Today’s New York Times Connections puzzle featured an intriguing mix of symbols and characters that required careful pattern recognition. If you found yourself struggling with the April 1st puzzle, here’s the complete solution breakdown.
Looking at the symbols and characters in the grid, I can identify these groups:
- Currency symbols: $, £, €, ¥ (Dollar, Pound, Euro, Yen)
- Parentheses/brackets: (, ), [, X (the X appears to be standing in for a closing bracket)
- Letters: N, O, P, R
- Symbols: &, →, +, ✓ (check mark)
Here’s the complete solution
The Four Categories
Yellow (Easiest): CURRENCY SYMBOLS
- $ (Dollar)
- £ (Pound)
- ¥ (Yen)
- € (Euro)
These international currency symbols were likely the most straightforward group to identify, representing major world economies.
Green: AND/TOGETHER WITH
- & (Ampersand)
- + (Plus sign)
- N (AND in Boolean logic)
- X (Multiplication, “times”)
This category cleverly grouped symbols and characters representing conjunction or combination in different contexts.
Blue: EMOTICON MOUTHS
- ( (Open parenthesis)
- ) (Close parenthesis)
- O (Circle mouth)
- P (Tongue out)
A particularly tricky category that required recognizing how these symbols form parts of text-based emoticons like 🙂 🙁
Purple (Hardest): “RIGHT”
- R (First letter of “right”)
- → (Right-pointing arrow)
- ⌞ (Right angle)
- ✓ (Checkmark, indicating “right” or correct)
The most challenging category connected symbols representing “right” in different ways – linguistically, directionally, geometrically, and conceptually.
Puzzle Analysis
Today’s Connections took a creative approach by incorporating symbols rather than just words, making for an appropriate April Fool’s Day challenge. The puzzle designer cleverly mixed common punctuation marks with letters and special characters.
Including the corner angle (⌞) and emoticon components made this puzzle particularly challenging. Many players likely struggled with the “AND/TOGETHER WITH” category, as the connection between N (representing AND in programming) and the other symbols isn’t immediately apparent to those unfamiliar with Boolean logic.
The yellow category, featuring brackets and parentheses, was likely the most straightforward grouping for many players. The green category required recognizing that N, O, P, and R form a sequence in the alphabet (though Q is missing between P and R).
The blue category combined various symbols used in mathematics, logic, and programming, while the purple category neatly grouped international currency symbols from significant economies.
