"Chit Chat" Sept. 26, 2022

[Deb F]

722 entries? Feeling much better that I needed the ZooMuggles to get me to the finish line. Every Thursday is like the new football season. Hope springs eternal! Have a good week, Muggles.

[MaineMarge]

I thought this was a meritorious meta. It took awhile for the obvious IOUS to click into place. Not having any sure way to tackle this mysterious offering from the gracious Mike, who is usually not too devious with us, at first I took the tedious route of “ finding the alternate answer” in the grid by changing 1 letter.
Crafty= spy/sly
May be damaging = Teak/leak
Copious such finds, but nada.

Looking conscientiously through the grid at every word, I finally spotted the IOUS.
Not being impecunious, I’ve never used one before, but used 5 this time to get the meta.
Was hoping for that prestigious mug, but nada.

[Ergcat]

I wasn't sure about my answer because only three involved adding on to people's names (as suggested by 66A). Glad I got there, but I really wasn't sure...

@Homer Buckle Ahhhhh….hadn’t thought about that part of the hint/clue 66a “short people” !! Perhaps Referring to the “short” proper names like Dev, Nox and Unser? Clever

[ArchaicMage]

I wasn't sure about my answer because only three involved adding on to people's names (as suggested by 66A). Glad I got there, but I really wasn't sure...

@Homer Buckle Ahhhhh….hadn’t thought about that part of the hint/clue 66a “short people” !! Perhaps Referring to the “short” proper names like Dev, Nox and Unser? Clever

Yeah, that's eventually what led me to the meta... the really awkward wording of 66A had me thinking I needed short proper names to add IOUS to, but there weren't quite enough of them. However once I got the three you mentioned, and saw how well they worked as synonyms for the starred clues, it wasn't too hard to fill in the blanks with short non-person clues FUR and SPUR.

I did have to "cheat" and look up the actual meaning of the word *chit* in order to make the connection to IOUS and its all-important clue. But one thing I've learned these past few months of doing the Friday Crossword Contest is to pay attention to the title, so I figured I needed to really understand what it meant in order to solve this one!

I also didn't feel amazingly confident about FUNDS until I read 66A's clue again and thought "people who are short"... on FUNDS. That was the best A-Ha I got so I ran with it!

[The XWord Rabbit]

A few days ago The XWord Rabbit was deep in his burrow, content that there would be plenty of stories of Muggles lost in the woods. Have some of you resigned yourself to a life of quiet desperation? Or were you saved by a meta-solving woodsman who pulled you from the clutches of big, bad Mr. Shenk? Regardless, the field is not as plentiful as your Rabbit had hoped. Let’s get on with it then and celebrate those few brave souls who shared their sad tales with us.

The critical clue, of course, was 66A, as it led savvy solvers to adding IOUS to five grid entries. FUR became FURIOUS, UNSER became UNSERIOUS and so forth. Each word was confirmed by the starred clues, the start letters of which yielded the meta: FUNDS.

ZooAnimalsOnWheels deserves a nod for noticing that the first two letters of the starred answers were the same as the first two letters of other clues, until the logic broke down. Still, our intrepid Muggle plowed ahead, wanting it to work more than it did. Your XWord Rabbit loves that kind of reasoning.

And it would be remiss of your Rabbit not to acknowledge the letter substitution approach, falsely inferred by a number of would-be solvers, but best demonstrated by ReB:

"Based on the title, which has a progression CHIT to CHAT, the mechanism I came up with was to find an alternate grid entry that fits the definitions to the five theme words by substituting one letter - and these new letters should spell out the answer.

So we get a rather good entry for "HARDLY SOLEMN": AMP to IMP [7D], and excellent entries for "lIKELY TO BE DAMAGING": TEAK to LEAK [30A] as well as for "CRAFTY": SPY to SLY [31A].

This spells out _ILL_, which suggests SILLY - which does connect with the title, though not the best. I remained open that I could be missing a better word.

But this mechanism dead-ended when I just couldn't find reasonable transitions for "FIT TO BE TIED" and "COUNTERFEIT". The best I could come up with were CHOCK to SHOCK [21A], and (5) DENS to DENY [59A] but they just didn't satisfy."

Finally, to those of you who have yet to receive a nomination, remember the immortal words of Winston Churchill who once said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Until next week, then, I shall remain your obedient hare.