The New York Times says they will remove 'potentially insensitive words' from Wordle

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The New York Times announced on Wednesday that they have begun removing "potentially insensitive words" from the popular web game Wordle after players noticed more than one acceptable answer to the puzzle that day.

"In an effort to make the puzzle more accessible, we are reviewing the solutions and removing obscure or potentially insensitive words over time," a spokesperson told Mashable.

WORDLE: WHY DO PEOPLE A-D-O-R-E IT?

The Times issued the statement after Wordle players found that both the words "Harry" and "Stove" were marked as correct answers on the grid Wednesday. 

Wordle was bought by The New York Times in January 2022.

"Something fishy is going on with today’s #Wordle284," one player wrote on Twitter. "My husband and I solved completely different words & both were correct? I thought the whole point of the game was that the answer was universal."

When contacted for clarification, the Times told Mashable that they replaced the word "Harry" with the word "Stove" because "HARRY is an example of an obscure word."

Asked by The New York Post what words they consider "inappropriate," a rep for the Times responded, "There is no specific list to share. This is something that is happening over time. For an example of an obscure word, we removed AGORA in February."

The game offers six guesses to figure out the five-letter word. (Fox Digital)

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The game become an online phenomenon after Brooklyn-based developer Josh Wardle created it for his partner. The once-a-day puzzle flooded social-media feeds with green and yellow squares as users continued to return to the free web page and share their results online.

Wordle was acquired by The New York Times Company, for a price "in the low seven figures" in January 2022.