0528-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 28 May 12, Monday

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: Kurt Mueller
THEME: TONGUE TWISTER … apparently the starts of the theme answers produce a tongue twister, rubber baby buggy bumper:

20A. Stereotypical entree at a campaign event : RUBBER CHICKEN
29A. One born in the late 1940s or ’50s : BABY BOOMER
36A. Item carried by an Amish driver : BUGGY WHIP
46A. Farmer’s wish : BUMPER CROP
53A. The starts of 20-, 29-, 36- and 46-Across, e.g., when repeated quickly in order : TONGUE TWISTER

COMPLETION TIME: 6m 20s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0


Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
4. Early American patriot Thomas : PAINE
Thomas Paine was an English author who achieved incredible success with his pamphlet “Common Sense” published in 1776 which advocated independence of colonial America from Britain. Paine had immigrated to the American colonies just two years before his pamphlet was published, and so was just in time to make a major contribution to the American Revolution.

14. Gen ___ (child of a 29-Across) : XER
The term Generation X originated in the UK where it was the name of a book by Jane Deverson. Her book detailed the results of a study of British youths in 1964, contrasting their lifestyle to those of previous generations. It was Canadian author Douglas Coupland who was responsible for popularizing the term, with his more successful publication “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”. By the latest accepted definition, Gen-Xers were born between 1961 and 1981.

15. Capital of Jordan : AMMAN
Amman is the capital city of Jordan, and is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world. Amman has been occupied by a number of different civilizations over the centuries, including the Greeks who called it Philadelphia, a name retained by the Romans when they occupied the city just after 100 AD.

16. “William Tell,” for one : OPERA
“Guillume Tell” is an opera by Gioachino Rossini based on the legend of William Tell. It is actually Rossini’s last opera, and is certainly the Rossini opera with the most recognizable overture. The whole of the overture is superb, but the driving finale is widely recognized as the theme from the television show “The Lone Ranger”.

20. Stereotypical entree at a campaign event : RUBBER CHICKEN
I guess chicken is often served at a large gathering for a political campaign. Keeping the chicken at temperature, pre-cooked, can lead to it having a rubbery texture. This concept is so widely accepted that someone campaigning is said to be “travelling the rubber chicken circuit”.

25. ___ carte : A LA
“Carte” is a word sometimes used in French for a menu. Menu items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately, as opposed to “table d’hôte” which is a fixed price menu with limited choice.

28. Powerful D.C. lobby : AARP
AARP is now the official name for the interest group that used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons. The name change reflects the current focus of the group on all Americans aged 50 or over, as opposed to just people who have retired.

29. One born in the late 1940s or ’50s : BABY BOOMER
A baby boomer is someone who was born in the post-WWII baby boom. The rate of births had been falling fairly steadily in the US at least since 1900, but this trend was sharply reversed in 1946 after WWII. The higher birth rate continued until 1964, when it returned to pre-war levels. Since then the birth rate has continued to decline, although at a slower pace. The period between 1946 and 1964 is defined as the “baby boom”.

33. Prefix with conservative : NEO-
By definition, a neoconservative supports the use of American power and military to bring democracy, liberty, equality and human rights to other countries.

34. ___-Japanese War : SINO-
There were two Sino-Japanese Wars. The first was fought in 1894-95 over control of Korea. The second was fought between 1931 and 1945, eventually becoming part of WWII.

35. Lerner’s songwriting partner : LOEWE
Frederick Loewe was a composer best known for his collaborations with the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, the most famous of which were “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot”.

36. Item carried by an Amish driver : BUGGY WHIP
The Amish are a group of Christian churches, a sub-group of the Mennonite churches. The Amish church originated in Switzerland and Alsace in 1693 when it was founded by Jakob Ammann. It was Ammann who gave the name to the Amish people. Many Amish people came to Pennsylvania in the 18th century.

49. 10th grader: Abbr. : SOPH
The term “sophomore” has been used for a student in the second year of university since the 1680’s. The original meaning of the word was “arguer”. The term has Greek roots, from two Greek words that have been artificially combined in English. The Greek “sophos” means “wise”, and “moros” means “foolish, dull”.

50. ___-Caps : SNO-
Sno-Caps are a brand of candy usually only available in movie theaters. Sno-caps have been around since the twenties, would you believe?

58. Protein acid, for short : AMINO
Amino acids are essential to life in many ways, not least of which is their use as the building blocks of proteins.

60. U.C.L.A. athlete : BRUIN
The UCLA Bruin mascots are Joe and Josephine Bruin, characters that have evolved over the years. There used to be “mean” Bruin mascots but they weren’t very popular with the fans, so now there are only “happy” Bruins at the games.

61. “If you ask me,” in texts : IMO
In my opinion (IMO).

62. Sainted ninth-century pope : LEO IV
Pope Leo IV succeeded Pope Sergius II in the year 847. After his death in 855 Leo IV was succeeded by Benedict III, although there was a medieval tradition that he was followed by Pope Joan, a woman disguising herself as a man.

64. Clean air org. : EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set up during the Nixon administration and began operation at the end of 1970.

65. Orange soda brand : FANTA
The soft drink “Fanta” has a very interesting history. As WWII approached, the Coca-Cola plant in Germany had trouble obtaining the ingredients it needed to continue production of the cola beverage, so the plant manager decided to create a new drink from what was available. The new beverage was built around whey (left over from cheese production) and pomace (left over after juice has been extracted from fruit). The inventor asked his colleagues to use their imagination (“Fantasie” in German) and come up with a name for the drink, so they piped up “Fanta!”

66. “Sailing to Byzantium” poet : YEATS
Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, for “inspired poetry” that gave “expression to a whole nation”. He was the first Irishman so honored.

“Sailing to Byzantium” is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, and one that almost every Irish teenager has to study in school.

Down
2. Interstellar clouds : NEBULAE
In astronomical terms a nebula is a cloud of dust and ionized gases (“nebula” is the Latin for “cloud”). Many nebulae form as gases collapse in on themselves under the influence of enormous gravitational forces. Ultimately these collapses can result in the creation of new stars.

3. ___ Bridge (former name of New York’s R.F.K. Bridge) : TRIBORO
The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in New York City is often referred to as the “Triboro”, recognition of the structure’s original name “The Triborough Bridge”. This name was given as the Triboro is actually a complex of three bridges that connects the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx. Built in 1936, the official name was changed to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in 2008.

6. Apple computer : IMAC
The iMac is a desktop computer platform from Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated.

7. Poet Ogden : NASH
The poet Ogden Nash was well known for his light and humorous verse. Try this one:

The one-L lama,
He’s a priest.
The two-L llama,
He’s a beast.
And I would bet
A silk pajama
There isn’t any
Three-L lllama.

10. “… blackbirds baked in ___” : A PIE
“Sing a Song of Sixpence” is an English nursery rhyme that dates back to the 1700s. In the rhyme there are a couple of lines that go :

Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie

This seems to be a reference to the practice in the 16th century of “baking” live birds into a pie for special occasions. When the crust was cut open the birds would fly away, much to the amusement of the diners.

11. Honeybunch or snookums : PET NAME
The term of endearment “snookums” comes from the family name “Snooks”, a name used in Britain in the 1800s for some hypothetical, unknown individual (as we would use the name “Joe Blow” perhaps).

13. Annual June honoree : DAD
Father’s Day was added as an official holiday in 1972, although bills to create the holiday had been with Congress since 1913. By rights, the holiday should be called “Fathers’ Day” (note the punctuation), but the Bill that was introduced in 1913 used the “Father’s Day” spelling, and that’s the one that has stuck.

21. Jazz style : BOP
“Bop” is a shortened form of “bebop”, a jazz style that dates back to the early 1940s.

26. ___ Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, once) : LEW
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s name at birth was Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor. He changed his name when he converted to Islam.

29. Gargantuan : BIG
Our term “gargantuan” meaning “enormous” comes from a series of five novels titled “The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel” written in the 1500s by François Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel are two giants in the tale, a father and a son.

30. Taiwanese-born director Lee : ANG
Taiwanese director Ang Lee sure has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, and “Brokeback Mountain”.

31. Charles of “Algiers,” 1938 : BOYER
The marvelous actor Charles Boyer was a success in French theater in the 1920s, and then a Hollywood star from the 1930s. In the thirties Boyer played mainly romantic leads, but my favorite role of his is the menacing male star in the 1944 thriller “Gaslight”. Boyer was married once, to British actress Pat Paterson, a marriage that lasted for 44 years. Boyer committed suicide just two days after his wife died in 1978.

32. “Alley ___!” : OOP
“Alley Oop” is a comic strip that ran for four decades starting in 1932. It was drawn by V. T. Hamlin.

French people, and circus acrobats in particular, use the phrase “allez hop!” as words of encouragement, sort of like our “let’s go!”. The phrase was anglicized to “alley oop”.

34. Luminous stellar explosion : SUPERNOVA
A nova is basically a star that suddenly gets much brighter, gradually returning to its original state weeks or even years later. The increased brightness is due to increased nuclear activity causing the star to pick up extra hydrogen from a neighboring celestial body. A supernova is very different. It is a very bright burst of light and energy, created when most of the material in a star explodes. The bright burst of a supernova is very short-lived compared to the sustained brightness of a nova.

36. Protestant denom. : BAP
One of the defining characteristic of a Baptist denomination within the Christian tradition is the “believer’s baptism”, the baptism of an individual who professes faith. Compare this to “infant baptism” which is the practice of baptizing infants soon after they are born.

37. Cheyenne’s home: Abbr. : WYO
Wyoming is the least populous state, and the tenth largest state in terms of area.

Cheyenne is the most populous city in Wyoming, and is the state capital. The city was settled in the 1860s when it was chosen as the point at which the Union Pacific Railroad would cross the Crow Creek river. The name of course was taken from the Native American Cheyenne nation that is indigenous to the Great Plains.

38. Cool, in old slang : HEP
The slang term “hep” meaning “cool” has the same meaning as the later derivative term “hip”. The origins of “hep” seem unclear, but it was adopted by jazz musicians of the early 1900s.

39. “___ News Sunday Morning” : CBS
The famed show “CBS News Sunday Morning” has been around since 1979 when it was co-created by the original host Charles Kuralt. Kuralt retired in 1994, and the current host Charles Osgood took over.

40. Attila, for one : HUN
In his day, Attila the Hun was the most feared enemy of the Roman Empire, until he died in 453. He was the leader of the Hunnic Empire of central Europe and was famous for invading much of the continent. However he never directly attacked Rome.

52. Rosés, e.g. : WINES
We’ve only be using the term “rosé wine” since 1983, would you believe, although the type of wine was drunk as far back as the days of Ancient Greece. Rosé wines became a fad in the sixties with the import of Lancers and Mateus from Portugal, sweet wines that were cleverly marketed to the public. I was fortunate enough to live in Provence in the South of France for a couple of years, and highly recommend Provençal wines, which really cannot be described as sweet. A few years ago I discovered some wonderful rosé wines from the Finger Lakes region in New York State that have similar characteristics, also worth a try. Sharing a bottle of rosé over lunch with my wife outside a Provençal restaurant. Wonderful memories …

55. Great Lake between Huron and Ontario : ERIE
Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the Great Lakes (Lake Ontario is the smallest). The lake takes its name from the Erie tribe of Native Americans that used to live along its southern shore. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, something for which nearby resident must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to the lake effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.

Lake Huron takes its name from the Huron Native American people that lived by its shores. Early French explorers often called the lake “La Mer Douce”, meaning “the freshwater sea”.

The Canadian province of Ontario takes its name from the Great Lake. In turn, Lake Ontario’s name is thought to be derived from “Ontari:io”, a Huron word meaning “great lake”.

56. Heavy instrument to march with : TUBA
The tuba is the lowest pitched of all the brass instruments, and one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra (usually there is just one tuba included in an orchestral line-up). “Tuba” is the Latin word for “trumpet, horn”.

58. 1936 candidate Landon : ALF
Alf Landon was the Governor of Kansas from 1933-37, and was the Republican Party’s nominee against FDR in the 1936 Presidential election. He is remembered as the candidate who “disappeared” after winning the nomination. He rarely traveled during the campaign, and made no appearances at all in its first two months. FDR famously won by a landslide, with Landon only winning the states of Maine and Vermont. He wasn’t even able to carry his home state of Kansas.

59. ___ culpa : MEA
Roman Catholics are very familiar with the Latin phrase “mea culpa” meaning “my fault”, as it is used in the Latin Mass. The additional term “mea maxima culpa” would translate as “my most grievous fault”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Suffix with differ : -ENT
4. Early American patriot Thomas : PAINE
9. Speedy : RAPID
14. Gen ___ (child of a 29-Across) : XER
15. Capital of Jordan : AMMAN
16. “William Tell,” for one : OPERA
17. Where: Lat. : UBI
18. Land that’s not inland : COAST
19. Gave a speeding ticket : CITED
20. Stereotypical entree at a campaign event : RUBBER CHICKEN
23. It’s transfused in a transfusion : BLOOD
24. Brits’ thank-yous : TAS
25. ___ carte : A LA
28. Powerful D.C. lobby : AARP
29. One born in the late 1940s or ’50s : BABY BOOMER
33. Prefix with conservative : NEO-
34. ___-Japanese War : SINO-
35. Lerner’s songwriting partner : LOEWE
36. Item carried by an Amish driver : BUGGY WHIP
39. Way underpriced : CHEAP
42. Ogled : EYED
43. Nothing ___ the truth : BUT
46. Farmer’s wish : BUMPER CROP
49. 10th grader: Abbr. : SOPH
50. ___-Caps : SNO-
51. Cheerleader’s cheer : RAH
52. Authored : WROTE
53. The starts of 20-, 29-, 36- and 46-Across, e.g., when repeated quickly in order : TONGUE TWISTER
58. Protein acid, for short : AMINO
60. U.C.L.A. athlete : BRUIN
61. “If you ask me,” in texts : IMO
62. Sainted ninth-century pope : LEO IV
63. Daily reading for a pope : BIBLE
64. Clean air org. : EPA
65. Orange soda brand : FANTA
66. “Sailing to Byzantium” poet : YEATS
67. Roll of green? : SOD

Down
1. Beyond the metro area : EXURBAN
2. Interstellar clouds : NEBULAE
3. ___ Bridge (former name of New York’s R.F.K. Bridge) : TRIBORO
4. Walked back and forth : PACED
5. Love personified : AMOR
6. Apple computer : IMAC
7. Poet Ogden : NASH
8. Thing : ENTITY
9. Absolutely dependable : ROCK SOLID
10. “… blackbirds baked in ___” : A PIE
11. Honeybunch or snookums : PET NAME
12. Rage : IRE
13. Annual June honoree : DAD
21. Jazz style : BOP
22. Taxi : CAB
26. ___ Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, once) : LEW
27. Live and breathe : ARE
29. Gargantuan : BIG
30. Taiwanese-born director Lee : ANG
31. Charles of “Algiers,” 1938 : BOYER
32. “Alley ___!” : OOP
34. Luminous stellar explosion : SUPERNOVA
36. Protestant denom. : BAP
37. Cheyenne’s home: Abbr. : WYO
38. Cool, in old slang : HEP
39. “___ News Sunday Morning” : CBS
40. Attila, for one : HUN
41. Love or rage : EMOTION
43. Wee ‘un’s footwear : BOOTIES
44. Lively, in music : UPTEMPO
45. In phrases, something to share or hit : THE ROAD
47. Dishcloth : RAG
48. A little on the heavy side : CHUBBY
49. 12th graders: Abbr. : SRS
52. Rosés, e.g. : WINES
54. “I’m ___!” : ON IT
55. Great Lake between Huron and Ontario : ERIE
56. Heavy instrument to march with : TUBA
57. Lose freshness, as a flower : WILT
58. 1936 candidate Landon : ALF
59. ___ culpa : MEA

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