An Only Connect Wall

Question

The 16 words below may be partitioned into 4 groups of 4 thematically connected words.
What are those connections and groups?

Text version:


SHIFT	OPTION	RED	FLAP
BLACK	BOOK	LANE	CONTROL
STOCK	SPARROW	FRA	GREEN
BOND	NAVY	ALTERNATE	SHAFT

The puzzle format is from BBC Television's quiz show Only Connect.
This wall is probably more suitable for Puzzling.SE than the show (although the shows are tough).

Hints:
Currently correctly identified groups and who found them:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified as (1) by M Oehm

<!>

Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified as (2) by ArgumentBargument

If you look at this information (including removal of the possibility of other, incorrectly identified, groups), please do upvote their finds! (Infact, do if you look at their spoiler text also).

Brent Hackers' Bounty Hint

One of the remaining groups

...is connected by a property of something often seen here and there on Puzzling, sometimes in the puzzles, sometimes in comments, and occasionally even in chat; have a look around and see what is the same - I really do hope it does not irk/vex.

@Sid: It's random. You have to figure out which are grouped together. — Deusovi, Aug 03 '16 at 06:19
@JonathanAllan Well yeah.... I do have a question though. What is FRA?? I don't think such a word exists.... — Sid, Aug 03 '16 at 06:23
It's a three-letter abbreviation for France and the airport code for Framkfurt. It's also a title for an Italian monk. Ever heard of Fra Angelico? Chambers tells me it's an allowable Scrabble® word. — M Oehm, Aug 03 '16 at 06:25
@Sid. It's an acronym for Romanian Athletics Federation (In Romanian is Federatia Romana Atletism) — Marius, Aug 03 '16 at 06:26
@Sid - also as a word it is a title of address for a friar in the Roman Catholic Church (Like, "ehhhhh, 'sup fra!") — Jonathan Allan, Aug 03 '16 at 06:28
Not making it easy for us eh. At least on the show they get to try random things and see what sticks then explain why later. :P — James Coyle, Aug 03 '16 at 08:03
@JamesCoyle - yeah, sorry but this isn't quick fix TV - we may as well string it out a bit :D — Jonathan Allan, Aug 03 '16 at 08:04
Hm... I'm trying to identify the last two groups, but I can't figure out what to do with FRA... — Deusovi, Aug 03 '16 at 23:44
Maybe Fra could have a prefix or a suffix which could be applicable for all the words in the same group.... — Sid, Aug 04 '16 at 17:28
I don't suppose you're contemplating giving any more hints? Maybe an extra couple of words that could belong to the remaining two groups? I'd really like to award that bounty and I'd really REALLY like to know what the answer is... — Brent Hackers, Aug 12 '16 at 04:57

score 20 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 03 '16 at 08:27

20

I think colours and stock options are obvious red herrings here. I've got three other groups, but I can't make sense of the four words that are left.

1:

Shift, Control, Option and Alternate are meta keys on a computer keyboard.

2:

Flap, Sparrow, Black and Navy can be combined with Jack to give Flapjack, Jack Sparrow, Black Jack and Navy Jack.

3:

Book, Green, Stock and Lane are things that can be kept by bookkeepers, greenkeepers, stock-keepers and car drivers respectively.

4:

Red, Fra, Bond and Shaft are left. I've no idea what could link them, which probably means I've got some of the other groups wrong.

answered Aug 03 '16 at 08:27

M Oehm

60,621
3
208
271

2 could also contain shaft. – Will Aug 03 '16 at 12:54
2

@Will: Oh, that's not good, five is one too many. But if we move shaft from 4 to 2, there could be a relationship with cross in the 4th group: Red Cross, cross bond (a wall design), Navy Cross (a US Navy medal) plus an obvious but not entirely satisfying relationship between friars and crosses. – M Oehm Aug 03 '16 at 12:59
We have a correct group - numbered (1) here. – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:21

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 03 '16 at 13:41

14

Definitely red-herring heavy and I haven't got the lot yet, but I think the groups are:

1:

As M Oehm pointed out, SHIFT, OPTION, CONTROL and ALTERNATE are all keys on a standard Apple keyboard

2:

BLACK, RED, LANE, STOCK can all be preceded by the word "Penny" - Penny Black being a rare stamp and Penny Red being slightly less rare stamp , Penny Lane a hit Beatles song, Penny Stock being a low priced share of a company.

3:

SPARROW, BOND, SHAFT and GREEN are all film characters whose first names start with J (Jack Sparrow, James Bond, John Shaft). I did consider including BLACK in here but Jack Black is an actor rather than a character (except in Tenacious D & The Pick of Destiny). J Green is a guess.

4:

OK, this is where I have no idea. Book, Fra, Navy, Flap?

answered Aug 03 '16 at 13:41

ArgumentBargument

241
1
3

The penny thing is a nice find, but it's a bit odd that two of them should be stamps and both use colours. – M Oehm Aug 03 '16 at 14:01
In the TV show it'd definitely not be two of the same thing, but I don't know whether the question setter has held themselves to the same standards as the BBC. I'm prepared to accept that RED belongs in another group. – ArgumentBargument Aug 03 '16 at 15:00
We have a second correct group, numbered (2) here; so this answer currently has 2 correct groups (1) & (2). – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:22
@MOehm - I have seen a wall on the show where there were four colours and two were surnames. – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 01:35
@JonathanAllan: Oh, I just thought it was a bit peculiar, that's all. If that is one of the groups, that's no skin off my nose. – M Oehm Aug 04 '16 at 05:13
Regarding the last item in your third group: see this and scroll down to item 11 (at the bottom), or search for "Borge". – Peregrine Rook Aug 05 '16 at 21:17

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 12 '16 at 05:24

10

Groups 3 and 4:

SPARROW, BOND, BOOK, SHAFT: types of "jack/James". Jack Sparrow, Book of James, James Bond, jackshaft.

FLAP, GREEN, FRA, NAVY: can be rot13ed to produce another word. (SYNC, TERRA, SEN, ANIL.)

answered Aug 12 '16 at 05:24

Deusovi

146,248
16
519
609

2

Rot-13- brutal haha, nice job! – naffarn Aug 12 '16 at 05:34
3

Hrmph. I had seen the two rot-13 words Terra and Sync long ago, but didn't know Anil (and neither did the online OED, should have tried Chambers) and was doubtful about Sen, because as far as I can tell it's just an abbreviation of senior. (With other shifts, Fra rotates to Cox and Flap rotates to Yeti. That's useless information, though, because it uses two words that already were rotated by 13.) – M Oehm Aug 12 '16 at 05:41
The first is not quite the connection I used, but it's as good as - I had yrnqvatsvyzpunenpgrefsvefganzrf like J.* – Jonathan Allan Aug 12 '16 at 17:29
@MOehm A sen is a subunit of the currencies in Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, or Japan. Sen is also the term for one's handicap in Go (relating to 100%). Anil is a name for indigofera suffruticosa found all over the tropics and used in dye making. – Jonathan Allan Aug 12 '16 at 17:53
@JonathanAllan: Yeah, sen crops up fairly often in crossword puzzles and I have looked up Anil in the meantime. I just needed to vent some mild frustration. No furniture was harmed when writing the comment above. – M Oehm Aug 12 '16 at 18:05
1

I don't understand the answer at all 0_0. At least now I can forgive myself and move on. – Brent Hackers Aug 13 '16 at 05:19
@Brent: rot13 is a cipher that takes every letter to the letter 13 after or before it in the alphabet. A goes to N, B goes to O, C goes to P... – Deusovi Aug 13 '16 at 05:20
1

So I see. I guess I hadn't been using this site long enough to connect the dots. Jonathan did warn that one was obscure... :| – Brent Hackers Aug 13 '16 at 05:30
4

Those are words? Come on. Not your fault obviously, but this is way too obscure – Strawberry Aug 14 '16 at 11:21

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 09 '16 at 16:52

I think this may be the first time in history that I have added THREE answers to a question.

Inspired by your comment that we must be running out of combinations, I took all the ones you've indicated are incorrect and wrote a quick Python script to generate all the other possibilities.

By this reckoning, there are 19 remaining options for the two unidentified groups, which are:

ID |             Group 3                |              Group 4
---+------------------------------------+----------------------------------
 1 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    NAVY      |  FRA     GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 2 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT     |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
 3 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SPARROW   |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 4 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     NAVY      |  FLAP    GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 5 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     SPARROW   |  FLAP    GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 6 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   NAVY      |  FLAP    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
 7 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     NAVY    SPARROW
 8 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
 9 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT
10 |  BOND    BOOK    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   NAVY
11 |  BOND    FLAP    FRA     SHAFT     |  BOOK    GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
12 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
13 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FRA     NAVY    SHAFT
14 |  BOND    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT     |  BOOK    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
15 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT   SPARROW
16 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT     |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SPARROW
17 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT
18 |  BOND    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY
19 |  BOND    NAVY    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    FRA     GREEN

Of these, I think ID 4 is the most likely, with the connection being

JACK for group 4

but I don't know what the connection would be for group 3. Possibly

BLUE ?

There are three other groupings which I didn't officially rule out (due to me thinking the reasoning was not strong enough to do so). HOWEVER since you went to the trouble (which I also did earlier - so I know just how painstaking it is) I will rule them out here. Your identified grouping is not the one so that leaves 18. (I'm going to alphabetise them too...) — Jonathan Allan, Aug 09 '16 at 16:24
Great sadness. I am wondering how quickly we can get through them if I edit my answer to seek one row at a time through the table and wait for you to comment "no, still not it..." — Vicky, Aug 09 '16 at 20:55
You would need to provide reasonable connection logic for both groupings of an ID to rule it out (hence why I didn't previously confirm or deny the three I "gave" to you for your efforts). — Jonathan Allan, Aug 09 '16 at 21:06

Lafexlos · Answer 5 · 2016-08-03T07:33:32.640

4

 
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOND    |  CONTROL  |    RED    |   OPTION  |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |  SPARROW  |   FLAP    |   GREEN   |   BOOK    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   LANE    | ALTERNATE |   BLACK   |   STOCK   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   SHAFT   |   SHIFT   |   NAVY    |    FRA    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

Explanation:

Columns 1:

Movie characters. James Bond, Jack Sparrow, Penny Lane, John Shaft

Columns 2:

Movie names. There are lots of movie names in this list so I chose the remaining ones.

Columns 3:

Colors. This one is quite obvious.

Columns 4:

"Borrowed" from Marius' answer
Everything is related to the stock market: "stock options", "brokers book", obviously "stock" and qouting Hugh Meyers "FRA is Forward Rate Adjustment and belongs with the stock market group".

edited Aug 03 '16 at 07:33

answered Aug 03 '16 at 07:19

Lafexlos

605
6
13

1

Or perhaps FRA is Forward Rate Adjustment and belongs with the stock market group. Control would then be airplane related and Shaft a movie character. – Hugh Meyers Aug 03 '16 at 07:22
Updated my comment – Hugh Meyers Aug 03 '16 at 07:27
I don't have airplane in here but movie name group is also a fit for Control. – Lafexlos Aug 03 '16 at 07:30
1

@HughMeyers I think you mean Forward Rate Agreement – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 07:49
This is a nice try. With $63,063,000$ possible partitions a couple were bound to slip through. +1 – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 07:51
Column 2 could also be "Verbs". All of them are actions you could do. – David Starkey Aug 03 '16 at 13:59
1

Opps that should be $2,627,625$ possible partitions (forgot to discount order) - still hard to check :) – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:19
No correct groups here – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:20

Arth · Answer 6 · 2016-08-04T15:24:01.597

4

Attempt at a remaining group:

Flap, Navy, Sparrow, Shaft

These are connected with:

Jack - flap jack (yum), navy jack (flag), Jack Sparrow (arr), jack shaft (machine part)

I also thought about:

Fra Jack, as in Frère Jacques, but I think Frère Jacques translates as Brother John in English.. or Jacques to James as pointed out by OP :(

This would leave:

Book, Bond, Fra, Green

Possibly:

James - Book of James, James Bond, Fra James, James Green?

edited Aug 04 '16 at 15:24

answered Aug 04 '16 at 15:05

Arth

3,350
19
34

1

You would think it would, but it translates to James – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 15:22
+1 for two groupings. Unfortunately not a correct selection. Addition to James list for you: James Sparrow House – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 15:32
@JonathanAllan Thanks, did you mean the group connections are correct, but not the selections? Or a you just feeling generous ;) – Arth Aug 04 '16 at 15:56
2

More the latter: I +1 because you gave two groupings which, as I see it, have valid reasons, but I noted that the selections are incorrect. I am not indicating either way on the correctness of the connections you used. – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 16:08

Dan Russell · Answer 7 · 2016-08-04T01:39:05.813

3

Just to further mess things up, and offer a possible group for fra,

one group could be "Words that can have a Y added at the end to become new words". (CONFIRMED TO BE INCORRECT)
Shift + y = shifty
Fra +y = fray
Stock + y = stocky
Sparrow + y = sparrowy (apparently is a word!)

Another possible, though I'm guessing unlikely group including fra from the remaining 8 words is

"Words that have a single vowel, and it is an 'A'".

FRA, NAVY, SHAFT, FLAP

edited Aug 04 '16 at 01:39

answered Aug 03 '16 at 14:17

Dan Russell

16,028
3
45
97

As you may be able to see by my recent comment flurry, this is discounted by now identified groups. – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:24
Second grouping also incorrect (didn't notice the update) – Jonathan Allan Aug 06 '16 at 04:16

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 03 '16 at 21:57

Since FRA is tripping everyone up, I decided to start there, and I decided it stands for

Fuel Rack Actuator, which is a part of a car

So Category 1:

Car Parts: FRA, SHAFT, FLAP (Mud Flaps), SHIFT

Category 2:

Stock MARKET (aforementioned): BOND, OPTION, BOOK, STOCK

I decided that there are too many movie characters available, ('Book' is probably a name somewhere), so I threw out that category, and while I considered the Red Herring of colors, I couldn't find anything that worked, so this is my result:

Category 3:

Traffic Signs RED, GREEN, ALTERNATE, LANE

Leaving us with Category 4:

Related to Pirates (Jack) SPARROW, CONTROL (over water area), BLACK (Pirate Flag Color), NAVY (Their Enemies)

Nice try, since you managed to (just about) squeeze an explanation for the fourth group in (arrrr) - but no correct groups here. — Jonathan Allan, Aug 03 '16 at 23:24

Brent Hackers · Answer 9 · 2016-08-10T08:03:21.080

Shamelessly borrowing the fancy list of possible combinations for the remaining 2 groups from @Vicky (+1);

ID |             Group 3                |              Group 4
---+------------------------------------+----------------------------------
 1 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    NAVY      |  FRA     GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 2 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT     |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
 3 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SPARROW   |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 4 |  x                                 |
 5 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     SPARROW   |  FLAP    GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 6 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   NAVY      |  FLAP    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
 7 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     NAVY    SPARROW
 8 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
 9 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT
10 |  BOND    BOOK    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   NAVY
11 |  BOND    FLAP    FRA     SHAFT     |  BOOK    GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
12 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
13 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FRA     NAVY    SHAFT
14 |  BOND    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT     |  BOOK    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
15 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT   SPARROW
16 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT     |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SPARROW
17 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT
18 |  BOND    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY
19 |  BOND    NAVY    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    FRA     GREEN

My guess

Could G3-ID6 be seal? Navy seal (a big bloke with tattoos), Seal bond (a leading adhesive manufacturer apparently), green seal (certified hippy friendly), book seal (a usually tacky sticker with something like "book of he year" on it) - there are also shaft seals and flap seals so I don't think this likely but I still wanted to ask... :/

As for the other group...

Fra = Feather River Academy, Shaft is a part of a Feather, Sparrow is a feathered bird, and flap... -ing is more effective with feathers? I guess I can't connect these... :(

Or maybe

Could it be that 4 of these words (G4-ID12) are still words when you drop the first two letters? (straw clutching) Sparrow = Arrow, Fra = A, Book = OK, Shaft = Aft? - The remaining group could be seal as explained above?

You only gave a reason for one of the two groups – Jonathan Allan Aug 10 '16 at 06:25 — Jonathan Allan, Aug 10 '16 at 06:25
@jonathanallan Um... I'm thinking. :| – Brent Hackers Aug 10 '16 at 06:30 — Brent Hackers, Aug 10 '16 at 06:30

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 03 '16 at 06:31



    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   OPTION  |  CONTROL  |    RED    |   FLAP    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOOK    |   FRA     |   GREEN   |   LANE    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   STOCK   |  SPARROW  |   BLACK   |   SHIFT   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOND    | ALTERNATE |   NAVY    |   SHAFT   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

Explanation (by columns):

Group 1:

Everything is related to the stock market: "stock options", "brokers book", obviously "stock" and "bonds".

Group 2:

I have no idea yet, I just made 3 groups and this is all that's left. Still thinking of this.

Group 3:

All of them are colors (or colours, depending where are you from).

Group 4:

Airplane related: "Flaps", "takeoff lane", "shifts", "shaft".

I think the colours group is a red herring. Or maybe a navy mackerel. — M Oehm, Aug 03 '16 at 06:45
Only going to comment regarding correctness on $4$ defined categories for now ...hints in the form of incorrectly guessed groups can come later (on the show they only have two minutes, but this isn't a show). — Jonathan Allan, Aug 03 '16 at 07:53

Brent Hackers · Answer 11 · 2016-08-05T10:27:26.380

2

Some not very strong ideas...

Given this

"Currently correctly identified groups and who found them:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified as (1) by M Oehm
Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified as (2) by ArgumentBargument"

Then how about

Jack: Flap Jack, Jack Sparrow, Jack Shaft and Jack Bond? (probably not because "Jack" works with too many things :/

Sorry about posting yet another "JACK"

or

BOND (James) drives an AMC Hornet
the GREEN Hornet is a comic book character
the giant SPARROW bee is a bee...
the United States NAVY have the F/A-18 Hornet, the USS Wasp, WASP class amphibious assault ships and others...

OR

Book, Green, Navy, Shaft:- Book Sleeve (the tacky paper cover on a hard back book), Green sleeves (horrible music), Navy Sleeves (are sown to the lower sleeve of their "blues" one of their three basic uniforms), Shaft Sleeves (a pipe connector thing used by engineers or plumbers I think)

edited Aug 05 '16 at 10:27

answered Aug 04 '16 at 15:03

Brent Hackers

14,939
1
37
146

Looks like we had the same idea at the same time! – Arth Aug 04 '16 at 15:07
2

@Arth the idea was put forward by M Oehm originally, and Will suggested a fifth possible entry; Brent just added a sixth to that group - if that's right there are 15 possible ways to choose 4. – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 15:19
Yep, you are right, got lost in all the answers there! Ta :) – Arth Aug 04 '16 at 15:22

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 07 '16 at 08:57

2

Third group:

FLAP, BOOK, SPARROW, FRA; Assuming FRA as short name for the Frankfurt Airport, these all have to do with flying. SPARROWs fly, birds FLAP their wings to do it and you can BOOK a flight to do the same.

The last group must then be

GREEN, NAVY, BOND, SHAFT; These are all military words. GREEN is the color of the military; The NAVY is part of it; So is James BOND; A SHAFT is part of guns, including military ones.

answered Aug 07 '16 at 08:57

MarLinn

289
1
6

No correct grouping here I'm afraid. – Jonathan Allan Aug 07 '16 at 09:46

dcfyj · Answer 13 · 2016-08-09T13:14:47.723

2

Using the two aforementioned found groups as 1 & 2.

Here's my attempt at a 3 & 4:
(Sadly both of these are wrong)

Firstly 3:

BOND, SHAFT, GREEN, FLAP
Connection: Back.
Back-Bond (deed qualifying the terms of another deed),
back shaft (countershaft driven by a back gear),
greenback (nickname for american money),
flap back (phenomenon affecting the rotor of a helicopter as it overcomes dissymmetry of lift through flapping)

And now #4:

SPARROW, BOOK, FRA, NAVY
Connection: Railroad.
Sparrow's point terminal (found in Maryland, USA),
The Underground Railroad (book) (a book),
FRA (Federal Railway Administration),
Navy (US Navy Locomotive Roster)

My #4 is admittedly a little weak but I think #3 is pretty good.

edited Aug 09 '16 at 13:14

answered Aug 08 '16 at 13:21

dcfyj

7,756
23
64

No groupings here. Nice (3) though :D – Jonathan Allan Aug 09 '16 at 00:51
@jonathanallan Oh well, was with a try – dcfyj Aug 09 '16 at 00:59

score 2 · Answer 14 · answered Aug 08 '16 at 16:21

2

I'll take a shot at it
Using the already found out #1 & #2

3

FLAP, FRA, GREEN, BOND - All are acronyms
(If any of these acronyms are right, I'll be surprised)

FLAP - Fuel, Lubricants and Associated Products
FRA - Federal Railway Administration
GREEN - Grass Roots Environmental Education Network?
BOND - British Overseas Industrial Placement Scheme

answered Aug 08 '16 at 16:21

Neon612

1,132
1
9
16

Sorry you have not found a connection of the wall – Jonathan Allan Aug 09 '16 at 00:50

score 2 · Answer 15 · edited Aug 11 '16 at 22:50

2

Group 3:

FLAP GREEN SHAFT SPARROW

Theme: birds

FLAP: word for when a bird moves/beats its wings

GREEN: related to a kind of bird: Green Heron

^{original source}

SHAFT: part of a bird's feather

^{original source}

SPARROW: a little bird

^{original source}

edited Aug 11 '16 at 22:50

Peregrine Rook

4,880
2
26
40

answered Aug 10 '16 at 10:45

Yandrakus

21
1

Unfortunately, this combination was already submitted and ruled out two days ago. – Peregrine Rook Aug 11 '16 at 22:53

Dylan Cristy · Answer 16 · 2016-08-03T19:48:16.373

1

Here's a try...

1.

Colors: Red, Black, Green, Navy

2.

Keyboard keys: Shift, Option, Control, Alternate

3.

Fictional characters: (James) Bond, (John) Shaft, (Jack) Sparrow, (Lois) Lane

And that leaves 4....

Flap, Book, Stock and Fra... Which all share the characteristic of: not belonging to any of the other three groups.

Alternately, I think it's interesting that

FRA, Navy, Sparrow and Shaft can all be linked together... kinda sorta...

Haven't figued out how the rest sort themselves out if this really is a group though.

edited Aug 03 '16 at 19:48

answered Aug 03 '16 at 19:19

Dylan Cristy

1,211
7
10

This has a correct group (2) as found already. – Jonathan Allan Aug 03 '16 at 23:23

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Aug 04 '16 at 14:51

Here's my thoughts on the two unanswered groups:

3:

Things to do with pirates: Sparrow - Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Navy - Enemy of Pirates everywhere, Bond - Bond Pirates is a Rugby Club on the Gold Coast of Australia, FRA - This one took some looking, but I believe it is the Swedish Government Agency called the National Defence Radio Establishment and one of their opponents is the Pirate Party of Sweden.

4:

Things to do with jackets: Book - Book jacket, Green - The Green Jacket is awarded to the winner of The Master's Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, Shaft - Used in cars, Flap - either coattails or a blurb on a book jacket.

The other two as provided by others:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified by M Oehm

And

Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified by ArgumentBargument

Anyways, I enjoyed this question so much that I joined just to share my answers.

@JonathanAllan I thought maybe not, guess I went too far out of the box. Great puzzle! — tmhilderbrand, Aug 04 '16 at 15:05

Vicky · Answer 18 · 2016-08-07T19:55:57.147

1

A bit of a stretch, but, given the first two answers already posted, the remaining two groups could be:

SPARROW
SHAFT
GREEN
NAVY
Connection: Jack (Jack Sparrow, Jackshaft, green jack, Navy Jack)

And

FLAP
BOND
BOOK
FRA
Connection: All can have last letter replaced by Y: Flay, Bony, Booy, Fry.

EDIT:

If you're not happy with Booy, it might be that they can all have their last vowel plus any trailing consonants replaced with a Y, giving FLY, BY, BOY, FRY. That could also apply to SHAFT->SHY and GREEN->GREY.

Also you haven't commented anywhere whether the

Jack

connection is actualy a correct connection or not, even if nobody yet has got the correct members of it....?

edited Aug 07 '16 at 19:55

answered Aug 04 '16 at 17:15

Vicky

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...and the jack group just keeps on growing, now it has a fish too too. Not sure about "booy" though (do you mean buoy?) – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 17:49
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@JonathanAllan No, like: "That ghost is unnecessarily booy." :) – Dan Russell Aug 04 '16 at 18:09
No, it's a place :-) – Vicky Aug 04 '16 at 21:11
I keep coming back to this, it is a very distracting puzzle! :) – Vicky Aug 07 '16 at 19:56
The Jack connection isn't correct. It can be applied to too many words and one obvious connection, Black, is already used with Penny, which is one of the confirmed groups. – M Oehm Aug 07 '16 at 20:21
And I think that the rule "Remove the last vowel plus trailing consonents by Y" is too complicated. I guess the solution will be more like "Green, Bond, Shaft and Sparrow are all murderes in Miss Marple mysteries" or some such. You will know it when you have it. (But then, we thought that about the Jack connection, too.) – M Oehm Aug 07 '16 at 20:24
@MOehm, I do really agree with you about the complexity of that rule. However I don't think you should be too fast to discount the Jack connection, it is often the case on the real Connecting Wall that one of the groups has many many possible members. – Vicky Aug 08 '16 at 10:49
I'm not familiar with the show, I'm afraid. So you say that the groups may overlap as long as you can uniquely find four groups of four? My impression was that there may be red herrings (such as the colours), but that each item should unambiguously belong to one of the final groups. – M Oehm Aug 08 '16 at 11:06
We might be talking at cross purposes. In the end there should only be one solution that gives four groups of four, but one of the groups could have other potential members that ended up being used in different ways. You can try some real ones here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Z79DzzJY8w2R58bpftq14k/quiz – Vicky Aug 08 '16 at 11:13
Thanks for the link. (There goes the monday in the office.) I see where I've been wrong now: Black being used in the Penny group doesn't rule out a Jack group, although Black might go into both. – M Oehm Aug 08 '16 at 11:41
Yes, exactly right. – Vicky Aug 08 '16 at 12:37
@MOehm - yes, it is a very common feature for the walls on the show to have five or six items that could belong to a grouping (whether a correct grouping or not!) – Jonathan Allan Aug 09 '16 at 00:58
Re the question in this answer: No I won't confirm correct connections until it is matched with a correct grouping (just like the show). If someone gives the correct grouping with a connection I did not use (that makes sense) then I will confirm the grouping (just like the show) and will say that the connection is not what I used (this has not happened so far, both correct groupings used the same connection I did). – Jonathan Allan Aug 09 '16 at 04:08
@JonathanAllan: I've played a few of the walls at the link that Vicky gave me and I think that I've now got the hang of it. I've learned that they often have rather obvious groups with more than four possible members, that I'm quite bad at general knowledge (both classics and pop culture) and that they like to include wordplay groups ("contains numbers" seems to be a favourite. And there's that wordplay tag attached to your question ... – M Oehm Aug 09 '16 at 05:35

score 1 · Answer 19 · 2016-08-12T22:38:15.307

1

Could 3 be:
Shaft, green, book, flap

Connection: flag. Green flag is a British roadside assistance company, a flag has a shaft, a flag book is a type of sculptural artist book invented by Hedi Kyle, and a flag flaps in the wind.

Leaving fra, bond, sparrow, navy. I can't find a connecton for that though.

edited Aug 12 '16 at 22:38

answered Aug 12 '16 at 15:39

score 0 · Answer 20 · answered Aug 04 '16 at 18:10

0

Alright given the other two I've come up with these groups

Group 1

FLAP, SHAFT, NAVY, SPARROW; All pertain to flying. Flapping wings allows animals such as birds to fly. The shaft of an airplane's engine contributes to its ability to fly. A navy can own many types of airplanes. And a sparrow is a bird capable of flight.

Group 2

BOOK, BOND, FRA, GREEN; All have types of cards associated with them. A green card is used for immigration. Bond cards can be used in place of driver's licenses when you are pulled. The FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) has credit cards that are kept by card holders. Lastly a card used to get books is also known as a library card.

answered Aug 04 '16 at 18:10

formative

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No correct groupings here I'm afraid. Interesting FRA usage. – Jonathan Allan Aug 04 '16 at 21:33
(1) These are the same groups suggested by Arth. (2) When I Google “fra”, I get “Federal Railroad Administration” as five of my first ten results. – Peregrine Rook Aug 06 '16 at 00:30
@PeregrineRook: The search results are probably locale dependent. I get reams of stuff related to Frankfurt and when I bar Frankfurt from the search I get the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency. Jonathan lives in London and I doubt that the Federal Railroad Agency is all that well known even in the US. – M Oehm Aug 06 '16 at 06:55
@MOehm:  Yeah; I don't think I'd ever heard of it before (and I am in the US). – Peregrine Rook Aug 06 '16 at 06:57

score 0 · Answer 21 · edited Aug 08 '16 at 12:44

Posting another answer because it has nothing in common with my previous answer.

SHAFT, NAVY, BOND, FRA - the connection is GRANT
Grant Shaft drive is a kind of motorcycle engine, Bond Grant is a comic book artist, Fragrant is a word. "Navy grant" is quite weak.... but the terms seem to go together on google quite a bit.... Yeah yeah I know.

FLAP, GREEN, SPARROW, BOOK - the connection is GRASS
A grass flap is the thing that goes over the back of a lawnmower to stop the grass flying out, green grass, sparrow grass is a slang name for asparagus, there is a book called "Grass".

Quite honestly it's all fairly weak but no-one else has anything better yet so I thought it was worth another go! Again I am relying on the two groups already identified.

No groupings here. The connections are definitely stronger (although as I've said elsewhere some may find one obscure) — Jonathan Allan, Aug 09 '16 at 00:54

Gareth McCaughan · Answer 22 · 2016-08-08T16:23:29.950

(Like many earlier answers I'm taking as read the

OPTION SHIFT CONTROL ALTERNATE and BLACK RED LANE STOCK

groups already found by others and confirmed.)

I'm pretty sure there must be a

"Jack" set

since its candidates include at least five of the remaining 8 words:

SPARROW (Johnny Depp), NAVY (flag), GREEN (fish), SHAFT (machine part), FLAP (oats+butter+sugar).

If so, then our other group consists of one of those plus

BOND, FRA, BOOK

which is a shame because I'd rather hoped BONY/FRY/FLAY would work out. (Though the best fourth I can come up for that is NAVY which is obviously a total cheat.) All three of those are finance terms, but I don't think any of the other five are.

Here's my best guess, but it's not very convincing. Group 3:

SPARROW, NAVY, GREEN, FLAP (Jack)

And group 4:

BOND, FRA, BOOK, SHAFT can all have -y or something with the same sound appended. BONDI; FRAY; BOOKIE; SHAFTIE. (Bondi is a famous Australian beach; a shaftie is a kind of motorcycle.)

No correct groupings here (except the ones already provided by others, of course) — Jonathan Allan, Aug 09 '16 at 03:52

JMP · Answer 23 · 2016-08-09T03:43:07.260

0

Group 3:

JACK: FLAP(jack), (Jack)SPARROW (Jack for James)BOND, NAVY (Jack - a flag)

Group 4:

BOOK, FRA, GREEN, SHAFT. I can't see the connection yet.

edited Aug 09 '16 at 03:43

answered Aug 09 '16 at 03:30

JMP

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You used BOND twice. – Deusovi Aug 09 '16 at 03:31
No correct groupings here - can't be many left! – Jonathan Allan Aug 09 '16 at 03:53

score -2 · Answer 24 · answered Aug 07 '16 at 13:47

-2

BOND, FLAP, FRA, and NAVY form a group. Fra is short for Francis, and the group refers to Francis Godolphin Bond, an admiral in the Navy - where he would have worn flaps on his shoulders.

It feels too perfect to be correct, but who knows.

That leaves

BOOK, GREEN, SHAFT, and SPARROW. Uhm... The green sparrow (a weapon with a shaft) known from comic books?

answered Aug 07 '16 at 13:47

MarLinn

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The connections are not so weak as these, although some may think one of them as pretty obscure. – Jonathan Allan Aug 07 '16 at 14:28
More obscure than red and black? Does an American have any chance of getting the remaining ones? – Peregrine Rook Aug 10 '16 at 03:03
@PeregrineRook shouldn't be a problem – Jonathan Allan Aug 10 '16 at 05:01

An Only Connect Wall

24 Answers24

Theme: birds

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