Today’s ‘Wordle’ Hints And Clues For Monday, March 11th — Wordle #996 Answer

Well here we are on yet another lovely March Monday, marching forth from winter to spring. Marching also toward the Ides of March and the 1,000th Wordle. Heady days, indeed.

I figured we’d take a walk back through history today and see what kind of big, important, earth-shaking events took place on March 11th in the days of yore. Curiously, not one but two major global pandemics were starting to make themselves known:

1. 1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888 hits the United States. One of the most severe recorded blizzards in the history of the United States, it caused over 400 deaths and significant snowfall across many states.
2. 1918 – The first case of Spanish flu is reported. This marks the beginning of the influenza pandemic which would go on to infect approximately one-third of the world’s population and kill at least 50 million people worldwide.
3. 1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law. This program allowed the United States to supply Allied nations with vast amounts of war material during World War II.
4. 1990 – Lithuania declares independence from the Soviet Union. It is the first of the Baltic states to do so, leading the way for Estonia and Latvia.
5. 2004 – Madrid train bombings. Coordinated terrorist bomb blasts on commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, kill 193 people and injure more than 2,000.
6. 2011 – The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami strike Japan. This magnitude 9.0 earthquake was one of the strongest ever recorded, causing widespread damage and triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.
7. 2020 – The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a global pandemic. This marked a pivotal moment in the global response to the coronavirus outbreak, which had begun to affect countries worldwide.

Not exactly pleasant stuff, but then it’s always nice to be reminded that things can be—and have been—worse. Thinking back to March 11th of 2020 I also recall the launch of Call Of Duty: Warzone the day before. That was about the only good thing happening at the time, as schools started shutting down and everyone became collectively very, very afraid.

No more pandemics. Only Wordles from now on. Let’s do today’s!

How To Solve Today’s Wordle

The Hint: A characteristic many toddlers and intrepid reporters share.

The Clue: This Wordle begins with a consonant.

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The Answer:

Wordle Analysis

Every day I check Wordle Bot to see how I did. You can check your Wordles with Wordle Bot right here.

I went with trade simply because it’s like trace which was—briefly—Wordle Bot’s top pick. It did okay, leaving me with 145 words to choose from. Nothing snazzy. I’m not really sure why I chose sheep other than I had this hunch that maybe this was a double-E word.

That hunch was wrong, but the guess was aces, leaving me with just one word: pesky for the win! Huzzah!

Competitive Wordle Score

Just like yesterday, I got the Wordle in 3 (1 point) and tied the Wordle Bot (0 points) for a grand total of 1 point. #winning

Today’s Wordle Etymology

The word “pesky” is believed to have originated in the early 19th century. It is an adjective meaning annoying, troublesome, or irritating. The etymology of “pesky” suggests that it comes from the word “pest,” which has been used since the late 15th century to refer to an annoying or troublesome person or thing. The suffix “-y” is often added to nouns to form adjectives that describe a characteristic quality of the noun, in this case, being like or related to a pest.

The term “pest” itself derives from the Latin word “pestis,” meaning “plague, pestilence” or figuratively “nuisance, annoyance.” Over time, the notion of being a pest or pestilent has been used colloquially to describe things or people that are considered bothersome or annoying, leading to the creation of the word “pesky” to describe such irritating qualities.

While “pesky” is most commonly used in informal contexts, it has found a place in the English language to describe anything from minor annoyances to more significant irritants.