Not Everyone Got the Same Wordle Answer Today, Here’s Why

If you solved today's Wordle you may not have had the same answer as everyone else.

What started out as a fad has become an obsession for people throughout the Hudson Valley. Wordle is a word guessing game that gives no clues but expects players to figure out a five-letter word in just six guesses. After your initial answer, the game lets you know if any of your letters are correct and if they're in the proper position or not. Good players should be able to solve any word in three to four guesses, but sometimes things just don't go your way.

Today's Wordle may or may not be the Wordle you think it is. The New York Times announced on Monday that there was a change made to today's answer because of an unintentional coincidence.

Warning... spoilers to today's Wordle answer are ahead.

Wordle was acquired by the New York Times earlier this year. The game was originally developed by Josh Wardle, a computer programmer from South Wales. Created as a gift for his girlfriend, Wardle stocked the game with 2,500 commonly-known words that could randomly be used in the puzzle each day.

The randomness of the puzzles has created an awkward situation for the New York Times that editors tried to avoid for today's puzzle. In a statement to its readers, the newspaper explained that the game section of its website is intended to be  a place to "entertain and escape." Unfortunately, the randomly selected answer to today's puzzle hit too close to current headlines to achieve that goal.

The answer to today's puzzle was supposed to be "fetus." Due to the recent leak of the Supreme Court's thoughts on overturning Roe Vs Wade, the Times thought that the word would cause unintended reactions from players because of its association with current events.

We tried out today's puzzle in the studio and while most of us got the new answer, one of us did get "fetus" as today's solution.

After discovering the unfortunate coincidence last week, the New York Times replaced the word. But because of the way the game is programmed, the change will only take effect if users have refreshed the game in their browser. Because most players use their browser for other things each day, the majority will see a different answer. However, those who keep the same window open to play each day will still see "fetus" as the solution to today's puzzle.

The New York Times says that they are working on ways to update the game and make it easier to adjust answers in the future.