Word puzzle game Wordle came out of nowhere, skyrocketing in popularity seemingly overnight and becoming a mainstream fad in the process. Its success drew the attention of The New York Times, the award-winning newspaper that's been in circulation for over 150 years. The New York Times acquired Wordle for a seven-figure sum, and since then, there have been some subtle changes to the game.
Since New York Times' acquisition of Wordle, there have been tweaks to the game, not all of which have been popular. Some Wordle players have reported issues with their streaks being broken, and others have discovered that there are now less words that can be guessed than before. It seems that, in total, The New York Times has removed at least six words from Wordle's upcoming answers list, as well as 19 words from the game's list of guesses.
Reddit user randybruder did the leg work to figure out which words have been removed from Wordle since the New York Times acquisition, discovering that AGORA, FIBRE, LYNCH, PUPAL, SLAVE, and WENCH are all gone from the game. Randybruder didn't specify the 19 other words that were removed from the game, as they are "offensive" with some being "ethnic slurs." The reasoning behind removing some of these Wordle words seems obvious, as they could potentially be used in an offensive context or may upset users. The reasons behind removing some of the other words may be less clear, however, like with "FIBRE."
One possibility for "FIBRE" being removed is because the word is spelled differently in different parts of the world. "FIBRE" is the British spelling of the world, whereas "FIBER" is how it's spelled in America. Based on our own testing, FIBRE has indeed been axed from Wordle, though FIBER still works. One theory presented by Reddit users is that FIBRE was removed because of the controversy surrounding Wordle 235 when "HUMOR" was the answer despite those outside the US spelling it "HUMOUR."
While these words have been removed from Wordle, there are over 10,000 words that still work at the time of this writing, including many swear words. So even though The New York Times has seemingly censored Wordle to a certain degree, it doesn't appear to be going overboard. And ultimately, most Wordle users likely would never have noticed these words were removed anyway.
In the meantime, anyone that still wants to use words like "FIBRE" in their guesses can check out the multitude of Wordle clones out there.
Wordle is out now.