Strands
Looking for clues, spangrams and answers for Wednesday’s Strands? You can find them here:
It’s the 4th of July and I was wondering if Strands was going to take the day off. Well, he wasn’t and so I created a 4th of July themed puzzle.
How to play Strands
The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a classic crossword game. It’s currently in beta, meaning it won’t be available unless enough people play it each day.
Every day you can play a new game of Strands. The game gives you a grid of six by eight letters. The goal is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you will get a clue on this theme. When you find a theme word, it remains highlighted in blue.
You will also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram connects two opposite sides of the board. Although the theme words are not a proper noun, the spangram can be a proper noun. When you find the spangram, it remains highlighted in yellow.
Be warned: you will need to be on your guard.
“Some themes are sentence completions. They can also be steps in a process, items that all belong in the same category, synonyms or homophones,” notes the New York Times. “Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles over the course of a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] Bennett plans to throw curve balls at Strands solvers from time to time.
What is today’s Strands Index?
We’ll start with the official NYT index, then I’ll do my own. Their index is as follows:
National celebration
Mine is:
It’s the 4th of July. I mean, come on. Obviously.
What are today’s Strands responses?
Spoilers begin as we talk about the answers starting with the spangram and then the full list after that. The spangram is
INDEPENDENCE DAY
And this is reflected in the table here:
Strands
The rest of the list:
- SPARKLER
- FIREWORKS
- PICNIC
- FLAG
- PARADE
Strands
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. This is by far the longest, most twisty spangram I’ve ever seen, winding around the board. I tried INDEPENDENCE on its own first, but it only gave me a small hint.
This one is usually pretty easy. There were obviously FIREWORKS. PARADE, FLAG, PICNIC, basically no surprises. So I guess they’re kind of giving us the day off considering how easy this one is.
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