LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: MGWCC #889 — “Missing Links”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer, which is 10 letters long, is something I hope you won’t have with this puzzle.
Answer: BONE TO PICK, found by 327 solvers, of which 274 were solo solves

Amusing little Week 2, which solvers dug. Four theme entries in the grid:

17-A: [Reprimand] = TAKE TO TASK
29-A: [“Don’t touch that dial!”] = MORE TO COME
45-A: [Standard workday hours] = NINE TO FIVE
59-A: [As directly atop your restaurant table as possible] = FARM TO FORK. Like this.

So we’ve got four XXXX to XXXX phrases, and they share another commonality: in each entry, the two words share two letters (both letter and location in the word are the same). Which means they might be linkable by another word and…they are:

TAKE – TASE – TASK
MORE – CORE – COME
NINE – FINE – FIVE
FARM – FORM – FORK

Now what? Find a clue that includes each of these connecting words:

10-A: [Decide not to tase, maybe] = BONK
64-A: [It has a creme core] = OREO
28-A: [Director of the fine films “Dunkirk” and “Tenet”] = NOLAN
54-A: [Weakens the form of, as a coastline] = ERODES

The first letters of those spell BONE. That’s not 10 letters long, as required by the prompt, so must be another step. We’re doing word ladders, and lo and behold: There’s BONK in the upper-right, one letter off from BONE. So we’re doing another word ladder, in keeping with the theme! We then have, in a logical grid zigzag, BONK-BINK-PINK-PICK. That route may be described as contest answer BONE TO PICK, found by 327 solvers.

Meta – World Peace says:

No bones about it, this felt like a Week 2!

And Jason T extends the word ladder with a compliment (I think!?):

SICK!

Fun fun fun…now we’re off to Week 3 of 4 in June…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

Today’s puzzle is Week 3 of 4 in June. Instructions:

This week’s contest answer is the clue that completes a set of 11.

–Matt