Wordle Removing Obscene Words After NYT Acquisition

Wordle, the daily word-guessing trivia, has taken the internet by storm. With its meteoric rise to popularity, the game's rights were recently acquired by The New York Times. With its acquisition of Wordle, The New York Times is making substantive changes to the list of words in the game and is removing a range of vulgar and inappropriate words from the list of acceptable guesses in the game.

As Polygon notes, The New York Times has removed offensive words including gendered slurs that attack people's character. We have chosen to omit the said slurs but you may satiate your curiosity by finding them out at the source linked above. The game responds with a message saying the guessed word is "not in word list," prompting players to make newer, more family-friendly guesses.

Incidentally, however, certain obscene words still seep through as valid suggestions as per Polygon's report. These include the plural to the F-word as well as the five-letter slang for vagina. These words may soon be removed from the list too as a spokesperson for the New York Times says. "Offensive words will always be omitted from consideration," said the NYT representative. "As we have just started Wordle's transition to The Times website, we are still in the process of removing those words from the game play."

The change of ownership to The New York Times justifies the restraint, Polygon reports. This is because the daily is famed for its disposition against the use of profane words, and is best known to avoid them, unless absolutely necessary to include in certain unavoidable quotes — like the one where Donald Trump talks about assaulting women .

Vulgar words are also omitted from The New York Times' other word games including Spelling Bee. Therefore, it is only expected for the company to eliminate anything objectionable from Wordle too.

Wordle witnessed a pyroclastic growth around the end of 2021, especially close to the holidays, after being hailed for its romantic nature by none other than The New York Times. From under a hundred players n November to almost three million users in late January (via The Conversation), Wordle's success has been monumental.

Besides daily users who enjoy the process of breaking the code, Wordle has also attracted programmers, mathematicians, and data science experts (via TikTok) who have attempted to guess the best Wordle starting words to identify the shortest path to success in the game.

It is definitely a great way to tickle your brain, and the urge to solve daily Wordle has been serving many online users better than bullet coffee. Lately, if you have also been feeling drowsy after waking up, starting your day with Wordle could help you kick off the day with much more vigor and attentiveness, especially since it seems to be getting more difficult post-acquisition.