sets us free but your over the top feminism LG community know it all attitude and autocratic way of speaking to me on here has only convinced me more of the coldness of your Agenda. The changing of the 8th Amendment, it IS relevant. Life is relevant, Women are relevant is pathethic as you don’t even know my work background or my interest in women issues, you presume alot. You are the Zealot and an insult to any woman with a womb. Now let it all stop here coz I am not replying, its like arguing with the wall. Quite a few people agreed with my post. They must also be Zealots and trying to hijack the article, which was an excellent one.

    2
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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Jan 8th 2018, 6:40 PM

    @Rosemarie Martin: I prefer to focus on the Bethany Homes matter. I’m not willing to get into a personal conflict. Neither your feelings nor mine are of any importance in this context. It is the issue which matters. Your conduct clearly results from an inablity to distinguish between a foetus and a baby.

    5
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    Mute Mártan Ó Conghaile
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    Jan 9th 2018, 1:56 AM

    Very sad. There are several forces at play here, but the largest is that the Dept. wants religious institutions to pony up a certain proportion of the compensation money due from the Residential Redress Board. Otherwise, not included. The Catholic Church originally had a sweetheart deal, but now is expected to pay 50%. I’m certain whether the Church of Ireland is in some way legally connected to the Bethany Home (and there were some others I believe), but they can’t/won’t pay. The media isn’t subjecting the COI to the same scrutiny as the CC because of possibly sectarianism worries, but certainly taking down the CC is the media’s great big desire in order to effect social change. The COI would possibly distract from the ‘Catholic/Nationalist’ malaise narrative the media has cultivated i.e. surely only the Irish Catholic Church could do these horrible things, this has never, ever happened anywhere else in history elsewhere in Europe and so far as we know, this only ever began in 1922 in Ireland with Dev and is unique to here Ireland and this culture and religious culture. Certainly not Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden. So, the Bethany Homes is going to be quietly forgotten about.

    3
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    Mute Mártan Ó Conghaile
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    Jan 9th 2018, 1:46 AM

    @Fiona deFreyne: What’s the difference between a ‘foetus’ and a live born baby? Ten inches. The magic cervix which confers person-hood on one! “Pretend babies” is insulting, you’re a cheeky strap. You should apologize. A not-inconsiderable proportion of live births are occurring at earlier stages of pregnancy, when abortions of often legally permissible i.e. the unborn are perfectly viable. I have often heard of women who lament they’ve “lost the baby” i.e., suffered a miscarriage at some early date i.e. a month or two into their pregnancy. Next time I hear a woman utter this, I must rush towards them withmy phone & your online witterings on thejournal and inform them “nothing to worry about. It was only a Pretend-Baby”.

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