I broke my Wordle streak at the end of 2023 by skipping a day. To be transparent, I missed that day because I didn’t think I’d get the Wordle and didn’t want to tarnish my 100% win rate.
I got back on the Wordle train on January 3rd when I guessed TWIRL on the third attempt. Jordi got it on the fourth try as he’d guessed SWIRL before TWIRL, thus beginning a Seinfeldesque debate:
Jordi: “It’s basically the same thing.”
“Twirl is the same as swirl? I think twirl is external whereas swirl is internal.”
“They’re both spinning!” (I pictured an exasperated George Costanza.)
Hmm… how do we settle this debate? We could Google, but what’s the fun in that? Crowdsource, it is! To my surprise, the answers were varied. Not surprisingly, many examples cited involved toilet water and ice cream. There were a few majorette aficionados who mentioned batons. One person brought up nipple tassels.
Anyway, here are a few responses from those I surveyed:
“I’d say a twirl is a spin, and a swirl is a spin with FLOURISH.”
“People themselves twirl, but they don’t really swirl. Things swirl, like ice cream. People can swirl the ice cream. But not themselves. That’s twirling.”
“Solids twirl and liquids swirl.” This one prompted me to ask the person whether ice cream is a liquid or a solid. “If you’re mixing it, it’s behaving as a liquid so it’s a swirl. If you’re just rotating it as one big thing, it’s behaving as a solid, so it’s a twirl.” They then added, “I will now die on this hill.”
“Twirl is for unitary things and swirl may be of things that are amorphous (bunched)?”
“Twirl for me is about movement. Something living that moves. Swirl is more about an arrangement.”
“I feel like swirl is more food-related, like chocolate swirl on ice cream. And then twirl is spinning.”
“I’d say twirl is something you do TO something, and swirl you do IN something. So you can twirl a baton, but you can’t swirl a baton. You can swirl ice cubes in a glass of water, but you can’t really twirl the cubes, but you could twirl the entire glass (to dramatic effect!).”
“I suppose that context could make a difference in some degree of meaning. But if I think of a ‘swirl’, I think of objects. And ‘twirl’ to me is an action. As in, I could swirl chocolate sauce over dessert. Wearing a skirt or flowy dress, I could twirl around. Or I guess a stripper could twirl tassels at a burlesque show, while the folks watching swirl their drinks?”
“I’m gonna go with direction. Assuming both are being done with a finger, twirl would be with your finger pointed up and swirl would be pointed down. Like twirling your hair vs swirling your cup of coffee… maybe swirl can be horizontal too, but twirling definitely feels ‘up’.”
I surveyed enough people to realize how unlikely it was anyone learned the definitions of the two words by actually looking them up in the dictionary. We learned these words as a child, through repeated exposure, and developed our own interpretations.
Someone also blindsided me with, “…what about whirl?”
Once satisfied with the number of people I surveyed, I looked to Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com for the official definitions. Neither provided the elucidation I craved, so twirl and swirl remain interchangeable. ‘Whirl’ can fuck right off.
The movement of the day, though, was zig-zag. I broke out my newly repaired sewing machine to add bar tacks to the pockets of my pajama pant project. The spool of white thread that goes on the spool pin was missing. I knew I used it to test the zig-zag stitch setting on scrap fabric after servicing my machine, so if not on the machine, it had to be in my box of sewing supplies. If not there, then in my box of fabrics.
No? Under the couch?
Maybe I need to check my boxes again?
I was determined to reinforce the pockets of my pajama pants, just as much as I was determined to distinguish between the words ‘twirl’ and ‘whirl’. In my frazzled state, I came up with several wacky theories, like my roommate taking the thread because he couldn’t stand the noise. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t possible. I was trying to find someone to blame instead of owning up to my mistake.
After half an hour of getting all riled over a missing spool of thread, I gave up.
Then I found it.
My sanity… restored! My pockets… reinforced!
squaremeat.com 