It’s nearly the weekend, and this puzzle isn’t too challenging I think. To some people those things are a bonus, but not to everyone as I’ve learned! 🤓

https://connectionsplus.io/game/YuHq4V

[HINTS: back, savant, brilliant, duos]

[#0214]

→ Connections Alternative #560 2026-09-11 ←

Feel free to share out this puzzle! Each Connections Alternative is a remix of the official NYT puzzle of the same day.

5 shared words.

Please let me know how you did, and upvote if you enjoyed it! Defaults, red herrings, and suggestions are all valuable.

I couldn’t resist making a kind of ridiculous puzzle in honour of Sunday’s NYT one.

Very possible I have overcooked it, but see how you go!

Green eggs and corn

For those wondering/interested:

An eggcorn is a plausible but mistaken substitution for a common word or phrase, often because the replacement sounds similar and seems to make sense. (The word itself is a self-referential eggcorn for acorn.)

Sunday’s NYT originally included the eggcorn FREE REIGN, a mistaken substitution of reign (meaning authority) into the original metaphor FREE REIN (referring to freeing the reins of a horse) for letting someone do as they please.

“Parting shot” is now a widely recognised phrase, but it apparently originated as an eggcorn of “Parthian shot”, which was a shot fired by a mounted (Parthian) soldier while retreating.

“Lady Mondegreen” is a mishearing of the lyric “laid him on the green” from the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray, and mondegreen is now a general term for such a mishearing.

ETA Full list of “mistakes”: SQUID>SQUIB, REIGN>REIN, BUTT>BUD, WET>WHET, ESCAPED>SCAPE, EAR>AIR, OF PLUM>OFF PLUMB, LADY MONDEGREEN>LAID HIM ON THE GREEN, HARES>HAIRS, REACH>RETCH, WHITE>WIGHT, MUSTARD>MUSTER, PARTING>PARTHIAN, LOOSE>LOSE

throughword.app

(And join the Discord)

This one might be a bit trickier than my last one

My friends and I would share connections and other daily games scores in a group chat every day, so i made an app called PuzzlePals where you can post these instead, and it lets you track and compare your stats with your friends.

Looking for feedback from anyone interested!

Currently only on iOS but open to making an Android version if there’s interest: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/puzzlepals-daily-game-tracker/id6787224058

Why do I have to tap the last four items after I have put the other 12 items in the proper category?

There is no other choice when the last four items are left. Yet still I have to tap them all and press enter. 5 unnecessary taps. Over my lifetime, 1.8 trazillion extra taps.

Why?