0411-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 11 Apr 12, Wednesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
10. Pound sterling : QUID
“Quid” is a slang term for a pound sterling (i.e. a UK pound). It’s not certain where the term comes from, but it is possibly derived somehow from the Latin phrase “quid pro quo” meaning “this for that”.

14. Honolulu’s ___ Tower : ALOHA
Aloha Tower is actually a lighthouse, and sits at Pier 9 in Honolulu Harbor. Aloha Tower was the tallest structure in Hawaii for many years, standing at 10 stories with a 40 foot flag mast on top.

21. Rangers, on a sports ticker : TEX
The Texas Rangers Major League Baseball team is based in Arlington, Texas just outside Dallas. The Rangers were founded as the Washington Senators in 1961, and ended up in Texas in ten years later. The team is named after the famous Texas Rangers law enforcement agency.

22. “Save Me” singer Mann : AIMEE
Aimee Mann is an American rock singer and guitarist.

37. Carnival follower : LENT
In Latin, the Christian season that is now called Lent was termed “quadragesima” (meaning “fortieth”), a reference to the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. When the church began its move in the Middle Ages towards using the vernacular, the term “Lent” was introduced. “Lent” comes from “lenz”, the German word for “spring”.

38. Famed batter in an 1888 poem : CASEY
“Casey at the Bat” is a poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer, first published in the San Francisco Examiner. The poem became very popular due to repeated live performances in vaudeville by DeWolf Hopper. Casey played for the Mudville Nine, and the last line of the poem is “But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.”

40. Sometimes-saturated substances : FATS
Technically, a saturated hydrocarbon is an organic compound with no double or triple bonds between carbon atoms. Because it has no double or triple bonds it is “saturated” with hydrogen, has the maximum number of hydrogen atoms that each carbon atom can take. This is particularly important to us when talking about saturated fats (generally unhealthy animal-sourced fats) and unsaturated fats (generally healthy plant-sourced fats).

41. Lansing-to-Flint dir. : ENE
Lansing, Michigan is unique among US state capitals in that it is not a county seat, even though it is located in Ingham County. That honor goes to Mason, Michigan.

Flint, Michigan is perhaps best known as the original home to General Motors (now headquartered in Detroit). The city of Flint takes its name from the Flint River on which it lies. The local Native Americans called the river, “River of Flint”, hence the name in English.

44. Strike : BOWLING SCORE
Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

48. Dairy section selection : OLEO
Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France announced a competition to develop a substitute for butter, a substitute that would be more accessible to the lower classes and more practical for the armed forces. In 1869, a French chemist called Hippolyte Mege-Mouries came up with something he called oleomargarine, which was eventually manufactured under the trade name “margarine”. The name “oleomargarine” also gives us our generic term “oleo”.

62. Patron saint of Norway : OLAF
Of the many kings of Norway named Olaf/Olav (and there have been five), Olaf II is perhaps the most celebrated as he was canonized and made patron saint of the country. Olaf II was king from 1015 to 1028, and was known as “Olaf the Big” (or Olaf the Fat) during his reign. Today he is more commonly referred to as “Olaf the Holy”.

65. Feudal worker : SERF
A serf was a member of the lowest feudal class, someone attached to land owned by a lord. “Serf” comes from the Latin “servus”, meaning “slave”.

66. River through Florence : ARNO
The Arno is the principal river in the Tuscany region of Italy, passing through the cities of Florence and Pisa. Famously the Arno flooded in 1966, the worst flood in the region for centuries. There were numerous deaths and extensive destruction of priceless art treasures, particularly in Florence.

Down
1. Radical Mideast group : HAMAS
Hamas is the Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. “Hamas” translates into English as “enthusiasm”, and is also an acronym in Arabic for “Islamic Resistance Movement”. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by many nations in the world, including the US.

7. Jet-black gem : ONYX
Onyx is a form of quartz that comes in many different shades, but most often it’s the black version that’s used for jewelry. The name “onyx” comes from the Greek word for “fingernail”, as onyx in the flesh color is said to resemble a fingernail.

8. School grp. : PTA
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA).

9. “Help!” at sea : SOS
The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.

10. Like many shops at Disneyland : QUAINT
Walt Disney came up with the idea of building Disneyland after visiting other theme parks with his daughters in the thirties and forties. He started building the park at Anaheim, California in 1954, and the facility opened just one year and one day later. The total cost of construction was $17 million. Opening day did not go smoothly, largely because over 28,000 people visited the park compared to 11,000 people expected at the invitation-only event. The opening day went so badly that for years Disney executives referred to it as “Black Sunday”.

11. One in a mint? : UNUM
“E pluribus unum” is Latin for “Out of many, one”. From 1776, “E pluribus unum” was the unofficial motto of the United States. It was pushed aside in 1956 when an Act of Congress designated “In God We Trust” as the country’s official motto.

18. “… three men in ___” : A TUB
The nursery rhyme “Rub-a-Dub-Dub” dates back to at least 1798 when it was first published in London:

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
They all jumped out of a rotten potato,
‘Twas enough to make a man stare.

24. ___ Chex : OAT
The original Chex cereal was introduced in 1937 by Ralston Purina. Ralston Purina had a logo with a checkerboard square on it, which gave the pattern to the cereal, as well as its name. Chex used characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip in its advertising for many years.

25. Religious mosaic locale : APSE
The apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

26. Where Paris took Helen : TROY
In Greek legend, Paris was the son of the king of Troy. Paris eloped with Helen, the Queen of Sparta, and this act was a major trigger for the Trojan War. Also, it was Paris who fatally wounded Achilles by shooting him in the heel with an arrow.

29. Cyberspace marketplace : EBAY
eBay is an auction site with a twist. If you don’t want to enter into an auction to purchase an item, there’s a “Buy It Now” price. Agree to pay it, and the item is yours!

30. In ___ (as found) : SITU
In situ is a Latin phrase meaning “in the place”.

32. Commoner : PLEB
Plebe is a slang term for a freshman in the US military and naval academies. Plebe is probably short for “plebeian”, the name given to someone of the common class in ancient Rome (as opposed to a Patrician). “Pleb” is a shortened version of plebeian, and is a term used outside of the military schools.

33. TV host with a college degree in speech therapy : LENO
Jay Leno was born James Leno, in New Rochelle, New York. Jay’s father was the son of Italian immigrants, and his mother was from Scotland. Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and actually dropped out of school on the advice of a high school guidance counsellor. However, years later he went to Emerson college and earned a Bachelor’s degree in speech therapy. Leno also started a comedy club at Emerson college in 1973. Today Jay Leno is a car nut, and owns about 200 vehicles of various types. You can check them out on his website, www.jaylenosgarage.com.

39. Golden Fleece ship : ARGO
Jason is a hero from Greek mythology, most noted for leading the quest for the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece is the fleece of the gold-haired winged ram. For his quest, Jason assembles a group of heroes who were given the name Argonauts, as they journeyed on the ship called the “Argo”. The vessel was called the “Argo” in honor of the ship’s builder, a man named Argus.

42. N.B.A. coach Pat : RILEY
Pat Riley is a former professional basketball player and NBA head coach, and is currently the team president of the Miami Heat. Off the court Riley is quite the celebrity, and is noted as a snappy dresser. He is friend of Giorgio Armani and wears Armani suits at all his games. Riley even modeled suits at an Armani fashion show.

43. Item with straps : BRA
The word “brassière” is of course French in origin, but it isn’t the word the French use for a “bra”. In France what we call a bra is known as a “soutien-gorge”, translating to “held under the neck”. The word “brassière” is indeed used in France but there it describes a baby’s undershirt, a lifebelt or a harness. “Brassière” comes from the Old French word for an “arm protector” in a military uniform (“bras” is the French for “arm”). Later “brassière” came to mean “breast plate” and from there the word was used for a type of woman’s corset. The word jumped into English around 1900.

46. David of “CSI: Miami” : CARUSO
David Caruso plays Lieutenant Horatio Caine on the TV spin-off series called “CSI: Miami”. I find that Caine character to be one of the most annoying on television …

47. One way to store data : ON CD
The Compact Disc (CD) is an optical storage device that was developed for the storage and playback of music. Derivative products were later developed such as the CD-ROM for data storage, and the PhotoCd for storage of images.

51. Big name in jewelry : ZALES
The first Zales jewelry store was opened by Morris and William Zale and Ben Lipshy in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1924. Zales became successful largely by offering credit to their customers, a revolutionary concept at the time.

52. Tip reducer? : EMERY
Emery is a very hard type of rock that is crushed for use as an abrasive. Emery paper is made by gluing small particles of emery to paper. Emery boards are just emery paper with a cardboard backing. And emery boards are primarily used for filing nails.

53. Calendario units : ANOS
In Spanish we look at years (anos) on the calendar (calendrio).

54. McCain : 2008 :: ___ : 1996 : DOLE
Despite all Bob Dole’s success in the world of politics, he is remembered by many as the VP candidate who lost to Walter Mondale (and Jimmy Carter) and the presidential candidate who lost to incumbent Bill Clinton. The man is a true war hero. He joined up in 1942 and fought with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in Italy. In 1945 he was hit by machine gun fire in his right arm and back Dole was so badly injured that his comrades could only dose him up with morphine, write “M” on his forehead with his own blood (so that another, fatal dose of morphine would not be administered) and continue fighting the battle. Dole had to wait nine hours to be evacuated from the battlefield, and wait another three years before being discharged from hospital back in the States.

John McCain went into the US Naval Academy in 1958, following a family tradition as his father and grandfather were both four-star admirals. The younger McCain did not achieve the same rank, retiring from the Navy as a captain in 1981, but his career development was interrupted by almost six years spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

55. Nearly shut : AJAR
Our word “ajar” is thought to come from Scottish dialect, in which “a char” means “slightly open”.

56. Service closer : AMEN
The word “amen” is translated as “so be it”. “Amen” is said to be of Hebrew origin, but it is likely to be also influenced by Aramaic and Arabic.

59. Muckraker Tarbell : IDA
Ida Tarbell was a teacher and what we would call today an “investigative journalist”, although back in her day she was known as a “muckraker”. Her most famous work is her 1904 book “The History of the Standard Oil Company”. This exposé is credited with hastening the breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in 1911.

61. Energy : VIM
“Vim” and “punch” are words that both mean “energy” and “power”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. From now on : HENCE
6. Brewery supply : HOPS
10. Pound sterling : QUID
14. Honolulu’s ___ Tower : ALOHA
15. Inner: Prefix : ENTO-
16. “Go back,” on an edit menu : UNDO
17. Strike : MILITARY ASSAULT
20. Suffix with symptom : -ATIC
21. Rangers, on a sports ticker : TEX
22. “Save Me” singer Mann : AIMEE
23. Search for : SEEK OUT
25. Memo abbr. : ATTN
27. Strike : LABOR PROTEST
32. Braid : PLAIT
35. Airs now : IS ON
36. Lobster eater’s wear : BIB
37. Carnival follower : LENT
38. Famed batter in an 1888 poem : CASEY
40. Sometimes-saturated substances : FATS
41. Lansing-to-Flint dir. : ENE
42. Seldom seen : RARE
43. Try to corner the market on : BUY UP
44. Strike : BOWLING SCORE
48. Dairy section selection : OLEO
49. Take a good look at : ANALYZE
53. Bit of wisdom : ADAGE
56. Slow-pitch path : ARC
57. Rich soil : LOAM
58. Result of three strikes for 38-Across : NO JOY IN MUDVILLE
62. Patron saint of Norway : OLAF
63. Bucks’ mates : DOES
64. Printing press part : INKER
65. Feudal worker : SERF
66. River through Florence : ARNO
67. Like dorm rooms, often : MESSY

Down
1. Radical Mideast group : HAMAS
2. Best of the best : ELITE
3. “And that’s the truth!” : NO LIE
4. Women’s fiction, slangily : CHICK LIT
5. Use knife and fork, say : EAT
6. Regarding this point : HERETO
7. Jet-black gem : ONYX
8. School grp. : PTA
9. “Help!” at sea : SOS
10. Like many shops at Disneyland : QUAINT
11. One in a mint? : UNUM
12. Not active : IDLE
13. Lavish affection (on) : DOTE
18. “… three men in ___” : A TUB
19. Squelched : SAT ON
24. ___ Chex : OAT
25. Religious mosaic locale : APSE
26. Where Paris took Helen : TROY
28. Gets up : RISES
29. Cyberspace marketplace : EBAY
30. In ___ (as found) : SITU
31. Dosage amt. : TBSP
32. Commoner : PLEB
33. TV host with a college degree in speech therapy : LENO
34. From the top : ANEW
38. Punish, in a way : CANE
39. Golden Fleece ship : ARGO
40. Gas tank-to-engine connector : FUEL LINE
42. N.B.A. coach Pat : RILEY
43. Item with straps : BRA
45. Leave a Web page, perhaps : LOG OFF
46. David of “CSI: Miami” : CARUSO
47. One way to store data : ON CD
50. Whites’ counterparts : YOLKS
51. Big name in jewelry : ZALES
52. Tip reducer? : EMERY
53. Calendario units : ANOS
54. McCain : 2008 :: ___ : 1996 : DOLE
55. Nearly shut : AJAR
56. Service closer : AMEN
59. Muckraker Tarbell : IDA
60. And not : NOR
61. Energy : VIM

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