LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Up in the Air” by Ben Chenoweth
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a 7-letter word.
Answer: PENDING, found by 214 solvers, 121 of which were solo solves

SAD (simple and difficult) meta from Ben-Chen last week. Big insight required: notice that seven of the clues, symmetrically-placed and starting at 1-A, feature “TBD” initials:

1-A: [Tiny bird’s “ding”] = PEEP
21-A: [Tableware breakfast dish] = EGGCUP
31-A: [Tide (biweekly displacement)] = NEAP
41-A: [Time branding device] = DATE STAMP
55-A: [Title: Brit. detective] = INSP
62-A: [Titanic banquet (dialect)] = NOSH-UP
78-A: [Truly big drink] = GULP

In retrospect a few of these are quite bizarrely worded, and there was of course method to the madness. The first letters of these spell contest answer PENDING, and each of these 7 ends in the letter P. Or, you might say, it has a “P-ending.” I must say that I did not notice this until a solver pointed it out! Nicely done, Ben.

Pair-o-ducks says:

Thanks bajillions, dude!

Jason T writes:

Terrific Ben diagram!

And finally, I say:

That’s beautiful deception…

On to Week 1 of 5. Will you figure it out? That’s to be determined…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

Good luck!

–Matt