Title: “We’re Looking for a Phrase”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a two-word phrase that’s something to avoid when solving metas.
Answer: WISHFUL THINKING
Correct entries: 536 overall, of which 495 were solo solves

Certainly a Week 2, so we’ll make it up with a Week 1 now (with lots of bells and whistles — see below!)

Seven entries in this 86-word (!) grid were clued simply with a parenthetical number. They were:

8-A: [(6)] = BATED
14-A: [(3)] = AMOK
16-A: [(3)] = CHAMPING
42-A: [(5)] = SHEBANG
67-A: [(5)] = PETARD
69-A: [(4)] = DOORNAIL
74-A: [(4)] = GETGO

Mysterious! What’s going on here? The key is to notice that each of these words is primarily used in a specific set phrase:

BATED = with bated breath
AMOK = run amok
CHAMPING = champing at the bit

SHEBANG = the whole shebang
PETARD = hoist with one’s own petard
DOORNAIL = dead as a doornail
GETGO = from the getgo

Next step: what’s up with those parentheticals? Answer: take a word of that length from those phrases, change one letter, and you’re left with a grid entry. In grid order of the those entries, from top-to-bottom:

BATED — BREATH — WREATH — W
SHEBANG — WHOLE — WHILE — I
GETGO — FROM — FROS — S
AMOK — RUN — HUN — H
PETARD — HOIST — FOIST — F
DOORNAIL — DEAD — DUAD — U
CHAMPING — BIT — BLT — L

That yields the word WISHFUL, which, like our other theme entries, is found primarily in one phrase, contest answer WISHFUL THINKING. Let go of those rabbit holes, folks! Unless it’s the right rabbit hole, in which case, don’t let go. How do you know if it’s wishful thinking or you’re on the right track? Good question…!

In addition to our usual answer grid this week from solver J., solver Tamara Brenner has sent along a nice visual representation of this meta. Of all the many surprising things that have happened along the 13.5 years of this meta-journey, I must say that this mini-trend of solvers sending me beautiful solution grids has been one of the most unexpected and interesting (and useful, since they’re better than my graphically-challenged self can do).

TODAY IS A WEEK 1, WITH MANY SOLVING POSSIBILITIES!

MGWCC #701 was a Week 2, so we’re going to regress back to a Week 1 today. But with many bells and whistles! Over the years, the great joon pahk has frequently solved Week 1 puzzles over at Crossword Fiend without instructions, so today we’re running a little experiment, offering .puz and .pdf files with the following formats:

1) Standard (instructions and clues as normal)
2) Downs-Only (instructions normal, no Across clues)
3) No Instructions (clues normal, no instructions)
4) Downs-Only AND No Instructions (good luck!)

You can ignore all this tomfoolery by choosing the 1) Standard option. The .jpz file is only available in 1) Standard.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a celebrity with whom I share a birthday (November 13th).

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.