NYT 'Connections' Hints And Answers For Saturday, May 17

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the weekend. I hope you make the most of it.

I’m planning to check out a punk festival here in sunny Montreal. I’ve never been to it before (I’m annoyed I missed Laura Jane Grace playing there last year!). Along with all-day shows in some bars and clubs, there’s a free outdoor stage. That’s probably where I’m going. Hope I don’t feel too out of place without any tattoos!

There are a few artists playing that I’ve heard very good things about but never actually listened to much, namely Frank Turner and Fucked Up (sorry not sorry, it doesn’t count as a swear if it’s the proper name of something!). Those are the two I’m looking forward to checking out most while sitting on a patch of grass in the middle of my city, enjoying a beer in the warm spring evening and watching people thrash around in the pit. It’s gonna be a good summer.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, May 17 are coming right up.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

• MACARONI

• ANIMAL

• KING

• MAIL

• RULER

• SCOOTER

• PLANT

• EMPEROR

• BEAKER

• BACTERIA

• COMMERCE

• SYRINGE

• FUNGUS

• SIGNATURE

• CHINSTRAP

• PROTRACTOR

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group —

• Green group — it’d be tough for any lab to scale up without these

• Blue group — fairy and royal would fit in here

• Purple group — like bay and harmony

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Today’s Connections groups are...

• Yellow group — member of a kingdom in taxonomy

• Green group — graduated instruments

• Blue group — kinds of penguins

• Purple group — "e" things

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

• Yellow group — member of a kingdom in taxonomy (ANIMAL, BACTERIA, FUNGUS, PLANT)

• Green group — graduated instruments (BEAKER, PROTRACTOR, RULER, SYRINGE)

• Blue group — kinds of penguins (CHINSTRAP, EMPEROR, KING, MACARONI)

• Purple group — "e" things (COMMERCE, MAIL, SCOOTER, SIGNATURE)

Neato, I got a perfect game today! That extends my streak to an 81st win. Getting closer to triple figures... Here's how I fared:

🟦🟦🟦🟦 
🟪🟪🟪🟪 
🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Connectors, I broke a personal rule while playing the game for only the third time ever. Let me explain.

At first when I saw KING and EMPEROR, I thought they'd go with RULER. There wasn't a fourth word that made sense. But something was scratching the back of my mind — KING and EMPEROR are also types of penguins.

I knew that, but not nearly enough about other types of penguins. So I broke my personal rule and looked up a list of penguin species. Sure enough, MACARONI and CHINSTRAP were there. I was surprised those were the blues. Definitely a day where the blues should have been the purple group.

(To be clear, not using search engines while I play Connections is a personal thing. I fully encourage you all to use whatever tools you have at your disposal to keep your streak going. Including looking up my hints and the answers, if you need them :) )

Getting the blues taken care of was a big help, as I started to see everything else falling into place. I clocked what I thought were the yellows and greens, so by process of elimination, I guessed what I thought were the purples, without having a sense of what the connection was.

SCOOTER, COMMERCE, SIGNATURE and MAIL? Yes, those were the purples! I should have figured that out. They relate to ecommerce, email, e-scooter and e-signature.

I figured the science equipment would be the greens and my assumption was correct. A graduated instrument is one with a measuring scale on it. That left the various forms of life to pick up another win.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. Since I'm planning to check out a punk festival this weekend, it only feels fitting that today's recommendation should be a punk song. This one’s more in the pop-punk vein but it still counts.

A new song by The Ataris, of "In This Diary" and "Boys of Summer" fame, popped up on YouTube for me the other day and I dig it. The nostalgia factor hit hard with this one.

I’m still trying to forget the band's unfortunate foray into NFTs, but I've always loved their name. I have an Atari Asteroids watch after all! Anyway, here's "Car Song," which is off The Ataris’ upcoming, as-yet-untitled album:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

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