NYT Connections Game #1108 for June 23: Hints and Answers

The New York Times' daily word puzzle Connections challenges players to group 16 words into four categories of four items each, with difficulty levels ranging from green (easiest) to purple (hardest). Game #1108, released on June 23, presented players with a moderately challenging puzzle featuring dance styles, board game components, online content sorting options, and objects associated with mantles or mantels.

The puzzle's 16 words were: Money, Yankees, Hotel, Foxtrot, Modern, Fireplace, Popular, Deed, Emperor, Featured, Token, Tap, Recent, Swing, Earth, and Trending. The yellow group, considered the easiest, asked players to identify dance styles: Foxtrot, Modern, Swing, and Tap. The green group required knowledge of Monopoly board game components: Deed, Hotel, Money, and Token. Players who frequently engage with online content encountered the blue group, which featured content sorting options typically seen on websites and platforms: Featured, Popular, Recent, and Trending.

The purple group, traditionally the most difficult, presented words that share an unexpected connection—things that can have mantles or mantels: Earth, Emperor, Fireplace, and Yankees. The inclusion of "Yankees" in this final group was noted as a potential trap for players familiar with the NATO phonetic alphabet, where "Yankee," "Hotel," and "Foxtrot" together reference the Wilco album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." However, the puzzle correctly used the plural "Yankees," referring to the baseball team whose name contains a mantle reference.

The New York Times offers a Connections Bot feature that allows registered players to receive numeric scores and analysis of their performance. Players can track their progress, including total puzzles completed, win rate, perfect scores achieved, and current win streaks. The game has established itself as part of the Times Games collection alongside other popular word puzzles like Wordle, the Mini Crossword, and Strands, with daily hints and answers provided by various media outlets to help players maintain their solving streaks.