Nicely done. That was hard.
I’ll give it another bump:
CRET (11, 7)
—————N————G ——R————
ACE (6, 7)
—————Y ———————
CRET- Alternating Current
Those two are just too hard. You need to be able to get the answer from the clue.
The ones where all of the letters of the answer are included in the clue are easier, yes.
But who wants them all to be easy? 
The lengths of the words can be a clue in themselves. E.g. what’s the most common (11, 7) phrase? Well, apparently it’s “alternating current”:
https://www.onelook.com/?w=%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F&ssbp=1&ls=a
(I also gave a hint for that one earlier in the thread.)
That’s not what I said. I said that you’ve got to be able to get the answer from the clue.
ACE (6, 7) - evenly matched
What is the “rule” in that one?
Regards,
Shodan
This one is actually quite clever. It’s the even letters (2, 4, 6) from the word MATCHED.
What about HDY? I don’t think we have an answer to that one yet.
HDY (5, 6, 2, 3, 3) something something of the day/in one day? All I can think of is happy returns of the day but it’s one letter too many.
“Remains of the day” also works but doesn’t fit the number of letters. I notice HDY is the even letters of “the day” but we have already had an answer like that (“evenly matched”) so we must be looking for something slightly different.
Y’all have done the heavy work, so I’m gonna swoop in and claim the glory:
Every second of the day.
That definitely fits. But that’s not a phrase I’ve ever heard before…?
Of course, “disorganized order” and “endless decline” are also phrases I’ve never heard of and suspect were invented for this puzzle which again make them awful entries
I’ve got one that’s kind of similar that I’d like to throw into the mix, thought of it while driving yesterday:
HOSTEIN (4,6)
“Awful” is a little harsh - especially as those two examples were incorrect guesses rather than the OP’s intended answers, which are indeed common phrases (“alphabetical order” and “partial eclipse”)!
I do agree “every second of the day” is not such a common phrase but I think it’s OK. I enjoyed all of them, even if I was only able to solve a handful.
All the puzzle clues, IMHO, were quite fine and fair.
“Every second of the day” is perfectly common. Google Books shows 22,000 results for that phrase in quotes. Googling the phrase yields page after page of usage (it claims 5 million plus, but Google estimates these numbers and it doesn’t seem like you can force it to really only give you exact matches, unlike Google Books.)
I missed that those examples weren’t correct. I retract those criticisms.
How about : NO “L” cow word… Noel Coward.
Nice! 