Why Did The NY Times Pull Today's Wordle Answer?

The New York Times NYT has announced it tried to withdraw the answer in the May 9 Wordle game, claiming that it was not meant to reflect on a current hot-button topic, but acknowledged that some users wound up with the puzzle including that word.

SPOILER ALERT: The word will be identified at the end of this story.

What Happened: Wordle is an online game that challenges users to guess a five-letter word. It was created by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, and the New York Times acquired the rights to Wordle in January for an undisclosed amount “in the low seven figures.”

Everdeen Mason, editorial director of games at the New York Times, published a message to readers regarding the five-letter word at the crux of the puzzle.

“Today,” she wrote, “some users may see an outdated answer that seems closely connected to a major recent news event. This is entirely unintentional and a coincidence — today’s original answer was loaded into Wordle last year. 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.”

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Why It Happened: Mason added that the Wordle technology makes it “difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game” and the publication did not realize today’s answer until last week, at which time it was switched “for as many solvers as possible.” However, some users will wind up seeing the answer that the Times tried to erase.

“You won’t receive the outdated version if you have refreshed your browser window,” Mason continued. “But we know that some people won’t do that and, as a result, will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle.

“We want to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance. 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. We are committed to ensuring that tens of millions of people have a gratifying and consistent experience, every day.”

ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: The word in question is “fetus.”