Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 creamy salad dressings (BLUE CHEESE, CAESAR, GREEN GODDESS, RANCH)

A BLUE CHEESE dressing may also include mayonnaise, vinegar, onion powder, and garlic powder as well as buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt or milk. I don’t like BLUE CHEESE or mayonnaise, so I’ll pass on this one!

I do like a CAESAR salad. This dressing often includes lemon or lime juice, olive oil, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies, garlic and Dijon mustard.

Along with fresh herbs, a GREEN GODDESS dressing might be made with mayonnaise (or sour cream or Greek yogurt), lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, anchovies and garlic.

Ask for a RANCH dressing for your salad and it might include mayo, sour cream, buttermilk, herbs, garlic, lemon juice and seasoning. It turns out that many salad dressings are pretty similar!

Connections – Green Group

🟩 attendants (COURT, ENTOURAGE, RETINUE, SUITE)

These can refer to people who act as assistants, advisors and so on.

Connections – Blue Group

🟦 rare things, idiomatically (BLACK SWAN, BLUE MOON, PERFECT STORM, UNICORN)

The BLACK SWAN, as in the animal, isn’t actually that rare. Its conservation status is officially one of “least concern,” meaning that there’s very little worry that black swans will go extinct. However, its relevance to this particular idiom seemingly stems from an old supposition that they did not exist.

A BLUE MOON refers to the appearance of a second full moon in the same calendar month. It happens. Just not very often.

A PERFECT STORM can refer to a event in which several meteorological phenomena occur at the same time to produce a particularly severe storm. In a similar, metaphorical sense, the phrase can refer to a situation in which many bad things are happening simultaneously.

A UNICORN is a supposedly mythological creature some claim doesn’t exist. I don’t understand how that can be the case when it’s the official national animal (seriously) of the country that’s about to win the World Cup, Scotland (I hope that part is serious too).

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 what "hoops" might refer to (BASKETBALL, EARRINGS, RED TAPE, RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS GEAR)

“Shoot hoops” is another way of saying “play BASKETBALL.” EARRINGS with large loops can be hoops. To “jump through hoops” or “cut through RED TAPE” means to deal with a lot of difficult, complicated and/or annoying issues to get something done (often in relation to layers of bureaucracy).

Hoops can also be RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS GEAR. This routine from a Bulgaria team at the 2024 Olympic Games features hoops and is very impressive:

Connections – Red Herrings

I didn’t see any red herrings this time! You know what to do if you did.

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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.