Today’s Connections puzzle is absolutely ruthless, and if you got tripped up by the mustard category, you’re not alone , that one was designed to make you feel like an idiot.
For the uninitiated: Connections is the New York Times puzzle where you sort 16 words into four groups of four, each sharing a hidden theme. Sounds simple. It is not. The whole game is basically the NYT editorial team laughing at you from a skyscraper while you confidently throw “MOON” into the pie category and watch your streak evaporate.
Here’s the thing about today’s puzzle , the traps were genuinely mean. “YELLOW” sitting in a grid alongside “HONEY,” “HOT,” and “COLONEL” looks like chaos, but they all precede “mustard.” As in, yellow mustard, honey mustard, hot mustard, Colonel Mustard. Yes, the Clue character counts. No, you probably didn’t get that on your first pass.
Meanwhile, the butt-adjacent category , things associated with butts , included CABOOSE, CAN, MOON, and PEACH. Perfectly cursed. Completely correct.
The pie group (CHESS, PECAN, PUMPKIN, SHOOFLY) was probably the most fair of the four, assuming you knew what a shoofly pie was, which, statistically, most people under 35 did not.
And then there’s tennis. ADVANTAGE, DEUCE, FORTY, and LOVE make up the Blue group , tennis scoring terms , which only feels obvious in hindsight. LOVE especially is the kind of word that could live in fifteen different categories, and the puzzle knows that.
Here’s the full breakdown for Connections #1075, May 21:
**Yellow:** Chess, Pecan, Pumpkin, Shoofly (kinds of pies)
**Green:** Caboose, Can, Moon, Peach (things associated with butts)
**Blue:** Advantage, Deuce, Forty, Love (tennis scoring terms)
**Purple:** Colonel, Honey, Hot, Yellow (\_\_ mustard)
Tomorrow’s puzzle will also be mean. That’s the deal you made.
Source: Original Article
