From TechRadar · · 1m 30s
Connections #1191: the waterbird trap
Monday's puzzle hid a duck among the songbirds and a whole lawn inside four plain words.
In brief
Monday's puzzle hid a duck among the songbirds and a whole lawn inside four plain words. When a bird category shows up in Connections, check whether the trick is the type of bird, not the bird itself. Originally reported by TechRadar.
Monday's grid, all sixteen
Game #1191 opens with STRAW, CRAB, COOT, LEMON, BLUE, CANARY, TEAL, RAT, LOON, BAG, WHEAT, CUTLERY, SNITCH, GOOSE, STIRRER, STOOLIE.
The four soft clues
Before any answers: yellow is aquatic fowl, green is tell-tale, blue is disposable things, purple asks you to add a green word.
“PURPLE: Add a green word”
Category names, no words yet
Step two gives the headings only. WATERBIRDS, INFORMANT, COMMON SINGLE-USE PLASTIC ITEMS, and ____GRASS.
Yellow: waterbirds
COOT, GOOSE, LOON and TEAL. Teal is the one that hides, because most people file it as a color before they file it as a duck.
“I got there eventually though, after remembering that TEAL was a type of duck.”
Green and blue fall fast
Informant takes CANARY, RAT, SNITCH and STOOLIE. Single-use plastic takes BAG, CUTLERY, STIRRER and STRAW, all things a coffee shop hands you.
Purple was the easy one
BLUE, CRAB, LEMON and WHEAT all take GRASS. The writer rated the whole game hard at three mistakes, then admitted purple looked simplest in hindsight.
“purple seemed the easiest of the lot”
Why the birds bite
CANARY sits in two categories at once, bird and snitch, so the grid baits you into a wrong group before you spot the water. Watch for overlaps like that.
“watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers”
The headline
When a bird category shows up in Connections, check whether the trick is the type of bird, not the bird itself.
