A dupe too far?

[zinaphile]

I've got ITSADEAL and ISITME in the same fill. I think having IT in the puzzle twice is acceptable, NYT had a Friday puzzle recently with this. But does adding in IS (and the S contraction) take it too far?

If that's OK, I also have IMNO and IASSUME. Again NYT has done puzzles with I duplicated so it would seem that this dupe by itself isn't fatal, but would doing it on top of the ITS/ISIT dupe be too much?

 

[mmcbs]

Of course, we don't know. If the theme and other fill are spectacular, these might be overlooked.

The real answer is if you are worried about these issues, then you should fix them. If they simply cannot be fixed by rearranging things (which is doubtful), then go ahead with the submission.

No one following this forum can tell you what an editor will do in these "close call" cases.

[zinaphile]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, hard to know what an editor would do. I was looking for some sense of how bad these dupes are. Some dupes are obviously fatal, some are trivial and typically not a problem (eg. a repeated article), others lie somewhere in between. I wasn't sure where these fall on the spectrum. I can fix them, but the price is a small but clear reduction in the quality of the fill. Looking for help calibrating this tradeoff.

[yaniebogisish]

Clearly, we are clueless. If the story and other aspects are outstanding, these might be overlooked. The wisest thing to do is to deal with these issues if they're making you feel bad. Go ahead and submit it if moving things around won't cure them (which is highly improbable).