The New York Times drops ‘fetus’ in response to Wordle – but not for all players

The New York Times has removed the word “fetus” from its Wordle responses to keep the game “separate from the news,” a move apparently related to last week’s leaked Roe v Wade Supreme Court draft ruling.

The change created confusion as it was only implemented for some of the game’s players.

“Today, some users may see an outdated response for Wordle that seems closely related to a major news event recently. This is completely unintentional and a coincidence – today’s original response was loaded into Wordle last year,” the New York Times said in a statement. .

The game’s answer list is prescribed and assigned a date.

“When we discovered last week that this particular word would be displayed today, we switched it to as many looser as possible,” the newspaper said.

The Times bought Wordle earlier this year after it became a viral hit.

The shift away from the word seems to be a step from the Times to avoid using a politically charged term. Last week’s leaked Supreme Court draft majority opinion overturned the overthrow of the landmark Roe v Wade decision that jeopardized the right to abortion across the United States and sparked a bitter national debate.

“At the New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to stay separate from the news,” the Times said.

This is not the first time Wordle offers different solutions.

In March, confused users tweeted their confusion over two correct Wordle responses. In that case, the solution could be either “harry” or “stove”. In that case, the Times confirmed that the answer had been changed as it removed potentially obscure or insensitive words “in an attempt to make the puzzle more accessible”.

When the Times acquired Wordle, it also removed words like “lynch,” “slave,” and “wench.”