Forget the Past - November 30, 2023

[ricky]

New meta is up.

The answer is a four-letter word.

NOTE: There's an unintentional dupe at (edit: 6-Down!) that is not meta-related, just a goof I don't have time to fix.

http://www.lexicondevil.live/2023/11/pu ... -meta.html

[Cinny]

Solved. Thanks for a fun one, Ricky!

[ChrisKochmanski]

Got it!

[benchen71]

Solved! Thanks, Ricky.

[ricky]

Solution:

The starred theme entries all begin with a word that can be read as a last-tense verb:

FED CHAIR
SAW STARS
FLEW SOLO
MADE NICE

(I would have preferred for none of them to be verbs in these phrases, like FED CHAIR, but that didn't pan out.)

When you "forget the past," and make these words present tense, you get FEED SEE FLY and MAKE.

These are the last (or only) words in the clues for GATOR, OVERT, NET and EARN, which in grid order spell GONE, the answer.

Someone pointed out that it would have been more consistent for the answer to be a verb rather than an adjective. I don't know -- WENT? (GONE is a past-tense verb when I live but maybe not where you do.)

I spent so much time trying to remember not to put "see" in the other clues that I missed the obvious dupe of STAR in the grid. Oof. It seems the correction I issued headed off most problems though.

Happily, a lot of solvers got this one right.

[ricky]

Final leaderboard in order:

Hector
FrankieHeck
Meg
Cindy Weatherman
dannyvee
danschwartz
shalmanezer
kurtalert
boharr
RPardoe
whimsy
Mr Tex
Cindy Heisler
Alex Sisti
Abide
I K Snamhcok
markhr
rvkal
benchen71
Laura M
Cruciverbalicious
BarbaraK

Our winners this month are FrankieHeck (since Hector's already received the prize) and rvkal.

Congrats to you both!