Looked for answers today? You found them. But let’s be honest—most of us just want to skip to the solution after failing three times in a row.
Today’s New York Times Connections puzzle (#1079, dated May 25) isn’t the easiest. It’s medium-tough, I’d say. At least for my brain on a Tuesday.
The Times now has a bot for this game too, mirroring Wordle.
If you haven’t noticed, you can plug your game into a bot. It gives you a number score. It analyzes your choices. Registered users can track stats. Win streaks, perfect scores, total puzzles played. We are officially nerds. Is this how it ends? Data hoarding over intuition.
Anyway. The clues.
Here are the hints, ranked by how annoying they feel. From easiest yellow to that weird purple mess at the bottom.
- Yellow : It’s free.
- Green : Not a lot.
- Blue : “OMG” counts here too.
- Purple : You see with these things.
The answers actually make sense if you stop overthinking them.
Yellow
Theme: Common promo items.
Words: Cap, Pin, Shirt, Sticker.
You’ve got them in a drawer somewhere. Probably faded. Or covered in dust. Standard corporate swag fare.
Green
Theme: A tiny bit.
Words: Jot, Scrap, Shred, Whit.
“Not a whit,” they used to say. “Not a jot.” Same vibe. These are all small quantities. Negligible amounts.
Blue
Theme: Texting abbreviations.
Words: ATM, CYA, LOL, TIA.
ATM stands for “at the moment.” Not “at me” like a robot would think. TIA means thanks in advance. CYA is see ya. Or cover your assets, depending on how paranoid your email threads have become.
Purple
Theme: Eye ___.
Words: Ball, Brow, Lash, Lid.
They go together. Eye ball. Eye brow. Eye lash. Eye lid.
Some are nouns that need hyphens in dictionary land. Some are just compound words now. Doesn’t matter. You used them. Or someone threw them at you in frustration.
Did you get the green group? It trips people up because “jot” looks like writing. Then you remember it also means “a bit.” Classic trap.
The puzzle was fair. Not fair for the first guess. But fair by the fourth try.
So there you are. Another puzzle down. The streak either lives or dies. Probably lives, you didn’t give up yet did you.
