0222-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 22 Feb 12, Wednesday

QuickLinks:
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: Karen Young Bonin
THEME: Medieval Tournament … all of the theme answers are derived from well-known terms, and are answers relating to jousting. They’re kind of like puns, I guess:

20A. End of some medieval tournament action? : KNIGHTS GOING (from “nice going”)
27A. Weapons that hit in a medieval tournament? : CONTACT LANCES (from “contact lenses”)
48A. Really boring medieval tournaments? : LISTS WE FORGET (from “lest we forget”)
53A. Joking around at a medieval tournament? : JOUST KIDDING (from “just kidding”)

COMPLETION TIME: 6m 28s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0


Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
5. Newsman Lou : DOBBS
The journalist Lou Dobbs came to prominence as the anchor of the popular CNN business show “Lou Dobbs Tonight” which ran from 1980 to 2009. Apparently Dobbs was considering a run for the office of US President and may still be considering a run for one of the US Senate seats for New Jersey.

10. Stand taken by a debater : DAIS
Ultimately our word “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”.

14. Elton John/Tim Rice musical : AIDA
“Aida” the rock musical is based on Giuseppe Verdi’s original opera. It premiered in 1998 and is still performed today. Music is by Elton John and lyrics are by Tim Rice.

15. ___ Gay : ENOLA
As we all know, the Enola Gay was the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima in August 1945. Enola Gay was the name of the mother of the pilot, Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.

16. Austen heroine : EMMA
“Emma” is just a wonderful novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1815. I had the privilege a few years ago of attending the premiere of “Emma”, a delightful musical adaptation for the stage. If you ever get the chance to see it, I highly recommend it …

18. Broom made of twigs : BESOM
A besom is a traditional type of broom made from twigs or perhaps straw tied around the end of a central pole. It is the besom that is the broomstick associated with witches.

26. Part of the translation of “anno Domini” : OUR
The designations Anno Domini (AD, “year of Our Lord”) and Before Christ (BC) are found in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The dividing point between AD and BC is the year of the conception of Jesus, with AD 1 following 1 BC, without a year “0” in between. The AD/BC scheme dates back to AD 525, and gained wide acceptance soon after AD 800. Nowadays a modified version has become popular, with CE (Common/Christian Era) used to replace AD, and BCE (Before the Common/Christian Era) used to replace BC.

27. Weapons that hit in a medieval tournament? : CONTACT LANCES (from “contact lenses”)
The concepts that underpin the technology of contact lenses date back to Leonardo Da Vinci. Although Da Vinci didn’t propose the development of the contact lens, he did write about correcting vision by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Over a hundred years later, René Descartes made a somewhat impractical suggestion, but along the right lines, of using a glass tube filled with liquid that could be placed in contact with the eye to correct vision. The first real contact lenses were developed by Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick, a German ophthalmologist, in 1887.

34. Holy book : KORAN
The Koran is also known as the Qur’an in English, a transliteration of the Arabic name for the holy text of the Muslim faith. The literal translation of “Koran” is “the recitation”.

35. Middleton and Moss : KATES
Kate Middleton is the wife of Prince William of the UK. Middleton is what one might call a commoner, born to parents who were flight attendants. However, as is so often the case in Britain, Kate’s ancestry can be traced back far enough to show that she and William do have common ancestors, dating back to the 1500s on her mother’s side and to the 1400s on her father’s side.

Kate Moss is an English supermodel. She is reported to have earned $9 million for her work in 2007. In 2008, a gold statue valued at almost $3 million was made of Moss for an exhibition in the British Museum. It is thought that the work is the largest gold statue to have been produced since those made by the Ancient Egyptians.

38. Estuaries : RIAS
A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, both formed as sea level rises. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

42. Flood survivor : NOAH
Genesis 6:19-20 states that Noah was instructed to take two animals of every kind into the ark. Later, in Genesis 7:2-3, Noah was instructed to take on board “every clean animal by sevens … male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth”. Apparently “extras” (7 rather than 2) were needed for ritual sacrifice.

43. “The Most Happy ___” : FELLA
“The Most Happy Fella” is a musical by Frank Loesser, first performed in 1956. The main story is about a romance between an older man and a younger woman, and is based on the play “They Knew What They Wanted” by Sidney Howard.

48. Really boring medieval tournaments? : LISTS WE FORGET (from “lest we forget”)
Jousting took place in a roped off enclosure that was called the lists, or list field. In later medieval times, some castles and palaces had purpose-built tiltyards that were used for jousting.

“Lest we forget” is an oft-quoted phrase, one that comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling called “Recessional”. Kipling wrote the piece on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897 and used it to express sadness at the waning of the British Empire. The phrase “lest we forget” is used in this context, a warning that the empire will decline. Ever since WWI we’ve been using the words on memorials as a plea not forget the sacrifices made by others in the past.

51. Actress Zadora : PIA
Pia Zadora is an American actress and singer. Her most famous role was in the 1982 film “Butterfly” in which she worked with Orson Welles and Stacey Keach. The film was based on the novel “The Butterfly” by James M. Cain and deals with the difficult subject of father-daughter incest.

61. Noted declarer of bankruptcy in 2001 : ENRON
After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received ten years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved, and was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty and before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

62. Olympics jump : AXEL
An Axel is a forward take-off jump in figure skating. It was first performed by Norwegian Axel Paulsen at the 1882 World Figure Skating championships.

66. W.W. II battle site : ST-LO
Saint-Lo is a town in Normandy that was occupied by Germany in 1940. Saint-Lo stood at a strategic crossroads, and so there was intense fighting there during the Normandy invasion of 1944. After the bombardment, very little of the town was left standing.

67. Accustom : INURE
“To inure” means to harden oneself against the effects of, to accustom oneself to.

71. Donald and Ivana, for instance : EXES
Donald Trump got into real estate development under the influence of his father, Fred Trump, a wealthy New York City developer, and founder of the Trump Organization.

Ivana Winklmayr was born in Czechoslovakia. She was an excellent skier, and was named as an alternate for the 1982 Czech Olympic Team. She was promoting the Montreal Olympics in New York in 1976 when she met Donald Trump. Their marriage was very public and well-covered by the media, but not nearly so well as their very litigious divorce in 1990.

Down
2. Carnival city : RIO
The name Rio de Janeiro translates into “January River”. The name reflects the discovery of the Bay on which Rio sits, on January 1, 1502.

3. Fracas : ADO
“Fracas” is a French word that we absorbed into English. In turn, the French usage evolved from the Italian “fracasso” meaning “uproar, crash”.

5. Actress Mazar : DEBI
Debi Mazar plays Shauna Roberts on the HBO series “Entourage”. You might have seen her on “Dancing with the Stars” not so long ago, although she didn’t do so well, being eliminated in the third week.

6. Fairly uncommon blood type, informally : O-NEG
The most important grouping of blood types is the ABO system. Blood is classified as either A, B, AB or O, depending on the type of antigens on the surface of the red blood cells. A secondary designation of blood is the Rh factor, in which other antigens are labelled as either positive or negative. When a patient receives a blood transfusion, ideally the donor blood should be the same type as that of the recipient, as incompatible blood cells can be rejected. However, blood type O-Neg can be accepted by recipients with all blood types: A, B, AB or O, and positive or negative. Hence someone with O-neg blood type is called a “universal donor”.

7. Nonsense : BOSH
Our word “bosh” meaning nonsense came into English via a well-defined route. It was first used in the novel “Ayesha, the Maid of Kars” written by J. J. Morier in 1905, and is a Turkish word that literally translates as “empty”.

10. “Back to the Future” transport : DELOREAN
John DeLorean was an American engineer and executive who worked at General Motors for many years, and who was responsible for the design of the Pontiac GTO in particular. His career in the automotive industry really took off, and he began to lead the jet-setter lifestyle. DeLorean left GM in 1973 and formed his own company, eventually manufacturing the famous “DeLorean” car in Northern Ireland. The DeLorean was a V6 with a distinctive stainless steel body and two gull wings (and was chosen as the car for the “Back to the Future” movies). But the DeLorean was a flop, and the company went in receivership. In a bid to save his company, DeLorean spent three months trying to set up a deal that involved smuggling cocaine. He fell foul of an FBI sting operation and was arrested. He was found not guilty though, due to entrapment.

11. Mine, in Marseille : A MOI
Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. It’s also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and it’s a lovely, lovely place.

12. Springsteen’s “___ Fire” : I’M ON
“I’m on Fire” is a song from Bruce Springsteen’s incredibly successful album “Born in the U.S.A.” The song was released as a single in 1982.

28. Follower of many a dot : COM
A domain name is basically the address of a website on the Internet. Some time ago I moved the website for this blog to a new address (from puzzle.paxient.com to NYTCrossword.com). Like in the real world, one pays for an address. I now own (well rent!) both of the addresses used for this blog, but choose to “do business”, publish the blog, at the more memorable address … NYTCrossword.com. It’s sort of like preferring to have a Park Avenue address instead of one on say Elm Street. In the Internet world, elements of the domain name are intended to indicate what type of activity goes on at a particular address. So an address with “.com” implies a “company” website, a “.org” implies a non-profit website and “.edu” implies an education website. But in reality anyone can rent whatever address they want, as it just goes to the highest bidder. Most folks remember “.com” addresses, so they are the most popular. “.com” is meant to imply a “business address” as I say, but it can even be used for somewhere to chat about crosswords!

30. TV courtroom drama, 1986-94 : LA LAW
“L.A. Law” ran on NBC from 1986 to 1994, and was one of the netwrok’s most successful drama series. It took over from the equally successful “Hill Street Blues” in the Thursday night 10 p.m. slot until, after a six-year run, it was itself replaced  by yet another respected drama, “E.R.” The opening credits showed that famous California licence plate. The plate was on a Jaguar XJ for most of the series, but moved onto a Bentley towards the end of the run. For each series the registration sticker was updated, so no laws were being broken.

31. Start or finish of an aphorism regarding justice : AN EYE
The saying “an eye for eye, and a tooth for tooth” originally comes from the code laid down by Hammurabi, King of Babylon (1792-1750 BC). It is also quoted in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew.

54. Anne Frank’s father : OTTO
Anne Frank has to be one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust. This is largely because the story of this young girl lives on in her widely published diary, and in adaptations of the diary for stage and screen. Anne Frank was a German until she lost her nationality in 1941 when the Nazis came to power. By this time, she was living with her family in Amsterdam, as the Franks chose to flee Germany in 1933. When the Germans occupied the Netherlands, the family went into hiding in the attic of Otto Frank’s office building (Otto was Anne’s father). There the family hid for two whole years, until they were betrayed. The family was split up, and Anne and her sister died from typhus in a concentration camp in 1945.

55. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s alma mater, in brief : UCLA
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s name at birth was Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor. He changed his name when he converted to Islam.

58. French artist famous for 60-Acrossing : DORE
(60. See 58-Down : ETCH)
Gustav Doré was a French artist who primarily used the techniques of wood and steel engraving.

59. Juana ___ de la Cruz, Mexican poet/nun : INES
Juana Inés de la Cruz was a poet in the Baroque period, She was also a nun, and lived in Mexico City.

63. Losing row : XOX
When I was growing up in Ireland, we played “noughts and crosses” … our name for tic-tac-toe.

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Act greedy : GRAB
5. Newsman Lou : DOBBS
10. Stand taken by a debater : DAIS
14. Elton John/Tim Rice musical : AIDA
15. ___ Gay : ENOLA
16. Austen heroine : EMMA
17. Jeering from the bleachers : BOOS
18. Broom made of twigs : BESOM
19. Crazy sort : LOON
20. End of some medieval tournament action? : KNIGHTS GOING (from “nice going”)
23. Charger : STEED
26. Part of the translation of “anno Domini” : OUR
27. Weapons that hit in a medieval tournament? : CONTACT LANCES (from “contact lenses”)
33. Sum up : ADD
34. Holy book : KORAN
35. Middleton and Moss : KATES
38. Estuaries : RIAS
40. Track figure : MILER
42. Flood survivor : NOAH
43. “The Most Happy ___” : FELLA
45. Imitated a wolf : BAYED
47. Spanish bear : OSO
48. Really boring medieval tournaments? : LISTS WE FORGET (from “lest we forget”)
51. Actress Zadora : PIA
52. Unwelcome growth : WEEDS
53. Joking around at a medieval tournament? : JOUST KIDDING (from “just kidding”)
60. See 58-Down : ETCH
61. Noted declarer of bankruptcy in 2001 : ENRON
62. Olympics jump : AXEL
66. W.W. II battle site : ST-LO
67. Accustom : INURE
68. “The occupation of the idle man, the distraction of the warrior, the peril of the sovereign,” per Napoleon : LOVE
69. Creature known scientifically as Bufo bufo : TOAD
70. Heavy reading : TOMES
71. Donald and Ivana, for instance : EXES

Down
1. Shoot the breeze : GAB
2. Carnival city : RIO
3. Fracas : ADO
4. Hamper : BASKET
5. Actress Mazar : DEBI
6. Fairly uncommon blood type, informally : O-NEG
7. Nonsense : BOSH
8. Black mark : BLOT
9. Biblical fellow who was dis-tressed? : SAMSON
10. “Back to the Future” transport : DELOREAN
11. Mine, in Marseille : A MOI
12. Springsteen’s “___ Fire” : I’M ON
13. Told all to the cops : SANG
21. Mont. neighbor : N DAK
22. Crud : GUCK
23. Chow down on : SCARF
24. ___ for (really delicious) : TO DIE
25. Ultimate object : END ALL
28. Follower of many a dot : COM
29. Some daily papers, informally : TRIBS
30. TV courtroom drama, 1986-94 : LA LAW
31. Start or finish of an aphorism regarding justice : AN EYE
32. Patsy : STOOGE
36. Made less rigorous : EASED
37. Things binge drinkers sometimes do : SHOTS
39. Sloppy : SLIPSHOD
41. Zebra : REF
44. ___ were : AS IT
46. Blue : DOWN
49. Accept punishment : TAKE IT
50. Entertain : REGALE
53. Witticism : JEST
54. Anne Frank’s father : OTTO
55. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s alma mater, in brief : UCLA
56. ___ time at all : IN NO
57. Oil container : DRUM
58. French artist famous for 60-Acrossing : DORE
59. Juana ___ de la Cruz, Mexican poet/nun : INES
63. Losing row : XOX
64. Brink : EVE
65. French article : LES

Return to top of page