If you have not already played today Wordlebe sure to update your browser, otherwise you might get an accidental reminder of how disturbing the news is right now.
That New York Times issued a note to Wordle players just after midnight Eastern Time today, May 9, ask them to update their browsers before they play, to make sure they have the updated version of today’s puzzle. That Timeswho bought Wordle from creator Josh Wardle earlier this year, has replaced the solution intended today according to Wardle’s original list of answers.
It’s not the first time Times has replaced in a new one Wordle response to what was originally planned. When this happens, players who have not updated their browser since the change was made may be served the outdated puzzle, and not the one that most will play.
On the previous occasions where this step has been taken, it was because Times the team has gradually removed words that it considers to be obscure, confusing or “potentially insensitive” from the glossary to make the game “more accessible”. For May 9, Puzzle # 324, it was because the original word happened to have a specific and loaded connection to a current news story.
“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’ editor-in-chief, Games, Everdeen Mason, wrote in the memo. “But because of the current Wordle technology, it can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game. When we discovered last week that this very word would be displayed today, we switched it to so many looser as possible.”
“You will not receive the outdated version if you have updated your browser window. But we know that some people will not do so and as a result they will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle.”
On this handy archived list of solution words as originally assigned to each day’s puzzle (which was preset until the year 2027 and visible in Wardle’s site code), you can see that the word for May 9 used to be FETUS. While Mason emphasizes that this was “completely unintentional and a coincidence”, it is understandable that Times would like to avoid seeming to use the hugely popular pun to offer any kind of comments on the topic of pregnancy right now.
The right to terminate a pregnancy is always a uniquely intense and emotionally charged topic of discussion in American public life and politics. The temperature has risen again in the past week after the leak of a draft decision indicating that the Supreme Court is ready to overthrow Roe v. Wade The 1973 landmark decision that protected the right to abortion. If the decision holds when the court rules in this case over the next few months, patients in at least 13 states will lose some or all of access to abortion treatment immediately, with several states likely to pass partial or direct bans after federal overturning protection .
“We would like to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance,” Mason wrote. “When we bought Wordle in January, it was built for a relatively small group of users. We’re now busy renewing Wordle’s technology so everyone always gets the same word.”