Note : Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page .

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord . I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning .

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Thursday, October 1:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 put (PLACE, POSITION, SITUATE, STICK)

All of these are verbs that mean to put an object somewhere.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 dress shirt measurements (CHEST, NECK, SLEEVE, WAIST)

Again, the category title takes care of things for us here.

🟦 2000s indie rock bands, with “The” (DECEMBERISTS, NATIONAL, SHINS, WALKMEN)

Here’s a real good song from each band for your enjoyment.

“Down By The Water” earned The Decemberists Grammy nominations for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. Peter Buck of R.E.M. played 12-string guitar, and you can really hear the influence of that legendary band on this one:

It’s been deleted by the person who posted it, but one of my favorite ever tweets went something like “Bloodbuzz Ohio is just Mr Brightside for people who like brutalism.” As someone who will always love both of those songs, enjoys brutalism and has seen The National live several times, I found that extremely funny:

Anyway, next up we have “New Slang,” perhaps The Shins’ best-known song:

I love the energy of “The Rat” by The Walkmen. Matt Barrick’s work on the drums here is just fantastic:

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 starts of NYT print puzzles (ACRO, CROSS, KEN, SUD)

  • ACRO > Acrostic
  • CROSS > Crossword
  • KEN > KenKen
  • SUD > Sudoku

Connections – Red Herrings

I didn’t see any red herrings in today’s game, even though I actively looked for one!

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community . We’d love for you to hang out with us.

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 .