Permanent answer & walkthrough (Pinpoint Today archive)
Pinpoint Answer Today asks: what links apple, banana, orange, and grape â and what story do they share? Follow the spoiler-safe hints one by one, then reveal the final connection and see how each clue fits together.
apple banana orange grape â What connects apple, banana, orange, grape?
LinkedIn Pinpoint #558 Answer:
Detailed breakdown continues just below - keep scrolling
Todayâs LinkedIn Pinpoint #558 starts with a few heavy hitters: New York City and Beehives. My mind immediately jumped to âThings with boroughsâ or perhaps âfamous five-pointed structures,â a plausible but quickly fading theory. The puzzle then throws Playing cards and Chess sets into the mix, which completely derails any geographical or architectural ideas. Itâs clear the connection is something far more specific, hiding in plain sight within the words themselves.
My first instinct when I saw âNew York Cityâ and âBeehivesâ was that the connector was a geographical or structural category. I was convinced the answer was something like âThings with boroughsâ since NYC has them and beehives have brood chambers, which are a type of compartment. It felt like a solid start. Then âPlaying cardsâ appeared. I thought, âOkay, a deck has suits, so that fits the idea of sub-divisions.â I was still leaning into my initial theory.
But then âChess setsâ came up, and the theory completely fell apart. Chess has pieces, not compartments. My brain stuttered. I tried to force it, thinking maybe it was about âThings with distinct groups,â but it felt incredibly loose. Thatâs when I stopped thinking about abstract categories and actually looked at the words. *New York City⌠Queen⌠Beehives⌠Queen Bee⌠Playing cards⌠Queen of HeartsâŚ* It all clicked at once. I hadnât even considered a simple word-in-common pattern because the first two clues felt so grand.
Things with distinct parts or groups
This idea felt promising because New York City has boroughs and a deck of cards has suits. You could argue beehives have their caste system. However, the theme is too broad and falls apart with the other two clues. Chess sets don't have 'groups' in the same way, and LinkedIn Games is too vague, making this theory incorrect for at least two of the five clues.
Famous things from New York
With 'New York City' and 'LinkedIn Games' (created by LinkedIn, a major NYC-area company), it's easy to get locked into a geographic theme. But this breaks down almost immediately with the remaining clues. While beehives exist in NY, they aren't famous *from* there, and playing cards and chess sets have no strong historical tie to the city. The theme fails on three of the five clues.
Things with royalty
Playing cards and Chess sets immediately suggest royalty (King, Queen, Jack). This is a strong start. However, the theme is not specific enough. While New York City has the borough of Queens, it's a stretch to call it a 'thing with royalty' in the same sense, and beehives and LinkedIn Games don't fit the concept at all, making it an invalid connector.
Grammar & flow: pairing the connector with Apple, Banana, Orange, and Grape produces everyday English and keeps number/tense intacta strong signal that "Things that contain 'Queens'" is the right lens for today's LinkedIn Pinpoint answer.
Coverage check: the same connector explains every clue without exceptions. Competing ideas either break on edge cases or demand awkward hyphenations, so "Things that contain 'Queens'" wins on simplicity and reach.
| Word | Origin | In Context (Usage) | Meaning & Usage |
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Don't overthink the first clues
The first clues, like âNew York Cityâ and âBeehives,â can lead you down complex, abstract paths about structure or geography. This puzzle teaches you to hold that initial theory lightly and be ready to abandon it when a simpler pattern emerges.
Search for a literal word in common
If your category-based theory is failing, perform a quick mental scan of the clue words. Look for a short, common word like âKing,â âBar,â or in this case, âQueensâ that appears as a component. The connector is often this simple, hiding in the words themselves.
Let the outliers guide you
Pay attention to clues that seem to break your pattern. The clue âChess setsâ was the key for me; it made me realize my âdistinct groupsâ theory was flawed and forced me to re-examine the clues from a completely different, more literal angle.
The connector is âThings that contain âQueens'â. For example, New York City contains the borough of Queens, and a deck of playing cards contains the Queen card.
While some clues fit, like NYC with its boroughs or a card deck with its suits, it doesnât work for all five. Chess sets and LinkedIn Games do not fit this description, so a valid connector must apply to every clue on the board.
No, because while a chess set has a rook and NYC has a neighborhood (The Roxy) that sounds similar, the other clues like beehives and playing cards do not have a direct connection to the word âRookâ.
If you have a theory that seems to fit the first 2-3 clues, immediately test it against the remaining ones. If it breaks, pivot to a word-search approach, looking for common prefixes, suffixes, or a small shared word within the clue text itself.
