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Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
Solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword in all other publications
CROSSWORD SETTER: Michael Farabaugh
THEME: MIXED “GREEN SALAD” … all the theme answers are anagrams of “GREEN SALAD”:
39A. Dieter’s fare … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 49- and 62-Across and 10- and 26-Down : MIXED GREEN SALAD
17A. Lee at Appomattox, e.g.? : SAD GENERAL
24A. Portly college figures? : LARGE DEANS
49A. Salutation in an Anaheim baseball fan’s letter? : DEAR ANGELS
62A. Cowgirl Evans’s hot temper? : DALE’S ANGER
10D. Where to get discount flowers? : GARDEN SALE
26D. Go out with the star of “The Wizard of Oz”? : SEE GARLAND
COMPLETION TIME: 11m 30s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. President whose first name means “one who is blessed” : OBAMA
President Obama’s first name, Barack, is Swahili with roots in an old Arabic word meaning “blessed”. Barack was the President’s father’s name. His middle name is Hussein, an Arabic word meaning “good” or “handsome one”. Hussein was the name of the President’s grandfather on the paternal side. His surname, Obama, doesn’t really have a translation, but is common among the Luo tribe of Kenya.
6. Young newts : EFTS
Newts wouldn’t be my favorite animals. They are found all over the world, living on land or in the water depending on the species, but always associated with water even if it is only for breeding. Newts metamorphose through three distinct developmental stages during their lives. They start off as larvae in water, fertilized eggs that often cling to aquatic plants, unlike the eggs of frogs and toads which float freely. The eggs hatch into tadpoles, the first developmental form of the newt. After living some months as tadpoles swimming around in the water, they undergo another metamorphosis, sprouting legs and replacing their external gills with lungs. At this juvenile stage they are known as efts, and leave the water to live on land. A more gradual transition takes place then, as the eft takes on the lizard-like appearance of the adult newt.
14. Eve or Elizabeth : ARDEN
Eve Arden’s most famous role early in her career was playing the high school teacher in the 1950’s radio and television show “Our Miss Brooks”. Years later she played the Principal of Rydell High School in the movies “Grease” (great!) and “Grease 2” (terrible!).
Elizabeth Arden was the business name used by Canadian-American Florence Nightingale Graham. She built a cosmetics empire that made her one of the wealthiest women in the world.
15. It may be manicured : LAWN
Not mine …
16. First name at Woodstock : ARLO
Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for their singing of protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m and 34s. In the song, Guthrie tells how he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War after being drafted, based on his criminal record. He had one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18-years-old.
17. Lee at Appomattox, e.g.? : SAD GENERAL
The Battle of Appomattox Court House was the last engagement by the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Immediately after the battle, Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. When the two men met for the signing of the surrender documents, even though the pair were acquaintances, it was the first time they had seen each other in almost 20 years. Grant started off the conversation by discussing a previous meeting they had during the Mexican-American War, when they were fighting on the same side.
19. Opening sound of an MGM film : ROAR
There has been a lion in the logo of the MGM studio since 1924. The original lion was an Irishman (!), a lion name Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However, it wasn’t until Jackie took over from Slats, in 1928, that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo, and he has been around since 1957.
23. The Old ___ : SOD
Or as we ex-pat Irish would say, the Auld Sod …
26. Rob Roy, e.g. : SCOT
Rob Roy’s full name was Robert Roy McGregor, itself an Anglicization of the Scottish Raibeart Ruadh.
28. ___ mot : BON
Bon mot translates from French as “good word”, and we use it to mean a quip, a witticism.
32. Other, in Oaxaca : OTRO
Oaxaca is in the southern part of Mexico on the Pacific coast. The state takes the name of Oaxaca, its largest city.
44. Half a 1980s TV duo : ALLIE
“Kate & Allie” ran from 1984 to 1989, starring Susan Saint James as Kate, and Jane Curtin as Allie. Jane Curtin won two Emmy awards for her work on the series, while Susan Saint James … did not.
45. Org. with a peer-reviewed weekly journal : AMA
The American Medical Association was founded in 1847, at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The first female member was allowed to join in 1868, but the first African American members weren’t admitted until one hundred years later, in 1968.
47. ___ of Man : ISLE
The Isle of Man is a large island located in the middle of the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. I used to spend a lot of time there in my youth, and a very interesting place it is indeed. The Isle of Man is classed as a British Crown Dependency, and isn’t part of the United Kingdom at all. It is self-governing and has its own parliament called the Tynwald. The Tynwald was created in AD 979, and is arguably the oldest continuously running parliament in the world. The inhabitants of the island speak English, although they do have their own language as well called Manx, which is very similar to Irish Gaeilge and Scottish Gaelic. And then there are the Manx cats, the ones without any tails. I’ve seen lots of them, and can attest that they are found all over the island.
49. Salutation in an Anaheim baseball fan’s letter? : DEAR ANGELS
The Anaheim Angels are today more correctly called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The “Angels” name comes from when team was founded in 1961 in the “City of Angels”, Los Angeles. When the franchise moved to Anaheim in 1965 they were known as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and most recently the Los Angeles Angels at Anaheim.
58. Chichén Itzá attraction : RUINS
Chichén Itzá is a Mayan ruin located in the Mexican state of Yucatán. It is the second most visited archaeological site in the country (after the ancient city of Teotihuacan). Chichén Itzá has seen a surge in the number of visitors since the development of nearby Cancún as a tourist destination.
60. N.Y.C.’s Columbus, e.g. : AVE
Columbus Avenue in New York City was used as the basis for most of the street scenes in the sitcom “Seinfeld”.
61. “A Doll’s House” heroine : NORA
“A Doll’s House” is probably the most famous play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play deals with the feminist awakening of the lead character, Nora Helmer, and is sometimes referred to as the “first true feminist play”.
62. Cowgirl Evans’s hot temper? : DALE’S ANGER
Dale Evans was the stage name of actress and singer Lucille Wood Smith, famous as the third wife of Roy Rogers. Evans was from Uvalde, Texas and had a rough start in life. She eloped with her first husband when she was just 14 years old, and had her first child at 15. That first marriage ended in divorce when she was 17 in 1929, the same year she started into her second marriage. Roy Rogers was Evans’s fourth husband and they married in 1947, a marriage that lasted for 51 years until Rogers passed away in 1998.
64. 007’s school : ETON
The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders, including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself, in the Fleming novels).
66. Old Dodges : NEONS
The Neon was made by Chrysler from 1994 to 2005. It was introduced to the rest of the world as the Chrysler Neon, but sold under the Dodge and Plymouth brands in the US.
67. Make rhapsodic : SEND
“To send” can be used in the slang sense of transporting with delight, carrying one away, like in the 1957 song by Sam Cooke “You Send Me”.
Down
4. Gig fraction : MEG
In the world of computers, a “bit” is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of bits (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The prefix mega- stands for 10 to the power of 6, so a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. And the prefix giga- means 10 to the power of 9, so a gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.
9. “Weekend Update” show, for short : SNL
NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to pull together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he come up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.
18. Court plea, informally : NOLO
“Nolo contendere” is a legal term that translates from the Latin as “I do not wish to contend”. It’s the plea of “no contest”, an alternative to “guilty” or “not guilty”, meaning that one doesn’t admit guilt but nor does not dispute the charge.
25. Like black piano keys : EBON
Ebony is another word for the color black (often shortened to “ebon” in poetry). Ebony is a dark, black wood that is very dense, and is one of the few types of wood that sinks in water. Ebony has been in high demand, so the species of tree yielding the wood is now considered threatened. It’s in such short supply that unscrupulous vendors have been known to darken lighter woods with shoe polish to make them look like ebony, so be warned …
26. Go out with the star of “The Wizard of Oz”? : SEE GARLAND
Judy Garland wasn’t MGM’s first choice to play Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”. The studio tried to borrow Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox, but she was already committed to other projects.
27. Dancer Charisse : CYD
Actress Cyd Charisse was famous for her dancing ability, and played many roles opposite Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. All this despite the fact that she suffered from polio as a child. In fact, she took up ballet at the age of twelve to help build up her strength as she recovered from the disease.
29. Big name in S.U.V.’s : GMC
The term SUV, Sports Utility Vehicle was introduced by our marketing friends. Using the term Sports Utility Vehicle was a very clever way to get us to pay a lot of money for what was essentially a station wagon on a truck chassis, at least it was back then.
30. Safflower ___ : OIL
Safflower looks pretty much like a yellow-flowered thistle, with sharp spines on the leaves. For the past five decades the safflower has been cultivated for its seeds which yield an oil that is similar to sunflower oil.
31. Maker of Good Grips kitchen tools : OXO
The OXO line of kitchen utensils is designed to be ergonomically superior to the average kitchen tool. The intended user of OXO products is someone who doesn’t have the normal range of motion or strength in the hands e.g. someone suffering from arthritis.
33. Pro ___ : TEM
Pro tempore can be abbreviated to “pro tem” or “p.t.” It is a Latin phrase which best translates as “for the time being”. It is used to describe a person who is acting for another, usually a superior.
36. Cook Co.’s home : ILL
Cook County, Illinois, home to the city of Chicago, is the second largest county in the country in terms of population, after Los Angeles County. The county was named after Daniel Cook, the US Representative for Illinois and the state’s first Attorney General.
37. My ___, Vietnam : LAI
The My Lai Massacre took place in the Vietnamese village of that name in March, 1968. After an investigation it was determined that at least 347 unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and elderly people, were murdered by a unit of US soldiers. It was also revealed that gang rapes and torture took place during the massacre. At least three servicemen tried to halt the killing, but they were vastly outnumbered by those participating. About two years after the massacre, 26 men were charged with crimes, but only one man was convicted. William Calley was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor. President Nixon stepped in the day after Calley was sentenced and ordered him transferred from Leavenworth prison and placed under house arrest pending appeal. On appeal the life sentence was reduced to 20 years, and this was further cut to 10 years as an act of clemency by the Secretary of the Army. Calley was released after serving three years in total.
40. Composer ___ Carlo Menotti : GIAN
The composer Gian Carlo Menotti won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for his opera “The Consul”. His “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has a special place in the repertoire, in that it is the first opera specifically composed for American television. It was commissioned by NBC and had its debut at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve, 1951. In today’s world of commercially-driven television, I can’t imagine a network commissioning another classical work …
41. “On the Road” narrator ___ Paradise : SAL
Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” is largely autobiographical, telling the story of Sal Paradise (Jack K.) and the road trips that he and his friends took across the country in the fifties.
46. New Jersey’s Cape ___ : MAY
The southernmost spot in New Jersey lies on the peninsula known as Cape May. Cape May is also home to the US Coast Guard’s basic training camp.
51. Place for a chip shot : APRON
On a golf course the apron is the border of slightly longer grass that surrounds a green.
52. Smucker’s flavor : GRAPE
The J. M. Smucker Co. was founded in 1897 by Jerome Monroe Smucker, with his first product being apple butter he sold off the back of his horse-drawn wagon. The operation he set up has grown a bit since then, and now Smucker’s owns Jif (peanut butter), Crisco (oil), Pillsbury (baking mixes) and Folgers (coffee).
53. Originator of the formula e^ix = cos x + i sin x : EULER
Leonhard Euler was a brilliant Swiss mathematician and physicist, a pioneer in the fields of logarithms and graph theory.
62. Bespectacled dwarf : DOC
In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Snow White”, the seven dwarfs were not given any names. The names were created for the 1937 classic animated film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” from Walt Disney. The seven dwarfs are:
– Doc (the leader of the group)
– Grumpy (that would be me, according to my wife …)
– Happy
– Sleepy
– Bashful
– Sneezy
– Dopey
63. Alumna’s bio word : NEE
“Née” is the French word for “born”, when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”.
An alumnus (plural … alumni) is a graduate or former student of a school or college. The female form is alumna (plural … alumnae). The word comes into English from Latin, in which alumnus means foster-son or pupil.
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. President whose first name means “one who is blessed” : OBAMA
6. Young newts : EFTS
10. Show shock : GASP
14. Eve or Elizabeth : ARDEN
15. It may be manicured : LAWN
16. First name at Woodstock : ARLO
17. Lee at Appomattox, e.g.? : SAD GENERAL
19. Opening sound of an MGM film : ROAR
20. Correct ending? : -IVE
21. Like a wicker basket : WOVEN
22. ___ one : ADMIT
23. The Old ___ : SOD
24. Portly college figures? : LARGE DEANS
26. Rob Roy, e.g. : SCOT
28. ___ mot : BON
29. Like hot fudge : GOOEY
32. Other, in Oaxaca : OTRO
35. Place to store coal, perhaps : SILO
39. Dieter’s fare … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 49- and 62-Across and 10- and 26-Down : MIXED GREEN SALAD
42. Job for a snake : CLOG
43. Belief systems : ISMS
44. Half a 1980s TV duo : ALLIE
45. Org. with a peer-reviewed weekly journal : AMA
47. ___ of Man : ISLE
49. Salutation in an Anaheim baseball fan’s letter? : DEAR ANGELS
54. Allowing liquor : WET
57. Express indirectly : IMPLY
58. Chichén Itzá attraction : RUINS
60. N.Y.C.’s Columbus, e.g. : AVE
61. “A Doll’s House” heroine : NORA
62. Cowgirl Evans’s hot temper? : DALE’S ANGER
64. 007’s school : ETON
65. ___ mike (coffeehouse event) : OPEN
66. Old Dodges : NEONS
67. Make rhapsodic : SEND
68. Like some checks: Abbr. : CERT
69. Slow on the uptake : DENSE
Down
1. Place for a palm : OASIS
2. “Well done!” : BRAVO
3. Thrown in : ADDED
4. Gig fraction : MEG
5. From scratch : ANEW
6. Lifts, stateside : ELEVATORS
7. Ending with way or sea : FARER
8. Country sound : TWANG
9. “Weekend Update” show, for short : SNL
10. Where to get discount flowers? : GARDEN SALE
11. Something in the air : AROMA
12. Massacred : SLAIN
13. New York and New Orleans : PORTS
18. Court plea, informally : NOLO
22. Kerfuffle : ADO
25. Like black piano keys : EBON
26. Go out with the star of “The Wizard of Oz”? : SEE GARLAND
27. Dancer Charisse : CYD
29. Big name in S.U.V.’s : GMC
30. Safflower ___ : OIL
31. Maker of Good Grips kitchen tools : OXO
33. Pro ___ : TEM
34. Having elastic properties : RESILIENT
36. Cook Co.’s home : ILL
37. My ___, Vietnam : LAI
38. Lofty tribute : ODE
40. Composer ___ Carlo Menotti : GIAN
41. “On the Road” narrator ___ Paradise : SAL
46. New Jersey’s Cape ___ : MAY
48. ID theft targets : SSNS
49. Eats on a tablecloth, say : DINES
50. Overdo it, in a way : EMOTE
51. Place for a chip shot : APRON
52. Smucker’s flavor : GRAPE
53. Originator of the formula e^ix = cos x + i sin x : EULER
54. Typically red toy : WAGON
55. Makes smooth : EVENS
56. Hardly windy : TERSE
59. Make smooth : SAND
62. Bespectacled dwarf : DOC
63. Alumna’s bio word : NEE