Looking for clues, spangrams, and answers to Tuesday’s Strands? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT “Strands” today: Clues, Spangram and answers for Tuesday, December 3rdFrom Erik Cain

Not only is it Wednesday, it’s also December 4th. This means we only have three weeks until Christmas. 21 days. It’s kind of crazy to think about. I’ve lost track when it comes to time. The days, weeks, months and years wash over me, and some things that seem like a long time ago were actually just the beginning of the year, and some things that seem like just yesterday were ages ago, in another Life. I think this is a symptom of writing a guide every day of the year, year after year. If you repeat a word over and over again, it loses meaning.

But I digress. We are here to solve today’s very tricky and confusing strands, so let’s get started!

Strands is the latest game in the New York Times puzzle game series. It’s a fun twist on classic word search games. Each day we are given a new topic and then have to reveal all the words on the grid that fit that topic, including a spangram that spans two sides of the board. One of those words is this Spangram This goes from one side of the grid to the other and reveals even more about the topic of the day.

Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Beach Tips

Today’s topic: I’ll explain you now. . .

Clue #1: Not husband and wife. Don’t think about marriage.

Note #2: Think about accents. How words are pronounced.

Instead of telling you the first two letters of every word, I’ll give you a list of symbols to help you on your way.

Remember, spoilers ahead!

What are today’s Strands answers?

Today’s Spangram is: DIACRITICS

Here is the full list of words:

• UMLAUT
• TILDE
• Acute
• GRAVE
• CEDILLA
• CIRCUMFLEX

Here is the finished Strands grid:

Today’s Strands breakdown

Diacritical marks are what we’re looking for today, and that’s a pretty tricky stranding that certainly stumped me for a while. ACUTE and GRAVE have nothing to do with marital matters! The very clever topic really blew me away today. That’s a good thing. I thought I might look at a twist on how to pronounce “man and woman.” Maybe it went dark with “declared dead” – hence the GRAVE. It wasn’t until I discovered TILDE that I realized what I had done wrong.

I had already seen the word CRITICS but it didn’t stick, but once I found TILDE I searched backwards and quickly found DIA, which snapped shut on the front and grabbed the spangram. From here it was just a matter of deciphering the remaining three words, although this was still difficult. We don’t use any of these words on a daily basis unless you’re talking about UMLAUTS and expanding your knowledge of CIRCUMFLEXes and CEDILLAs.

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