Enigmatic Variations No. 1292: Yackety-Yack by The Ace of Hearts

It didn’t seem that there would be anything too taxing this week:

In YACKETY-YACK, from the answer to each clue a letter must be deleted wherever it appears before entry into the grid; definitions refer to the full unmutilated answer, and wordplay to the grid entry. In clue order, the omitted letters give a phrase followed by its definition. Solvers must complete the unchecked central cell, and highlight 13 cells which show how one might acquire the phrase. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended, but does not contain one abbreviation, or the simple compound at 40ac.

So, a straightforward Letters Latent puzzle. However, I must confess that it took some time to get started on this one, especially with the slightly unusual long across entries. Eventually, though, things sped up a bit although there was a minor problem with the 13 squares that needed highlighting. I assumed they would be in one of the main diagonals, presumably contributed to by the barred off letter in the centre of the grid. Unfortunately, that seemed to start XBLAR….

Finally, all became clear with The Gift of the Gab: a talent or propensity for talking represented in the diagonal by X (Kiss) BLARNEY STONE.

All in all, an enjoyable puzzle from The Ace of Hearts. It was an excellent gridfill, with a number of multiple latent letters dropped from many answers, especially REITERATE and ILLINOIS.

 
Legend:
Definition in clue
X = Letters Latent
ABC* = anagram
ABC< = reversal
abCDef = hidden