16

This puzzle is part of the Puzzling Stack Exchange Advent Calendar 2023. The accepted answer to this question will be awarded a bounty worth 50 reputation.

< Previous Door Next Door >

Resolve the novel connecting wall below into six groups of four connected words and discover the puzzle's hidden theme... What links the six group connections?
ALMOST AMERICAN BLATTER BUSH CHESTNUT COST
DELIGHT EVIL LOST MODERN ORDINARY PAL
PERSONAL PIE PLASTIC PUNJAB PURSE ROOT
ROSE SACRAMENTO SOUTHERN SUM SYDNEY WHEDON
Stiv
  • 140,467
  • 11
  • 495
  • 752

1 Answers1

17

Ok here goes:

(Sepp) BLATTER, (Joss) WHEDON, (Joe) ROOT, (Joey) CHESTNUT are all famous JOSEPHs (who go by other names)

SYDNEY, PUNJAB, SACRAMENTO, SOUTHERN are all sports teams that are KINGS

PERSONAL (Depeche Mode), AMERICAN (Bad Religion), MODERN (Portugal. The Man), PLASTIC (Ed Rush & George Cromarty) are all songs that's last word is JESUS

ROSE, PAL, SUM, COST all become longer words when at the end you add MARY

BUSH, DELIGHT, PURSE, PIE are all things which can start with SHEPHERD'S

ALMOST (1962), EVIL (1988), LOST (1989), ORDINARY (2024, upcoming) are all films that end with ANGELS

So the overall connection is

the NATIVITY SCENE

Stiv
  • 140,467
  • 11
  • 495
  • 752
sean47
  • 2,000
  • 5
  • 14
  • And the sixth group...? :) – Stiv Dec 02 '23 at 10:43
  • 1
    oops forgot to add that in! done now – sean47 Dec 02 '23 at 10:46
  • Nicely done :) These are the intended groupings, well found - a good first answer. What would make this a perfectly useful answer would be if you could include a few hyperlinks to (e.g.) Wikipedia pages for the ones that require an element of knowledge (you can do this via one of the options in this answer on meta). Happy to add them in myself if you prefer, but suggestion made just in case you want to immerse yourself in markdown tips...! (PS I guess you can see why I chose those 4 in the first category rather than, say, FIENNES or STALIN?) – Stiv Dec 02 '23 at 11:03
  • yes they all have variations of the name joseph, as that would have been too easy to spot, very clever. happy for you to add in these links, will help me learn how to answer more perfectly next time :) – sean47 Dec 02 '23 at 11:08
  • Okay, done :) If you click on 'Edit' beneath your post you'll be able to see the markup I've used for the links. This is just one way to do it (see the meta post in my previous comment for others). Well done again on solving the wall! – Stiv Dec 02 '23 at 11:42