NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, April 21 (game #49)

Either today's NYT Strands game is the toughest for weeks or I was off form today. I suspect it's a little of column A, a little of column B. Give it a go and see how you fare – and take advantage of my Strands hints if you need help finding the answers.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

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Your Strands expert

Marc McLaren

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle and its ilk for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar, including a daily today's Wordle answer column and a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.

NYT Strands today (game #49) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #49) - hint #2 - clue words

NYT Strands today (game #49) - hint #3 - spangram

NYT Strands today (game #49) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #49) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #49, are…

• DRIVE
• SPEAK
• CRAWL
• MARRY
• VOTE
• GRADUATE
• RETIRE
• SPANGRAM: MILESTONES

• My rating: Very tough
• My score: Two hints

Wow! Where to start here then? Well, I guess I can begin with how tough it is – answer: very.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but it certainly foxed me, and I needed two hints to solve today's Strands puzzle, for the first time since my very first game several weeks ago.

The problem, for me at least, was that the theme was so vague. Yes, after I'd solved it all it became a little clearer, but 'Milestones' is a lot less focused than, for instance, things you use for sewing or ways of walking.

I was also totally thrown by the spangram. This was a misreading on my part, but it was my understanding that the spangram would always go from one side of the board to the other – top to bottom or vice-versa, or left to right/right to left. Today's doesn't do that – it goes from bottom to right to left, and for that reason I simply couldn't find it until there was no other path left for it, once I'd found all of the other words.

On reflection, this is my mistake. The rules state that "The spangram describes the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. It may be two words." Note that it doesn't say it only touches two opposite sides. So today's does satisfy that requirement. And in fairness, it also happened with TAILORING for game #46, I just didn't notice it there because I found it an easy NYT Strands puzzle to solve in general.

My solving strategy here was therefore one of brute force. I played as many words as I could, without necessarily realizing they were part of an overall pattern, until I had three of them: SPEAK, CRAWL and MARRY. At this point I realized what was going on, but I still struggled to find either other examples or what the spangram might be, so ended up using those hints. Maybe that's because the NYT's milestones are not necessarily what mine would be. Sure, voting and graduating and driving are all things I've done, but none were massively notable for me compared to other landmark events such as going to my first music festival or becoming a father (the latter is obviously more of a big deal than the former, though my 18-year-old self would not have predicted that).

Anyway, I got there in the end. Let's hope tomorrow's is a little easier, yes?

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday 20 April, game #48)

• STROLL
• STRUT
• MARCH
• AMBLE
• TRUDGE
• TREK
• SAUNTER
• SPANGRAM: PEDESTRIAN