"D-Grade" by Wendy Walker

[Wendy Walker]

The last but most definitely not least SSSolver was Mikey G!

The meta answer is DECAY.

Solvers had to pronounce each of the five asterisked entries (or just imagine what it would sound like, depending on the anticipated tolerance level of their household members, officemates, or fellow passengers):

1A. ESSAY = SA
55A. AGEE = AG
46A. EFFIE = FE
58A. ANY = NE
73A. PEATY = PT

Hey! They’re each two letters! And Step 2 was to find a three-letter entry that started with those two letters, viz.:

15A. NED
31A. AGE
45A. SAC
61A. PTA
75A. FEY

Step 3 was to put the word-completing entries in grid order to spell the meta answer, DECAY, which not only fits the pattern of two-syllables-that-sound-like-two-letters (DK) but also neatly matches AJK’s cunning title, “D-Grade.” My intro (in which I stressed the “very poor quality” meaning of the title) was a total and deliberate misdirect.

This was one of those puzzles that just came together like magic. From concept to grid to clues took only a few hours – a merciful change from the puzzles that take weeks and seemingly endless revisions, a small percentage of which are actually improvements.

Thank you very much for solving!