NYT Connections, Mini Crossword, and Strands | Dec 16, 2024

[@damelza.snelders]

As a non-American I haven't heard of any of the blue snacks but that was just left as my final category

[@acidhelm]

I've never heard of Yodel or Devil Dog as treats, so I got that category by guessing.

[@ZorinDobson]

I knew today’s was gonna be tough because I for sure thought I got purple first when I locked in yellow.

[@ath33na_a]

I fell for both the snowball snack cake and bar fight red herrings today so had two mistakes before I got anything locked in. I am thanking connections from a few days ago for teaching me the word Portmanteaux!

[@nicasraissa1607]

Thank you Connections from a week ago (I think) for teaching this non-native english speaker what Portmanteaux were 🙋‍♀ Also, fun fact: I recently moved to France and learned that "portmanteau" is coatrack in French, which was so confusing after leaning the english meaning 😂

[@slimjimnyc270]

Got Blue [3 fav snacks as kid] & Yellow easily. Had to guess [correctly] on Green. No clue on Purple.

[@Tr3yWill]

For strands I had the opposite problem. I found brunch first, so realized and got portmanteaux. My last word was zorse and I couldn't figure out the word so I just tried every combination of letters.

[@iabervon]

"Ding dong?" "Who's there?" "Hostess" "Hostess who?" "Do you want one of these snack cakes? This isn't a joke." I had a carousel moment with ZORSE, so it was amusing to see you have exactly the opposite problem.

[@Tiqerboy]

Nice solve, I had the same line of thinking that you did in socring the perfect solve, my order being yellow, green , purple and light blue. I was paused at yellow and green for a while then when I saw LIGHT BULB next to KNOCK KNOCK, it became evident to look for classic joke themes. This is why I don't shuffle because seeing those two next to each other gave me the Aha moment. I described light blue as junk food you can buy at the carnival. I was thinking a devil dog was something like a corn dog. I've heard of HOHOs but not the others. I have to be careful with my diet so that's another reason why I don't know these.

[@SKW24]

I tried tankle like 4 times 😂

[@carmiyagamoran5709]

Snoball is a cake but it doesn’t have the w

[@romina141086]

I'm proud of myself I got the green ones in connections (fights) because english is not my first language. I actually speak spanish. 😁

[@Rangsk]

Very nice!

[@finlandtaipan4454]

Perfect rainbow! One mistake for me: I hastily tried BAR FIGHT before enumerating all fights and jokes. I don't eat snack cakes; they were my leftovers. Brilliant Monday Mini! My time was 49 seconds. (edit: I initially copied a wrong day's results.) Good Strands. I saw BRUNCH but I didn't see the theme until later (I just got hungry). I tried TAKEN because it literally crosses itself in the grid, and a couple of other wrong words.

[@Oltoir]

I also found "tankle", laughed to myself then corrected my mistake!

[@Stephen-Fox]

Snowballs are a type of snack cake in the UK, if nothing else - Teacakes (not as in the bread, as in the sweet, chocolate covered marshmallow on top of a biscuit) with powdered coconut powder on top of them, basically. Never heard of any of the US snack cakes being used in the context of snack cakes - I mistook Hoho for Ho-oh (the Pokemon) for a couple of minutes. Got fights and types of radio pretty quickly (though fell for the bar red herring) and then was unable to disambiguate snacks from jokes - At least today there was a chance.

[@bandwevil]

We have Sno Balls in the US, similar thing but chocolate cake covered in marshmallow and pink coconut flakes.

[@Flubberduckie]

I saw green and blue first but made 2 one away guesses. It forced me to determine where my last 2 items went//and I got purple. Strands was annoying bc I couldn’t spell portmanteau) and moved on after finding it second bc it didn’t lock in

[@slimjimnyc270]

I'm a retired engineer who can't spell- I usually have to Google te spelling.

[@chunmeishi7510]

I only got green and nothing else...

[@Sg190th]

I saw blue but never heard of yodel or hoho

[@sonalita_]

Not an easy connections for non Americans :S I've never heard of any of those snacks.

[@AsuraSantosha]

Connections Puzzle #554 🟩🟩🟩🟩 _ fight 🟨🟨🟨🟨 radio systems 🟪🟪🟪🟪 classic jokes 🟦🟦🟦🟦 processed pastries?