How today's NYT Connections answers and red herrings fit together.

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Note: Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today right here:

ForbesToday’s NYT Connections Hints And Answers: Thursday, August 6By Kris Holt

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord. I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning.

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Thursday, August 6:

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Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 classic wooden toys (ALPHABET BLOCKS, CUP-AND-BALL, JACOB'S LADDER, LINCOLN LOGS)

ALPHABET BLOCKS are wooden blocks with letters on them.

A CUP-AND-BALL has a ball attached to a cup (usually with a handle) by a string. The idea is to catch the ball in the cup:

I had never heard of a JACOB’S LADDER until now. It features blocks of wood that are held together by ribbons. As your hold one end and tip the top section back and forth, it appears as through the blocks topple all the way down. This is messing with my brain:

LINCOLN LOGS, that’s new to me as well. I don’t know that they were widely available outside of the U.S. This is a construction toy that featured logs with indentations, so you can use them to build log cabins and such:

Connections – Green Group

🟩 places with lanes (BOWLING ALLEY, FREEWAY, SUPERMARKET, SWIMMING POOL)

A lane in a BOWLING ALLEY is the track along which you roll balls toward the pins, hopefully while staying away from the gutters at the sides.

A FREEWAY is another name for a highway. It’s a wide rode with multiple lanes on both sides.

A SUPERMARKET lane is where customers line up to pay for their goods.

A SWIMMING POOL is often divided into lanes to divide into separate areas, often to keep swimmers of varying experience levels apart or to provide them with more space.

Connections – Blue Group

🟦 iconic Roman landmarks (COLOSSEUM, PANTHEON, SPANISH STEPS, TREVI FOUNTAIN)

If I were any good at taking photos and remembered to do so more often, I’d share my own snaps of these places from my visit to Italy a few years ago.

The COLOSSEUM is an ancient amphitheater that has stood for nearly 2,000 years. We stayed right around the corner from it, which was neat:

The PANTHEON is a church with a famous rotunda:

The SPANISH STEPS (a fun misnomer since they’re actually in Rome) form a famous stairway:

No prizes for guessing that the TREVI FOUNTAIN is a famous fountain. I love fountains very much and liked visiting this one a lot. I just found out that Rome now charges for entry to see the fountain:

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 places with nets (BARCLAYS CENTER, FISHING BOAT, HOCKEY RINK, TENNIS COURT)

These refer to:

• BARCLAYS CENTER > the Brooklyn Nets N.B.A. team (I chuckled once I realized)
• FISHING BOAT > a fishing net
• HOCKEY RINK > nets in the goals
• TENNIS COURT > the net in the middle of the court

Connections – Red Herrings

I didn’t see a red herring this time.

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community. We’d love for you to hang out with us.

I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes.