The New York Times Connections game doesn’t let up. If you missed yesterday, the archive link is right there. It’s packed with hints for today, plus the daily digest for Wordle, Strands, and the Sports Edition. But let’s stay here.
The purple category in today’s grid is deceptive. It asks for words that are anagrams of one another. Same letters, different order. Messy.
The Scorekeeper
The Times built a bot. You play, you lose (or win), the bot tallies it up. It’s like a scoreboard for your confusion. Registered users get deeper data: win streaks, perfect scores, how many times you nailed the yellow group on the first try. It feeds the nerd in all of us. Why? Because we need to know we’re getting better. Or worse.
Today’s Hints
The difficulty ramp starts low and spikes hard.
The yellow group is warm and fuzzy. Think “you won.”
The green group pulls you back to center. What are we talking about?
The blue group screams 1984. Classic sitcoms or films from the decade that defined irony.
The purple group is a shuffle. Mix the letters up.
The Answers
Yellow : Championship awards. Cup, medal, pennant, ring. Solid. Everyone knows these.
Green : The matter at hand. Concern, focus, point, subject. A bit dry, but clear enough once you stop overthinking it.
Blue : ‘80s comedies. Airplane!, Big, Clue, Twins. Wait, Big is ’88. Airplane! is ’80. They’re all cousins, loosely. But the blue group forgives loose definitions. Usually.
Purple : Anagrams. Enlist, listen, silent, tinsel.
Did you catch it? They all contain the letters E-L-I-N-T-S. The mind tries to force semantic connections, fails, and then hits the anagram wall.
Words that look like strangers are actually twins wearing different coats.
The Hall of Misery
Today isn’t the worst. We’ve kept a list. A memorial to good faith effort gone wrong.
- #1 : “Things that can run.” Candidate? Mascara? A faucet leaking? Yeah, it’s confusing when “run” has seven meanings.
- #2 : “Power ___.” Nap, plant, Ranger, trip. Naps don’t have power. But power nap does. Punishment for assuming context matters.
- #3 : “Streets on screen.” Elm, Fear, Jump, Sesame. Only Elm is a street. The others are words associated with location or movement in movies.
- #4 : “One in a dozen.” Egg, juror, month, rose. You need twelve roses for a half-dozen bunch? Or maybe a baker’s dozen context slipped in. It felt tight. Too tight.
- #5 : “Things you can set.” Mood, record, table, volleyball. Volleyball doesn’t sit there. You play it. Or maybe you set it in a game of touch volleyball? The puzzle designers stretch. Sometimes they snap the logic.
You might win today. You might not. The bot is watching either way.
What will you try tomorrow?
