LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Accentuate the Negative”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer, which is seven letters long, is what meta-crossword instructions should not be.
Answer: UNCLEAR, found by 316 solvers, 270 of which were solo solves

Five theme-length entries last week, which did indeed turn out to be theme. They were:

17-A: [It may be buried in your yard] = SEPTIC TANK

25-A: [Amazing attorney] = LEGAL EAGLE

39-A: [Home office or garage workshop, e.g.] = FUNCTIONAL SPACE

48-A: [Lionel Richie, Lionel Messi, or Lionel Barrymore, e.g.] = PROPER NAME

60-A: [What a celebrity may yearn for] = NORMAL LIFE

Now what? Notice that each of these theme entries begins with an adjective. The title tells us to “accentuate the negative,” so let’s find the negative form of those five:

SEPTIC —> ANTISEPTIC. Could’ve also been aseptic; hold that thought.

LEGAL —> ILLEGAL

FUNCTIONAL —> DYSFUNCTIONAL

PROPER —> IMPROPER

NORMAL —> ABNORMAL

Next step: take those negating prefixes and find them at the end of another grid entry:

ANTI = CANT I? at 57-A, yielding the extra C. We now see why it couldn’t have been “aseptic” here, since with only one letter added it would’ve required a 2-letter entry.

IL = LIL at 55-A, yielding the L

DYS = EDY’S at 24-A, yielding the E

IM = AIM at 23-A, yielding the A

AB = RAB 61-D, yielding the R. You may remember the island RAB from this meta, which is one of my personal favorites.

Those extra letters spell CLEAR; perform the theme trick one more time to get contest answer UNCLEAR, which meta-instructions truly should not be!

Mikey G says:

I’ll always clear my schedule for the MGWCC!

SK9 writes:

Not unclever and never uninteresting.

Thanks…I think?

Shuka returns to us:

First mgwcc in a long time- clearly happy to be back!

While Mrc242 is brand-new here:

First time solver!

And finally, veteran Squonk says:

This one was completely opaque to me, until suddenly it wasn’t. The mark of a good meta!

I agree! Now let’s turn our eyes and minds to today’s Week 4 (of 5) meta…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a 7-letter word pertaining to travel.

Good luck!