“The New York Times Had Two Wordles.” One for You and One for Them, and Yours Got Deleted

Well, with all the other things going on, this is less important, but nonetheless depressing, and not surprising. And it is about our favorite current word game, Wordle.

Yesterday I played, and the answer was STOVE. Not too hard, I got it in four tries. Sometimes I search to see what the general reaction was to the Wordle word, if people were upset or angry that the word was too hard for them. Well, I saw something strange, that there were apparently TWO Wordle answers that day, at least some people got one and some got another.

And it seemed, from what I was trying to extrapolate, that the New York Times somehow took out the first answer, which was HARRY, and replaced it with STOVE. Why would they do that? Harry would have been a difficult one, and it is a good word, I have certainly seen it in stories, usually from earlier times. Merriam-Webster defines harry as “To make a pillaging or destructive raid on.” I have usually read it as meaning to harass, to keep going after. Another dictionary definition is, “To harass, agitate or trouble by or as if by repeated attacks, beleaguer. He was harried by constant doubts.”

This is how I read it in the olden adventure stories, and I am sure I have read it in Shakespeare. But somehow the NYT decided in medias res to remove “harry” and replace it with “stove.” And my immediate thought was that somehow they were doing their bowdlerizing, expurgating thing, how pathetic.

And today an article in the New York Post (I do not very often read that trash Murdoch publication, but it is read by many, and it is sometimes a news source) is headed, “Wordle goes woke. Vows to remove ‘politically insensitive words.'”

The story says that after various players were upset or confused at learning that there were “two answers,” because “the answer is supposed to be universal,” the Times told the site MASHABLE that they had removed “harry” and replaced it with stove,” “as they are in the process of removing obscure or politically insensitive words from the game.”

A NYT spokesperson said, “In an effort to make the puzzle more accessible, we are reviewing the solutions, and removing obscure or politically insensitive words over time. Harry is an example of an obscure word.”

And so, the NYT is by degrees doing what I and others had expected: they are making the game easier for the “masses,” while removing all words which could somehow offend somebody. We have discussed this before, it is unfortunately another bad aspect of this era, and probably will never change back. We have acutely sensitive people who do not really care about the art of doing word games, or writing novels, who just enjoy complaining that something offended them. That is easier, takes less brainpower, and gives one a sense of righteousness.

Of course, as with all things, there are boundaries. I would never want to see vulgarities as the word answers, although we know that there are many Anglo-Saxon words which refer to genitals, which also have completely asexual meanings. And there are many more English words which have completely innocent meanings, but which may have been used in some context to insult someone. I used the example “chink,” which of course means a small dent, but was also used derogatorily about Chinese people. Should that word be removed from our language, in any context, because of that? I would say, absolutely not.

Think of a word like “fat.” It has all sorts of meanings, but someone who wanted to be mean, might call an overweight person “fat,” and he or she might be hurt and offended. Do we take the word out? “Stupid,” ‘dummy,” “jerk,” “ugly,” ‘fool,” are all words which used in the wrong context might insult and offend. But again, does that mean the words should be removed from the language, or usage in a book or in conversation?

Then we have all sorts of words which are about violence, real or metaphorical–and that distinction is important. “Slash,” can be about a horrible act of violence, or it can be about drastically cutting a budget. “Pound” can be about beating up someone, or it can be about a professor trying to go over and over a certain theme. Or in sports, a team “pounded” their rival. Or of course in an entirely different context, an English currency.

Now, some people, either out of ignorance, or almost deliberate offense, can try to go through books and articles and remove such words. We have the very sensitive racial aspects, where words like “lynch” or “whip” have very unpleasant connotations, but at least to me, should not mean that the words should never be used. For example, the Oscar-nominated movie “The Ox-Bow Incident,” is about a lynching, but not of Black people; there were lynchings throughout history which were not racially based. And while using a whip is a bad thing, we read about sergeants whipping recruits into shape, and it is not meant literally.

I think that there are a few words whose history and connotation are so bad, that they should not be used. But there are very few. You know, people often use the phrase “beyond the pale,” and that has a history where Catherine the Great, so-called, segregated all the Jewish people in her region to live within specific boundaries, “The Pale.” The term has other medieval meanings, but I certainly am aware of that particular one, yet the phrase is often used today, to refer to behavior which someone thinks goes too far. I do not like hearing the phrase, but there it is.

So we can debate the connotations of certain words, and people can try to get them banned. This particular popular Wordle game seems to be a chance for the New York Times and others to try to send all sorts of words to a realm of proscribed speech. That is not a good thing, overall.

Now, it certainly seems that “harry” was not taken out of yesterday’s game right in the middle, because it offended people; but who knows, the way things are going now. I assume that it was as the NYT said, they took it out because it was “too obscure,” meaning their average readers, the same ones who thought “tacit” was too obscure, or “caulk,” would not get it, and be angry at the NYT, and not play the game. They don’t want that!

I have watched the “lowest common denominator” effect all my life, in school, and in the political realm. Shoot for the simplest explanations, couch everything in terms that the less literate will understand. This might be viewed as egalitarian, or it might much more actually be a dumbing down, so that the people who want to control everything, get their way .Take nuance out of the language, or out of argument, and things become far too oversimplified, and people become less able to think in more complex ways.

That is what the Republicans thrive on. Say the same thing over and over, devoid of context or historical fact, or implication, and they can get enough people to say, “Yeah! That’s right! We don’t want a bunch of pointy-headed liberals telling us we have to learn about this theory of evolution, or about what the Constitution means. We know that it is all about the most important Second Amendment, which says that anyone can carry any amount of weapons they want!”

You know, we more nuanced people can scoff at this, or feel sorry for these people’s lack of depth and understanding; but if there are more of them, they win. It is like the triumph of the ignorant. The rulers of old always counted on that, and the Republicans thrive on it. Trump, one of the stupidest people ever, said gloatingly, “I love the uneducated,” and no one took it seriously, but it was simply saying what the people running his party have been trying to do for decades.

Now, am I going a bit too far with this, simply because the NYT took out “harry” in the middle of the game? Perhaps, but I think it is very important to see how commercialism, and anti-intellectualism, combine in this country. These words: tacit, caulk, bloke, harry, are not obscure to many of us ,but they don’t care about “us,” they care about their target audience of people who don’t read novels, and don’t know many words.

I had to sit through first grade listening to children read the Dick and Jane books. I realize that learning to read is not as easy for some. But hearing “Run, Jane. Run, Jane, Run,” over and over, every day, was stultifying, and I could not opt out of it. I am not calling for a world of philosopher kings, but can’t there be an effort to challenge people, give them a few more arcane but hardly vanished words, so that they can learn something, and we can be mentally challenged? I guess not, they are shooting for the same audience that has made it almost impossible to find a really good book or movie which makes you think and consider things in complex ways.

I guess it is too much to ask, even in a word game, because there are major profits to be made, and blockbuster movies to sell, and things need to be reduced to the most basic ideas and words, to make the money which is now the bottom line for everything, at least in America. And it continues apace, which is a word which you can be sure will never show up in Wordle, when there are all those “great,” “silly, “super” words of five letters to use.

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