0727-10 New York Times Crossword Answers 27 Jul 10

The name’s William Ernest Butler, but please call me Bill. I grew up in Ireland, but now live out here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m retired now, from technology businesses that took our family all over the world. I answer all emails, so please feel free to email me at bill@paxient.com, or leave a comment below. If you are working on the New York Times crossword in any other publication, you are working on the syndicated puzzle. Here is a link to my answers to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword. To find any solution other than today’s, enter the crossword number (e.g. 1225, 0107) in the “Search the Blog” box above.

This is my solution to the crossword published in the New York Times today …

COMPLETION TIME: 5m 45s
THEME: The whole … the theme answers are ways to complete the phrase “the whole —” e.g. the whole ENCHILADA, the whole SHEBANG
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … SECY (SECR), ANYWAY (ANRWAY … don’t ask!)

TODAY’S WIKI-EST, AMAZONIAN GOOGLIES
Across
1. Pet welfare org. : SPCA
Unlike in other countries, there is no “umbrella” society in the US for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Rather, there are independent organizations set up all over the nation using the name SPCA. You probably have one in your town. There is an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which was intended to operate across the country, but it really is focused in New York City.

5. Nobel Peace Prize city : OSLO
The Peace Prize is one of five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. The others are for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature. There is also Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded along with the original five, but is funded separately, and is awarded “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Four of the prizes are awarded by Swedish organizations (Alfred Nobel was a Swede) and so the award ceremonies take place in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and that award is presented in Oslo.

14. Georgetown athlete : HOYA
The athletic teams of Georgetown University are known as the Hoyas. The name is derived from a traditional “cheer” yelled out at Georgetown games, as far back as 1893: “Hoya Saxa”. The term is a mixture of Greek and Latin, with the Greek word “hoya” meaning “such” or “what”, and “saxa” translating from Latin as “rocks” or “small stones”. The cheer is usually rendered into English as “what rocks!”.

15. Stack-serving chain, for short : IHOP
The International House of Pancakes was founded in 1958, with the first restaurant located in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles.

16. Slowly, on a score : LENTO
A lento passage in a piece of music has a slow tempo.

17. The whole ___ : ENCHILADA

19. Pindar, notably : ODIST
Pindar was an Ancient Greek poet, most famous perhaps for composing a series of Victory Odes that celebrated triumph in competition, most notably the Olympian Games of the day.

23. Autodom’s Beetle is one, slangily : VEEDUB
VW … in slang is a “vee dub”, short for “vee double-u”. The Beetle was the official name of the VW model released in the US, but it was usually referred to as a “bug” over here, and a “beetle” elsewhere.

25. The whole ___ : SHEBANG
The word “shebang” is probably a derivative of “shebeen”, an Irish word for a “speakeasy”, where liquor was drunk and sold illegally.

34. William Jennings Bryan, for one : ORATOR
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician, a noted figure in the Democratic Party. He served as Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. He ran for the office of President three times, unsuccessfully of course. But he was a great orator, and used it to effect in his campaigning. In fact, he created the national stumping tour, traveling around the country making hundreds of speeches, in days when the other candidates stayed at home.

38. The whole ___ : SHOOTING MATCH

43. Raptor’s grippers : TALONS
“Raptor” is a generic term for a bird of prey, one that has talons to grip its victim.

44. Lover in a Shakespeare title : ANTONY
“Antony and Cleopatra” is one of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, telling the story of the relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra after the death of Julius Caesar.

48. B’way success sign : SRO
Standing Room Only

51. The whole ___ : SCHMEAR
The word “schmear” comes from the Yiddish word “shmir” meaning “spread”. The phrase “the whole schmear” is a relative recent one, dating back to around 1969 and coming from the world of business.

58. Battery terminal : ANODE
The two terminals of a battery are called the anode and the cathode. Electrons travel from the anode to the cathode, creating an electric current.

63. The whole ___ : NINE YARDS
The origin of the term “the whole nine yards” seems to be clouded in mystery. Lots of stories, but none very credible it seems.

65. Shampoo brand : PRELL
Prell was introduced by Proctor & Gamble in 1947, and was originally a clear, green concentrate sold in a tube (like toothpaste).

66. Rock music’s Rush, for one : TRIO
Rush is a Canadian rock band that have been around since 1968. The band has three members: Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart.

68. Potter’s potions professor : SNAPE
Severus Snape is a character in the Harry Potter novels, played by the wonderful Alan Rickman in the movies.

70. This, in Toledo : ESTA
Toledo is a city in central Spain.

Down
6. Clarinetist Artie : SHAW
Artie Shaw was a composer, bandleader a jazz clarinetist. His real name was Arthur Jacob Arshawsky, born in New York City in 1910. Of his many claims to fame is the fact that he (a white bandleader) hired Billie Holiday (a black vocalist) and toured the segregated South in the late thirties. Holiday chose to leave the band though, due to hostility from audiences in the South back then.

12. U.F.O. crew : ETS
An Unidentified Flying Object might be crewed by Extra-Terrestials.

13. Sighter of pink elephants : SOT
The first documented use of the phrase “seeing pink elephants”, a euphemism for being drunk, is by Jack London in his autobiographical take “John Barleycorn“. In London’s description, the drink not only see pink elephants, but also blue mice.

26. St. ___ (Caribbean hot spot) : BARTS
The correct name for the island we often call St. Barts is Saint Barthélemy. St. Barts is in the Caribbean, one of the French West Indies.

29. College sr.’s test : GRE
Passing the Graduate Record Examination is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.

33. Lab burners of old : ETNAS
Etna (after the volcano) is another name for the Bunsen Burner used in the laboratory.

35. Biblical sin city : SODOM
The two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as Admah and Zeboim, were destroyed by God for the sins of their inhabitants, according to the Bible. The name Sodom (and Gomorrah) has become a metaphor for vice and homosexuality, and gives us our word “sodomy”.

39. “Hell ___ no fury …” : HATH
The phrase “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” comes from the 1697 play “The Mourning Bride” penned by English playwright William Congreve. The actual line reads, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,”

40. Around-the-house footwear, for short : MOCS
The moccasin is a traditional form of footwear worn by many Native American tribes.

42. “___ Boot” : DAS
I am ashamed to day that I have never sat down to watch the whole of the 1981 movie “Das Boot“, even though I love WWII submarine films. The film drew great critical acclaim, good news as it is one of the most expensive films ever made in Germany. The story tells on one patrol of the German U-boat U-96 in October of 1941.

48. Future ferns : SPORES
Ferns are unlike mosses, in that they have xylem and phloem, making them vascular plants. They also have stems, leaves and roots, but they do not have seeds and flowers, and reproduce using spores. Spores differ from seeds in that they have very little stored food.

50. “The Battleship Potemkin” port : ODESSA
“The Battleship Potemkin” is a silent movie made in 1925. A famous scene in the movie takes place in the port of Odessa, when Tsarist soldiers massacre rebels on the giant stairway in the city, now known as the Potemkin Stairs.

52. Most Monopoly income : RENTS
The commercial game of Monopoly is supposedly a remake of a game called “The Landlord’s Game” created in 1903 by a Quaker woman called Lizzie Phillips who created it as a tool to explain the single tax theory of American economist Henry George. The Landlord’s Game was actually produced commercially in 1924. The incredibly successful derivative game called Monopoly was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow, making him a very rich man when Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game just two years later in 1935.

59. Modern navigation tool, for short : GPS
GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The US military have been working on the satellite technology used in GPS since the days of the first Russian satellite in space, Sputnik. The modern GPS system that we use today was built by the US military who received the massive funding needed because of fears during the Cold War of the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We civilians, all round the world, owe a lot to President Ronald Reagan, because he directed that GPS be made available to the public for the common good. He was moved to this after the Soviet Union shot down KAL flight 007 carrying 269 people, when it accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace.

64. Aurora’s counterpart : EOS
In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn, who lived at the edge of the ocean. She would wake each morning, to welcome her brother, Helios, the sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora.