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Puzzle #117
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yeah I figured that was the issue. I live near NYC, and it’s “ant” for me. So no issue here. I dont think “awnt” is an East Coast pronunciation. No one I know pronounces it that way. Maybe southern?
Husband is Connecticut all the way and he always says awnt. We also pronounce “orange” differently. Because, you know, Orange.
Now I’m curious how you pronounce orange.
Also maybe awnt is a class thing?
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Puzzle #118
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That led to some interesting delving into pronunciations. I wish I could remember my intro to linguistics class!
In my area it’s mostly ahnt, ant if they didn’t grow up here, less often awnt. Definitely not a class thing in my family, unless you’re thinking of farmers.
Back to our regularly scheduled program:
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Puzzle #118
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Joining several others who solved in this order like @Paipt, @Dadofjerseygirl, @garland, and @my-3-sons .
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Puzzle #117
@Marilyn, was your new word a yellow one? Mine certainly was. Made me feel old!
And my family always pronounces the word “awnt” but my cousin has somehow picked up the “ant” version, and she lives in the south. My mom and her siblings were born just outside of Boston, but raised mostly in the midwest. Their parents (my grandparents) were from Colorado and Minnesota. But midwestern friends of mine say “ant” and think of “awnt” as a hoity-toity thing. So, 
?
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Puzzle #118
My husband and I grew up in OK and TX and pronounce aunt as ant. After we moved to VA, one of our kids changed her pronunciation to ahnt, apparently influenced by teachers or friends but most people in our area weren’t native Virginians so who knows where the influence originated.
In rural OK, my third grade teacher was African American and she told us that she pronounced it as ahnt. I was reading that this is common for black southerners. She had a different pronunciation of bacon also.
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http://dialect.redlog.net/staticmaps/q_1.html
Map of aunt pronunciations
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Puzzle #118
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Clicked fairly quickly except for the blue, which I’m not sure I agree with. I certainly didn’t see the connection but that was all that was left.
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Puzzle #118
@AustenNut - yes, I would have been DEAD if I’d had to have known that yellow. 
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Puzzle #118
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Puzzle #118
All parts of my family say “awnt.” I’m a Black New Yorker, with my father’s side of Caribbean descent and my mother’s side from Virginia and South Carolina. My wife grew up in Massachusetts, with her mother from Rhode Island and her father from upstate New York. Not an “ant” among them.
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Puzzle #118
Just lucky on last three.
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In New Jersey, the only people I know who say “Awnt” are Black, so I thought that it might be a southern thing since most of them have roots in the South. But otherwise, it’s always been “ant” that I’ve heard. My parents are from NYC, and all my NYC family says “ant.” I said “class” above because I thought it might also be a New England “upper class” thing to explain why a Connecticut person said it.
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Puzzle #118
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Puzzle #118
I think it’s wrong about two of the blues. Or else I’m severely misunderstanding something I thought I knew.
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The blue category is misnamed - the last word alone should suffice!
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Puzzle #118
Initially I groaned when I saw all the choices.
However, I forced myself to stare and think, and as I progressed I found myself actually enjoying today’s puzzle.
And I smiled at how I initially thought one category would be (something I dislike and know very little about) but it turned out just to be a gotcha.
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