# Connections #1190: cliffs, cats and presidents

> Sunday's puzzle hides presidents behind a cartoon cat and mountains at the end of ordinary words.
- Title: Connections #1190: cliffs, cats and presidents · TechRadar
- Summary: Sunday's puzzle hides presidents behind a cartoon cat and mountains at the end of ordinary words. When a word looks obviously themed, check its last syllable…
- Keywords: nyt connections, word games, puzzle hints, wordplay, brain games, technology, Connections, 1190, cliffs, cats, presidents, TechRadar
- Source: TechRadar — https://techradar.com/gaming/nyt-connections-today-answers-hints-13-september-2026
- Published: 2026-09-12T23:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: nyt connections, word games, puzzle hints, wordplay, brain games, technology
## Sunday's sixteen words
Game #1190 serves up PORRIDGE, GARFIELD, DROOPY, EMPTY, HEATHCLIFF, EXCESS, GRANT, SLACK, ODIE, PARAMOUNT, SAGGING, MADISON, FLACCID, KEWPIE, CLEVELAND and DOUBLESPEAK.
## Four clues, no answers
The gentle nudge: yellow is squishy, green is American leaders, blue is double characters, purple is geographical endings.

> YELLOW: Squishy. GREEN: American leaders. BLUE: Double characters. PURPLE: Geographical endings
## Yellow is the soft one
Lacking in firmness ties together DROOPY, FLACCID, SAGGING and SLACK. The easiest grab of the four, if you resist reading DROOPY as the cartoon dog.
## Green hides four presidents
CLEVELAND, GARFIELD, GRANT and MADISON are all US presidents. The trap is that three of them read equally well as a city, a cat or a verb.
## Blue words sound like letters
Say EMPTY, EXCESS, KEWPIE and ODIE out loud and you get MT, XS, QP and OD. Homophone groups are why Connections punishes silent reading.
## Purple ends on high ground
DOUBLESPEAK, HEATHCLIFF, PARAMOUNT and PORRIDGE each finish with a peak, cliff, mount or ridge. Elevated landforms buried in the last syllable.
## One mistake, one lucky break
The writer chased a comic-strip cat theme and guessed DROOPY and CLEVELAND alongside GARFIELD and HEATHCLIFF. That wrong turn is what exposed the "cliff" in HEATHCLIFF.

> The silver lining to my error was that it made me notice "cliff" at the end of HEATHCLIFF
## Key takeaway

When a word looks obviously themed, check its last syllable instead. GARFIELD was a president, not the cat, and HEATHCLIFF ends in a cliff.