Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

I went to a quiz night at a bar with a couple of my best buds a few days ago. It was a lot of fun! We did okay, I think. We were in second place, just one point behind the leaders, after round one, but ended up in sixth place overall. Looking forward to going to quiz nights more often, since I love trivia and quiz shows.

Perhaps the funniest aspect of the evening is that there were 22 teams participating. The team that ended up in 22nd place was called ”Anything but last.” Hehehe.

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 Sunday, July 20 are coming right up.

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...

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Need some extra help? 

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

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

Today’s Connections groups are...

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...

I enjoyed seeing BOP, PULL and TWIST on the board. That was a fun red herring linked to Bop It. It had to be a red herring anyway, since those are the only three actions you can do in that game.

With The Open taking place this weekend, I had to wonder if DRAG, DRAW, PULL and BOUNCE were references to something that can happen to a golf ball. No such luck, but I was one away from a group.

I realized that I was off the mark and that the three words other than BOUNCE referred to inhaling something. So did PUFF and thus I had the greens.

The martini words were next. I then spotted what had to be the yellows (here's hoping some of you do these with tomorrow's upbeat song recommendation), which were easier to determine with TWIST out of the picture. But of course I had to submit the purples first. No real trouble figuring out that connection thanks to BUZZ and PASS. A LOANword is one that's taken from another language.

Hey now, that's win 145 on the BOUNCE. Here's my grid for this one:

🟩🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. Many of you will be aware that I like to go with a more relaxing song recommendation on Sunday. This one at least starts off quite chill, but maybe doesn’t entirely fit the brief.

HOWEVER. It’s a new song and video from Ren and I can’t wait until, like, Tuesday to recommend it.

Hi, Ren. Welcome back. You’re incredible. Really looking forward to hearing more on July 31:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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