‘Carle classic’ Strands NYT hints and answers for today (Aug. 17)

Today’s Strands puzzle features an extremely cryptic clue that isn’t necessarily all that much help either if you understand what it is referring to.

“Carle classic” is a niche reference at best for non-American players of the word game, and it’s been a slightly frustrating solving experience for me—here’s to making sure it won’t be the same for you.

‘Carle classic’ Strands Spangram hints and answer (Aug. 17)

• Hint 1: The Spangram today is extremely long, consisting of seventeen letters and multiple words.
• Hint 2: The Spangram’s first letter is “H” and the last letter is “R.”
• Hint 3: “Carle Classic” refers to a children’s book with a soon-to-be-butterfly that likes to eat a lot.

Stop scrolling if you don’t want me to spoil the answer.

July 11’s Spangram is “HUNGRYCATERPILLAR,” referring to American author Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It starts from the “H” in the third row of the left column and ends on the “R” in the sixth row of the right column, visiting the bottom of the grid along the way.

‘Carle classic’ Strands word hints and final solution

Even if you had no idea about the clue (like myself), maybe you could have gleaned that this might be a children’s story of some way. Still, it might be a bit difficult to narrow down what you’re looking for until you figure out that you’re looking for things a cartoon caterpillar might eat.

• Hint 1: A kind of cured sausage. (6 letters)
• Hint 2: Tree foliage. (4 letters)
• Hint 3: A massive green fruit that only the biggest cartoon caterpillar might eat. (10 words)

Here’s the full answer for Aug. 17’s “Carla classic” Strands with all words in their right placements:

• HUNGRYCATERPILLAR (Spangram)
• SALAMI
• APPLE
• PICKLE
• WATERMELON
• LEAF

‘Carle classic’ Strands (Aug. 17) difficulty rating and solving process

Personally, I found this one of the most frustrating Strands solves of all time, and not just because of the cryptic nature of the clue. I immediately honed in on CATERPILLAR and was quite annoyed to realize that it wasn’t accepted—for words of this specificity and length, it signifies that it’s a part of a longer phrase as it won’t just show up at random. (I am not very keen on multi-word Spangrams for this very reason.)

Then, as I tend to do when I’m unsure of how to proceed, I started working my way out of the corners, but went with FLEA in the bottom left, rather than LEAF. Eventually, I stumbled on the correct version of the word, and I’m not ashamed to say that I just started spamming hints after that point. With APPLE and SALAMI soon to follow, I finally figured out the full Spangram, then quickly wrapped up the rest of the puzzle.

If I had to rate this Strands for difficulty, I’d call it a four out of five if you can’t grasp the Spangram early and a two out of five if you do. For me, it was five out of five on the annoyance scale, that’s for sure.

Other word games to try after completing the NYT Strands

Looking for more word games? How about the NYT Mini Crossword for the day or Spelling Bee? There are also crosswords for you to check out over at the LA Times and the Washington Post for a quick fix.