An Only Connect Wall

Question

The 16 words below may be partitioned into 4 groups of 4 thematically connected words.
What are those connections and groups?

---

Text version:

SHIFT	OPTION	RED	FLAP
BLACK	BOOK	LANE	CONTROL
STOCK	SPARROW	FRA	GREEN
BOND	NAVY	ALTERNATE	SHAFT

---

The puzzle format is from BBC Television's quiz show Only Connect.
This wall is probably more suitable for Puzzling.SE than the show (although the shows are tough).

Hints:
Currently correctly identified groups and who found them:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified as (1) by M Oehm

<!>

Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified as (2) by ArgumentBargument

If you look at this information (including removal of the possibility of other, incorrectly identified, groups), please do upvote their finds! (Infact, do if you look at their spoiler text also).

Brent Hackers' Bounty Hint

One of the remaining groups

...is connected by a property of something often seen here and there on Puzzling, sometimes in the puzzles, sometimes in comments, and occasionally even in chat; have a look around and see what is the same - I really do hope it does not irk/vex.

Answer 1

Groups 3 and 4:

SPARROW, BOND, BOOK, SHAFT: types of "jack/James". Jack Sparrow, Book of James, James Bond, jackshaft.

FLAP, GREEN, FRA, NAVY: can be rot13ed to produce another word. (SYNC, TERRA, SEN, ANIL.)

Answer 2

I think colours and stock options are obvious red herrings here. I've got three other groups, but I can't make sense of the four words that are left.

1:

Shift, Control, Option and Alternate are meta keys on a computer keyboard.

2:

Flap, Sparrow, Black and Navy can be combined with Jack to give Flapjack, Jack Sparrow, Black Jack and Navy Jack.

3:

Book, Green, Stock and Lane are things that can be kept by bookkeepers, greenkeepers, stock-keepers and car drivers respectively.

4:

Red, Fra, Bond and Shaft are left. I've no idea what could link them, which probably means I've got some of the other groups wrong.

Answer 3

Definitely red-herring heavy and I haven't got the lot yet, but I think the groups are:

1:

As M Oehm pointed out, SHIFT, OPTION, CONTROL and ALTERNATE are all keys on a standard Apple keyboard

2:

BLACK, RED, LANE, STOCK can all be preceded by the word "Penny" - Penny Black being a rare stamp and Penny Red being slightly less rare stamp , Penny Lane a hit Beatles song, Penny Stock being a low priced share of a company.

3:

SPARROW, BOND, SHAFT and GREEN are all film characters whose first names start with J (Jack Sparrow, James Bond, John Shaft). I did consider including BLACK in here but Jack Black is an actor rather than a character (except in Tenacious D & The Pick of Destiny). J Green is a guess.

4:

OK, this is where I have no idea. Book, Fra, Navy, Flap?

Answer 4

I think this may be the first time in history that I have added THREE answers to a question.

Inspired by your comment that we must be running out of combinations, I took all the ones you've indicated are incorrect and wrote a quick Python script to generate all the other possibilities.

By this reckoning, there are 19 remaining options for the two unidentified groups, which are:

ID |             Group 3                |              Group 4
---+------------------------------------+----------------------------------
 1 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    NAVY      |  FRA     GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 2 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT     |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
 3 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SPARROW   |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 4 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     NAVY      |  FLAP    GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 5 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     SPARROW   |  FLAP    GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 6 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   NAVY      |  FLAP    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
 7 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     NAVY    SPARROW
 8 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
 9 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT
10 |  BOND    BOOK    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   NAVY
11 |  BOND    FLAP    FRA     SHAFT     |  BOOK    GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
12 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
13 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FRA     NAVY    SHAFT
14 |  BOND    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT     |  BOOK    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
15 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT   SPARROW
16 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT     |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SPARROW
17 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT
18 |  BOND    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY
19 |  BOND    NAVY    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    FRA     GREEN

Of these, I think ID 4 is the most likely, with the connection being

JACK for group 4

but I don't know what the connection would be for group 3. Possibly

BLUE ?

Answer 5

 
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOND    |  CONTROL  |    RED    |   OPTION  |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |  SPARROW  |   FLAP    |   GREEN   |   BOOK    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   LANE    | ALTERNATE |   BLACK   |   STOCK   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   SHAFT   |   SHIFT   |   NAVY    |    FRA    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
 

Explanation:

Columns 1:

Movie characters. James Bond, Jack Sparrow, Penny Lane, John Shaft

Columns 2:

Movie names. There are lots of movie names in this list so I chose the remaining ones.

Columns 3:

Colors. This one is quite obvious.

Columns 4:

"Borrowed" from Marius' answer
Everything is related to the stock market: "stock options", "brokers book", obviously "stock" and qouting Hugh Meyers "FRA is Forward Rate Adjustment and belongs with the stock market group".

Answer 6

Attempt at a remaining group:

Flap, Navy, Sparrow, Shaft

These are connected with:

Jack - flap jack (yum), navy jack (flag), Jack Sparrow (arr), jack shaft (machine part)

I also thought about:

Fra Jack, as in Frère Jacques, but I think Frère Jacques translates as Brother John in English.. or Jacques to James as pointed out by OP :(

This would leave:

Book, Bond, Fra, Green

Possibly:

James - Book of James, James Bond, Fra James, James Green?

Answer 7

Since FRA is tripping everyone up, I decided to start there, and I decided it stands for

Fuel Rack Actuator, which is a part of a car

So Category 1:

Car Parts: FRA, SHAFT, FLAP (Mud Flaps), SHIFT

Category 2:

Stock MARKET (aforementioned): BOND, OPTION, BOOK, STOCK

I decided that there are too many movie characters available, ('Book' is probably a name somewhere), so I threw out that category, and while I considered the Red Herring of colors, I couldn't find anything that worked, so this is my result:

Category 3:

Traffic Signs RED, GREEN, ALTERNATE, LANE

Leaving us with Category 4:

Related to Pirates (Jack) SPARROW, CONTROL (over water area), BLACK (Pirate Flag Color), NAVY (Their Enemies)

Answer 8

Just to further mess things up, and offer a possible group for fra,

one group could be "Words that can have a Y added at the end to become new words". (CONFIRMED TO BE INCORRECT)
Shift + y = shifty
Fra +y = fray
Stock + y = stocky
Sparrow + y = sparrowy (apparently is a word!)

Another possible, though I'm guessing unlikely group including fra from the remaining 8 words is

"Words that have a single vowel, and it is an 'A'".

FRA, NAVY, SHAFT, FLAP

Answer 9

Shamelessly borrowing the fancy list of possible combinations for the remaining 2 groups from @Vicky (+1);

ID |             Group 3                |              Group 4
---+------------------------------------+----------------------------------
 1 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    NAVY      |  FRA     GREEN   SHAFT   SPARROW
 2 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT     |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
 3 |  BOND    BOOK    FLAP    SPARROW   |  FRA     GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 4 |  x                                 |
 5 |  BOND    BOOK    FRA     SPARROW   |  FLAP    GREEN   NAVY    SHAFT
 6 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   NAVY      |  FLAP    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
 7 |  BOND    BOOK    GREEN   SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     NAVY    SPARROW
 8 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SHAFT     |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
 9 |  BOND    BOOK    NAVY    SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT
10 |  BOND    BOOK    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  FLAP    FRA     GREEN   NAVY
11 |  BOND    FLAP    FRA     SHAFT     |  BOOK    GREEN   NAVY    SPARROW
12 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW
13 |  BOND    FLAP    GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FRA     NAVY    SHAFT
14 |  BOND    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT     |  BOOK    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW
15 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   NAVY      |  BOOK    FLAP    SHAFT   SPARROW
16 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SHAFT     |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SPARROW
17 |  BOND    FRA     GREEN   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    NAVY    SHAFT
18 |  BOND    FRA     SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    GREEN   NAVY
19 |  BOND    NAVY    SHAFT   SPARROW   |  BOOK    FLAP    FRA     GREEN

My guess

Could G3-ID6 be seal? Navy seal (a big bloke with tattoos), Seal bond (a leading adhesive manufacturer apparently), green seal (certified hippy friendly), book seal (a usually tacky sticker with something like "book of he year" on it) - there are also shaft seals and flap seals so I don't think this likely but I still wanted to ask... :/

As for the other group...

Fra = Feather River Academy, Shaft is a part of a Feather, Sparrow is a feathered bird, and flap... -ing is more effective with feathers? I guess I can't connect these... :(

Or maybe

Could it be that 4 of these words (G4-ID12) are still words when you drop the first two letters? (straw clutching) Sparrow = Arrow, Fra = A, Book = OK, Shaft = Aft? - The remaining group could be seal as explained above?

Answer 10

    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   OPTION  |  CONTROL  |    RED    |   FLAP    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOOK    |   FRA     |   GREEN   |   LANE    |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   STOCK   |  SPARROW  |   BLACK   |   SHIFT   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    |   BOND    | ALTERNATE |   NAVY    |   SHAFT   |
    +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
 

Explanation (by columns):

Group 1:

Everything is related to the stock market: "stock options", "brokers book", obviously "stock" and "bonds".

Group 2:

I have no idea yet, I just made 3 groups and this is all that's left. Still thinking of this.

Group 3:

All of them are colors (or colours, depending where are you from).

Group 4:

Airplane related: "Flaps", "takeoff lane", "shifts", "shaft".

Answer 11

Some not very strong ideas...

Given this

"Currently correctly identified groups and who found them:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified as (1) by M Oehm
Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified as (2) by ArgumentBargument"

Then how about

Jack: Flap Jack, Jack Sparrow, Jack Shaft and Jack Bond? (probably not because "Jack" works with too many things :/

Sorry about posting yet another "JACK"

or

BOND (James) drives an AMC Hornet
the GREEN Hornet is a comic book character
the giant SPARROW bee is a bee...
the United States NAVY have the F/A-18 Hornet, the USS Wasp, WASP class amphibious assault ships and others...

OR

Book, Green, Navy, Shaft:- Book Sleeve (the tacky paper cover on a hard back book), Green sleeves (horrible music), Navy Sleeves (are sown to the lower sleeve of their "blues" one of their three basic uniforms), Shaft Sleeves (a pipe connector thing used by engineers or plumbers I think)

Answer 12

Third group:

FLAP, BOOK, SPARROW, FRA; Assuming FRA as short name for the Frankfurt Airport, these all have to do with flying. SPARROWs fly, birds FLAP their wings to do it and you can BOOK a flight to do the same.

The last group must then be

GREEN, NAVY, BOND, SHAFT; These are all military words. GREEN is the color of the military; The NAVY is part of it; So is James BOND; A SHAFT is part of guns, including military ones.

Answer 13

I'll take a shot at it
Using the already found out #1 & #2

3

FLAP, FRA, GREEN, BOND - All are acronyms
(If any of these acronyms are right, I'll be surprised)

FLAP - Fuel, Lubricants and Associated Products
FRA - Federal Railway Administration
GREEN - Grass Roots Environmental Education Network?
BOND - British Overseas Industrial Placement Scheme

Answer 14

Using the two aforementioned found groups as 1 & 2.

Here's my attempt at a 3 & 4:
(Sadly both of these are wrong)

Firstly 3:

BOND, SHAFT, GREEN, FLAP
Connection: Back.
Back-Bond (deed qualifying the terms of another deed),
back shaft (countershaft driven by a back gear),
greenback (nickname for american money),
flap back (phenomenon affecting the rotor of a helicopter as it overcomes dissymmetry of lift through flapping)

And now #4:

SPARROW, BOOK, FRA, NAVY
Connection: Railroad.
Sparrow's point terminal (found in Maryland, USA),
The Underground Railroad (book) (a book),
FRA (Federal Railway Administration),
Navy (US Navy Locomotive Roster)

My #4 is admittedly a little weak but I think #3 is pretty good.

Answer 15

Group 3:

FLAP GREEN SHAFT SPARROW

Theme: birds

FLAP: word for when a bird moves/beats its wings

GREEN: related to a kind of bird: Green Heron

^{original source}

SHAFT: part of a bird's feather

^{original source}

SPARROW: a little bird

^{original source}

Answer 16

Here's a try...

1.

Colors: Red, Black, Green, Navy

2.

Keyboard keys: Shift, Option, Control, Alternate

3.

Fictional characters: (James) Bond, (John) Shaft, (Jack) Sparrow, (Lois) Lane

And that leaves 4....

Flap, Book, Stock and Fra... Which all share the characteristic of: not belonging to any of the other three groups.

---

Alternately, I think it's interesting that

FRA, Navy, Sparrow and Shaft can all be linked together... kinda sorta...

Haven't figued out how the rest sort themselves out if this really is a group though.

Answer 17

Here's my thoughts on the two unanswered groups:

3:

Things to do with pirates: Sparrow - Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Navy - Enemy of Pirates everywhere, Bond - Bond Pirates is a Rugby Club on the Gold Coast of Australia, FRA - This one took some looking, but I believe it is the Swedish Government Agency called the National Defence Radio Establishment and one of their opponents is the Pirate Party of Sweden.

4:

Things to do with jackets: Book - Book jacket, Green - The Green Jacket is awarded to the winner of The Master's Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, Shaft - Used in cars, Flap - either coattails or a blurb on a book jacket.

The other two as provided by others:

Shift, Option, Control, Alternate identified by M Oehm

And

Black, Red, Lane, Stock identified by ArgumentBargument

Anyways, I enjoyed this question so much that I joined just to share my answers.

Answer 18

A bit of a stretch, but, given the first two answers already posted, the remaining two groups could be:

SPARROW
SHAFT
GREEN
NAVY
Connection: Jack (Jack Sparrow, Jackshaft, green jack, Navy Jack)

And

FLAP
BOND
BOOK
FRA
Connection: All can have last letter replaced by Y: Flay, Bony, Booy, Fry.

EDIT:

If you're not happy with Booy, it might be that they can all have their last vowel plus any trailing consonants replaced with a Y, giving FLY, BY, BOY, FRY. That could also apply to SHAFT->SHY and GREEN->GREY.

Also you haven't commented anywhere whether the

Jack

connection is actualy a correct connection or not, even if nobody yet has got the correct members of it....?

Answer 19

Could 3 be:
Shaft, green, book, flap

Connection: flag. Green flag is a British roadside assistance company, a flag has a shaft, a flag book is a type of sculptural artist book invented by Hedi Kyle, and a flag flaps in the wind.

Leaving fra, bond, sparrow, navy. I can't find a connecton for that though.

Answer 20

Alright given the other two I've come up with these groups

Group 1

FLAP, SHAFT, NAVY, SPARROW; All pertain to flying. Flapping wings allows animals such as birds to fly. The shaft of an airplane's engine contributes to its ability to fly. A navy can own many types of airplanes. And a sparrow is a bird capable of flight.

Group 2

BOOK, BOND, FRA, GREEN; All have types of cards associated with them. A green card is used for immigration. Bond cards can be used in place of driver's licenses when you are pulled. The FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) has credit cards that are kept by card holders. Lastly a card used to get books is also known as a library card.

Answer 21

Posting another answer because it has nothing in common with my previous answer.

SHAFT, NAVY, BOND, FRA - the connection is GRANT
Grant Shaft drive is a kind of motorcycle engine, Bond Grant is a comic book artist, Fragrant is a word. "Navy grant" is quite weak.... but the terms seem to go together on google quite a bit.... Yeah yeah I know.

FLAP, GREEN, SPARROW, BOOK - the connection is GRASS
A grass flap is the thing that goes over the back of a lawnmower to stop the grass flying out, green grass, sparrow grass is a slang name for asparagus, there is a book called "Grass".

Quite honestly it's all fairly weak but no-one else has anything better yet so I thought it was worth another go! Again I am relying on the two groups already identified.

Answer 22

(Like many earlier answers I'm taking as read the

OPTION SHIFT CONTROL ALTERNATE and BLACK RED LANE STOCK

groups already found by others and confirmed.)

I'm pretty sure there must be a

"Jack" set

since its candidates include at least five of the remaining 8 words:

SPARROW (Johnny Depp), NAVY (flag), GREEN (fish), SHAFT (machine part), FLAP (oats+butter+sugar).

If so, then our other group consists of one of those plus

BOND, FRA, BOOK

which is a shame because I'd rather hoped BONY/FRY/FLAY would work out. (Though the best fourth I can come up for that is NAVY which is obviously a total cheat.) All three of those are finance terms, but I don't think any of the other five are.

Here's my best guess, but it's not very convincing. Group 3:

SPARROW, NAVY, GREEN, FLAP (Jack)

And group 4:

BOND, FRA, BOOK, SHAFT can all have -y or something with the same sound appended. BONDI; FRAY; BOOKIE; SHAFTIE. (Bondi is a famous Australian beach; a shaftie is a kind of motorcycle.)

Answer 23

Group 3:

JACK: FLAP(jack), (Jack)SPARROW (Jack for James)BOND, NAVY (Jack - a flag)

Group 4:

BOOK, FRA, GREEN, SHAFT. I can't see the connection yet.

Answer 24

BOND, FLAP, FRA, and NAVY form a group. Fra is short for Francis, and the group refers to Francis Godolphin Bond, an admiral in the Navy - where he would have worn flaps on his shoulders.

It feels too perfect to be correct, but who knows.

That leaves

BOOK, GREEN, SHAFT, and SPARROW. Uhm... The green sparrow (a weapon with a shaft) known from comic books?