If you haven't already played today's Wordle, make sure you refresh your browser, or you might get an unintentional reminder of how distressing the news is right now.
The New York Times published a note to Wordle players just after midnight Eastern Time today, May 9, asking them to refresh their browsers before they played in order to ensure they have the updated version of today's puzzle. The Times, which purchased Wordle from creator Josh Wardle earlier this year, has replaced the solution that had been intended for today according to Wardle's original list of answers.
This isn't the first time the Times has substituted in a new Wordle answer to the one that had originally been planned. When this happens, players who haven't refreshed their browser since the change was made may be served the outdated puzzle, and not the one that most people will be playing.
On the previous occasions where this move has been made, it was because the Times team has been gradually excising words it considers to be obscure, confusing, or "potentially insensitive" from the word list in order to make the game "more accessible". For May 9, puzzle #324, it was because the original word happens to have a specific and loaded connection to a current news story.
"At New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news," wrote the Times' Editorial Director, Games, Everdeen Mason, in the note. "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 particular word would be featured today, we switched it for as many solvers as possible."
"You won’t receive the outdated version if you have refreshed your browser window. But we know that some people won’t do that and, as a result, will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle."
On this handy archived list of the solution words as originally assigned to each day's puzzle (which was pre-set through 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 stresses that this was "entirely unintentional and a coincidence", it's understandable that the Times would want to avoid appearing to use the massively popular word game to offer any kind of commentary on the topic of pregnancy right now.
The right to terminate a pregnancy is always a uniquely intense and emotionally fraught topic of discussion in American public life and politics. The temperature has risen again in the past week following the leak of a draft decision that indicated the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade — the landmark 1973 decision that has protected the right to abortion. If the decision holds when the Court rules on this case in the new few months, patients in at least 13 states would lose some or all access to abortion care immediately, with more states likely to pass partial or outright bans following the overturning of federal protections.
"We want to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance," wrote Mason. "When we acquired Wordle in January, it had been built for a relatively small group of users. We’re now busy revamping Wordle’s technology so that everyone always receives the same word."
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