Today's puzzle words

NYT Connections game 1199 for Tuesday, September 22 contains sixteen words: this, that, the, other, cafe, patron, agree, accent, touch, those, rose, neutral, detail, disagree, these, flourish.

Yellow group: demonstratives

The yellow group, rated easy, contains four demonstrative pronouns: that, these, this, those. These words point to or identify specific nouns in a sentence.

Green group: embellishment

The green group contains four words meaning embellishment or decoration: accent, detail, flourish, touch. The word accent appears in this group but hints at the purple group's theme.

Blue group: survey options

The blue group contains four options found on a multiple choice survey: agree, disagree, neutral, other. These are typical responses when answering questionnaires or feedback forms.

Purple group: drinks without accents

The purple group, rated very difficult, contains four beverages with acute accents removed from their names: cafe, patron, rose, the. These are cafe, patron, rose, and the.

The puzzle's hidden clue

The word accent appears on the green embellishment tile but serves as a clue to the purple group's theme of beverages with acute accents removed, making it a double meaning.

“Connections loves to hide a clue to another group on one of the tiles and today it was ACCENT.”

Game difficulty and strategy

Game 1199 is rated easy overall. The yellow demonstratives group required careful attention to grammar, while the purple beverages group presented the greatest challenge with its accent removal wordplay.