Doubled for Saturday, December 14, 2024
One picture, one hidden three-word chain. The first two words make a familiar phrase, the last two make another, and the middle word belongs to both. New to the game? Read how to play first.
Hints
Open them one at a time. Each one gives away a little more than the last.
Hint 1
The answer is 5 words long, with 10, 2, 3, 4 and 5 letters.
Hint 2
The shared word - the one that belongs to both phrases - has 4 letters and starts with M.
Hint 3
The first phrase is 4 words, the second is 2, and they overlap on one of them.
Hint 4
A statistical tendency for extremes to settle back to average, then a high-school comedy about a clique in pink.
The answer
Stuck, or want to check? Opening this reveals the whole answer.
Reveal the answer
Regression To The Girls
Regression to the mean and Mean girls, joined on Mean.
Regression to the mean
Regression to the mean is the statistical tendency for an extreme measurement to be followed by one closer to the average.
Mean girls
Mean Girls is the high-school comedy about a new pupil taken in by a ruthless clique called the Plastics.
How players did
Across 656 plays, 9% got the whole answer in one guess, 2% solved it without a miss, 4% got there after at least one wrong guess, 27% used a hint or finished on their last chance, and 59% did not get it.
This puzzle ran on December 14, 2024 and December 14, 2025.