NYT Strands puzzle No. 796 on May 8, 2026, came with a theme that fit its mood: “Garden variety.” The clue was “Not very exciting,” and the answer turned out to be just that — pretty ho-hum.
The spangram for today’s puzzle was RUNOFTHEMILL. To find it, players were told to start with the R that is the second letter on the top row and wind down. As with Strands puzzles in general, every time players find three words of four letters or more, the game reveals one of the theme words.
That detail matters because the number of theme words can vary, and the daily hints are part of a broader puzzle roundup that also covers Wordle, Connections and the Mini Crossword. The author says the rules for Strands are explained in more depth in another story, but for May 8 the key was simple: the board’s answer matched the clue’s plainspoken tone.
That is what made this one easy to describe and, for solvers, easy to recognize once the pattern emerged. The puzzle did not lean on wordplay that veered far from its theme. It stayed in the lane suggested by the title, and the spangram made the point directly.
For anyone working through No. 796, the answer is already clear. “Garden variety” was the theme, RUNOFTHEMILL was the spangram, and the puzzle lived up to the label.