Wordle has started having two different answers and people are not happy

For the first time ever the answer to one of Wordle’s puzzles was different depending on your browser, and it could happen again.

So far, The New York Times’ acquisition of Wordle hasn’t caused too much trouble, even though there was some issue with resetting score streaks early on. But their insistent fiddling with the word list is beginning to cause more and more problems.

Earlier in the week they were criticised for removing rude words (although very inconsistently) and now they’ve committed the ultimate faux pas of making it so that there were actually two different answers to Tuesday’s puzzle.

Depending on how you have your web browser set up the answer was either ‘aroma’ or ‘agora’. It was originally supposed to be agora but because The New York Times deemed it too obscure a word (it refers to a public square in Ancient Greece) they removed it from the word list – but not everyone got the update.

Which answer you got would’ve depended on whether you’ve refreshed your browser recently. If you keep Wordle open on the same tab all the time you would’ve likely got agora, because that means you haven’t refreshed the page recently to get the updated word list.

If you loaded up Wordle fresh on Tuesday though, or manually refreshed it at any time in the last few days, you would’ve got aroma.

Wordle’s popularity only kicked into gear when it added the ability to share scores with other people, but that very much depends on everyone trying to solve the same puzzle.

It seems fair to imagine a lot more people got aroma rather than agora, which would’ve messed with their score streak and left some feeling that the whole thing was suddenly very unfair.

‘We are updating the word list over time to remove obscure words to keep the puzzle accessible to more people, as well as insensitive or offensive words. Agora is an example of an obscure word’, the newspaper told ABC News.

The entirety of Wordle is loaded in every time you open the page in a browser and fans have already worked out a way to ensure it’s free forever by downloading the entire thing onto your PC. If you did that in the early days, just after The New York Times bought it, then you would’ve got the original version of Wordle, complete with rude and obscure words.

Today’s answer though, is strange in that not only is it pretty obscure but it also seems to be using the British rather than American spelling, which only makes the whole situation even more confusing.

If you want a clue though it’s got a ‘u’ in it and you’re more likely to be familiar with the word if you’re a keen DIY’er.

What’s with the wordle double answer today? https://t.co/oXUzhc2kaB

Wordle having two answers based on people using the NYT/non-NYT link is a great way to screw up Wordle as one of the primary appeals of it is that everyone is doing the same thing once a day.