Possible bug: profile form length restriction

SInce the last update (2.10.1) or possibly another recent one, setting a length restriction (no of words) in text area fields of the profile form causes an error on submission: although the submitted text is well under the word limit, an error is reported that you cannot exceed N words. I have experimented with changing the permitted word length but it still fails. The only fix was to allow unlimited length, which is not a long term solution.