NYT Connections Game #1097 Hints and Answers for Friday, June 12

NYT Connections game #1097 presented players with 16 two-word phrases that needed to be grouped into four categories of four items each. The puzzle's central gimmick was that the second word in each phrase was a red herring—only the first words mattered for solving. The four groups were: words starting with incantations (charm bracelet, curse word, hex key, spell checker), words starting with animal group names (murder mystery, pack rat, pride rock, school days), words starting with synonyms for "repeat" (copy editor, echo park, mirror selfie, quote unquote), and words starting with parts of a river (bank teller, bed head, delta airlines, mouth guard). The puzzle was rated as hard difficulty, and the TechRadar reviewer reported making two mistakes before ultimately solving it, noting that recognizing the "starting with" pattern made the puzzle easier once identified.