0904-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 4 Sep 12, Tuesday

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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: Barry Franklin & Sara Kaplan
THEME: TWENTY-SEVEN … each of the theme answers refers to the number TWENTY-SEVEN:

17A. 62-Across to a mathematician : PERFECT CUBE
23A. 62-Across to an astronomer : MOONS OF URANUS
39A. 62-Across to a Yankees fan : WORLD SERIES WINS
50A. 62-Across to a student of Semitic languages : HEBREW LETTERS
62A. Age at which Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse died : TWENTY-SEVEN

COMPLETION TIME: 12m 12s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0


Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Latin word on a cornerstone : ANNO
Anno (plural “anni”) is the Latin for “year”.

5. ___-Saxon : ANGLO-
Germanic tribes invaded Great Britain from the early 5th century and created the nation that we now call England. The Anglo-Saxons, as they came to be called, held sway in the country until 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxons were descendants of three Germanic tribes:

– The Angles, from Angeln in Northern Germany (and the tribe that gave the name “England”).
– The Saxons, from Lower Saxony and Holland.
– The Jutes, from the Jutland peninsula in Denmark.

16. Org. for fillers and drillers : ADA
The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists and it now has more than 152,000 members.

17. 62-Across to a mathematician : PERFECT CUBE
The end result of multiplying a number by itself twice is called a “cube” (n x n x n). If the number that is cubed is an integer (i.e. a whole number) then the result is called a “perfect cube”. For example, the number 3 cubed is 27, and 27 is a perfect cube.

19. Kith’s companion : KIN
The word “kith” describes friends and acquaintances, and is used used in the phrase “kith and kin” meaning “friends and family”. “Kith” comes from an Old English word for “native country, home”, as the expression “kith and kin” was used originally to mean “country and kinsmen”.

20. Like some inclement weather : SLEETY
Sleet is a term used to describe two weather conditions. One is a shower of ice pellets, smaller than hail, and the second is a mixture of rain and snow, with the snow melting as it falls. It’s the second definition that I have always used …

23. 62-Across to an astronomer : MOONS OF URANUS
All of the twenty-seven moons of the planet Uranus are named for characters from literature, characters created by William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The five major moons are so large that they would be considered planets in their own right if they were orbiting the sun directly. The names of these five moons are:

– Miranda (from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”)
– Ariel (from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”)
– Umbriel (from Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”)
– Titania (from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)
– Oberon (from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)

28. Federal biomedical agcy. : NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is made up of 27 different institutes that coordinate their research and services. Examples of member institutes are the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Aging.

30. Olive genus : OLEA
Oleum (plural: olea) is the Latin word for “oil”. The term oleum is used for a whole host of pharmaceutical oils, extracted from both plant and animal sources.

39. 62-Across to a Yankees fan : WORLD SERIES WINS
The New York Yankees baseball team won its first World Series in 1923. The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles in all, most recently in 2009.

43. Video game manufacturer : SEGA
Sega is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Tokyo. Sega actually started out 1940 in the US as Standard Games, located in Honolulu. The owners moved the operation to Tokyo in 1951 and renamed the company to Service Games. The name “Sega” is a combination of the first two letters of the words “Se-rvice” and “Ga-mes”.

45. Province on Hudson Bay: Abbr. : ONT
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”. Ontario is home to the nation’s capital of Ottawa as well as Toronto, Canada’s most populous city (and capital of the province).

Hudson Bay in northern Canada is the second largest bay in the world, after the Bay of Bengal. Hudson Bay was named by English explorers after Henry Hudson who explored the area in 1610 on his ship “Discovery”. Hudson’s crew mutinied during that voyage and set Hudson and his officers adrift in a small boat. It is presumed that the castaways didn’t survive for very long.

47. Princely inits. : HRH
His or Her Royal Highness (HRH).

49. Summer, in about one-sixth of Canada : ETE
One might spend the summer (été) under the sun (le soleil) in the French-speaking parts of Canada.

50. 62-Across to a student of Semitic languages : HEBREW LETTERS
The word “Semitic” comes from the Greek for Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. A Semite is a one of a large list of peoples, from the Assyrians and Babylonians to the Hebrews. The term “anti-Semite” however, almost always refer to anti-Jewish sentiment.

56. Elis’ school : YALE
Eli is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.

57. “___ the land of the free …” : O’ER
The words “o’er the land of the free” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key. The lyrics were written first as a poem by Key, inspired by witnessing the bombarding by the British of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The words were then set to the tune of a popular British drinking song penned by John Stafford Smith called “The Anacreontic Song”, with the Anacreontic Society being a men’s club in London.

58. Drum kit components : HI-HATS
In a drum kit, a hi-hat is that pair of cymbals that sit on a stand and are played by using a foot pedal. The top cymbal is raised and lowered by the foot creating the sound.

62. Age at which Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse died : TWENTY-SEVEN
The “27 Club” is a group of famous rock and blues musicians who all died at the same age. The more famous club members are Janis Joplin, Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones), Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and most recently the troubled British performer Amy Winehouse.

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

65. Sexy woman in a Beatles song : SADIE
“Sexy Sadie” is a song written by John Lennon and released by the Beatles in 1968. Lennon wrote the song in India, and its original title was “Maharishi”.

66. Inscribed pillar : STELA
Stelae were used all over the world, sometimes as territorial markers and sometimes to commemorate military victories. In later times stelae were commonly erected as commemorative markers in graveyards or other religious sites.

68. Bandleader Kay : KYSER
Kay Kyser was popular bandleader in the thirties and forties.

69. Extinct carnivore, familiarly : T REX
The Tyrannosaurus rex (usually written T. rex) was a spectacular looking dinosaur. Tyrannosaurus comes from the Greek words “tyrannos” (tyrant) and “sauros” (lizard), and the “rex” is of course Latin for “king”. They were big boys, measuring 42 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hips, and weighing 7.5 tons.

Down
1. iPad users’ purchases : APPS
You can download lots of applications (apps) if you have an iPad, say …

2. “Joy to the World,” for one : NOEL
“Noël” is the French word for the Christmas season, ultimately coming from the Latin word for “birth”, “natalis”. Noel has come to be used as an alternative name for a Christmas carol.

The English theologian Isaac Watts was also a celebrated composer of hymns, and is known as the “Father of English Hymnody”. The example of his work that is probably most familiar is the Christmas classic “Joy to the World”, for which he wrote the words.

3. German city noted for trials : NUREMBERG
Nürnberg (anglicized as Nuremberg) is a Bavarian city located north of Munich. Historically the city is remembered for the huge Nazi Nuremberg rallies, and the Nuremberg trials that took place at the end of WWII. Nürnberg is sometimes confused with the city of Nürburg in the western part of Germany, famous for the Nürburgring race track.

4. Monteverdi opera hero : ORFEO
Monteverdi was a true pioneer. “L’Orfeo” is one of the first operas ever composed, first performed in 1607. It is still performed regularly to this day.

5. Helm location in a sloop : AFT
Sloops and cutters are sailboats, and each has just one mast. One major difference between the two types of vessel is that the mast on a cutter is set much further aft than the mast on a sloop.

6. Candy wafer manufacturer : NECCO
Necco Wafers are the best known product line of the candy manufacturer called the New England Confectionery Company. The firm’s name is abbreviated to NECCO, an acronym that became synonymous with the wafers.

8. British party : LABOUR
The Labour Party is one of the two main political movements in the UK, the other being the Conservative Party. The Labour Party would be described as centre-left in today’s Western politics. Tony Blair led Labour in government from 1997 until his resignation in 2007, after which his colleague Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister. The Labour Party was ousted in a general election in 2010, at which point the Conservatives came into power in a coalition with the UK’s third largest party, the Liberal Democrats.

9. Cry to a torero : OLE
“Toreador” is an old Spanish word for a bullfighter, but it’s a term not used any more in Spain nor in Latin America. In English we use the term “toreador”, but in Spanish a bullfighter is a “torero”.

11. Closing bid? : ADIEU
“Adieu” is the French for “goodbye”, or “farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”.

22. Nyasaland, now : MALAWI
Malawi is in southeast Africa and is one of the least-developed countries in the world. The population has a low life expectancy and a high infant mortality rate. HIV/AIDS is a major killer. The British colonized the area in 1891, at which point it was called Nyasaland. Malawi became independent in 1964.

26. Prominent Nixon feature : JOWL
President Richard Milhous Nixon used “Milhous” in his name in honor of his mother, Hannah Milhous who married Francis Nixon. Richard was born in a house in Yorba Linda, California. You can visit that house today as it is on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. It’s a really interesting way to spend a few hours if you ever get to Yorba Linda …

31. Politico whose name is an anagram of GAOLER : AL GORE
Al Gore was born in Washington DC, the son of Al Gore, Sr., then a US Representative for the state of Tennessee. After deferring his military service in order to attend Harvard, the younger Gore became eligible for the draft on graduation. Many of his classmates found ways of avoiding the draft, but he decided to serve and even took the “tougher” option of joining the army as an enlisted man. Actor Tommy Lee Jones shared a house with Gore in college and says that his buddy told him that even if he could find a way around the draft, someone with less options than him would have to go in his place and that was just wrong.

36. Candy item that comes in five basic flavors : LIFE SAVER
Life Savers were introduced in 1912. The candy was created by Clarence Crane who contracted a pill manufacturer to press his formulation for mints into shape. The pill manufacturer found that the pieces of candy were produced more easily if a hole was stamped in the middle. The Life Saver name was chosen as the candy had the same shape as lifebuoys.

40. Bit of force : DYNE
An erg is a unit of energy or mechanical work. “Erg” comes from the Greek word “ergon” meaning “work”. A dyne is a unit of force. The name “dyne” comes from the Greek “dynamis” meaning “power, force”. Ergs and dynes are related to each other in that one erg is the amount of energy needed to move a force of one dyne over a distance of one centimeter.

48. Carol ___, five-time world figure-skating champion : HEISS
Carol Heiss was a very successful American figure skater, winning five World Championships and an Olympic gold in 1960. Heiss was the first female skater to land a double axel jump.

50. Striped scavenger : HYENA
The hyena is a carnivorous mammal found in Africa and Asia. In evolutionary terms, hyenas are closely related to felines, however in behavioral terms they most resemble canines.

53. Yorkshire city : LEEDS
I went to school not far from Leeds, in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Leeds was a major center for the production and trading of wool, and then with the onset mechanization it became a natural hub for manufacture of textiles.

54. Banks or Els : ERNIE
First baseman Ernie Banks was known as “Mr. Cub”, and played his entire 19-year professional career with the Chicago Cubs.

Ernie Els is a South African golfer. He’s a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. Els has a child who suffers from autism and the golfer has been very effective in raising money for charities that focus on the condition.

55. Love for Scarlett : RHETT
In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind”, when Rhett Butler finally walks out on Scarlett O’Hara he utters the words “My dear, I don’t give a damn”. Most of us are more familiar with the words spoken by Clark Gable in the film adaption of the story: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

60. Pretzels and chips, in adspeak : SNAX
Pretzels originated in Europe and are especially popular in Southern Germany where a pretzel is known as “Brezel”. Pretzels were introduced into the US in the 1800s by immigrants from Germany and Switzerland who came to be known over here as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

63. Thrice, in prescriptions : TER
“Ter” is the Latin word for “three”, commonly used in the medical world on prescriptions as part of the expression “ter in die”. “Ter in die” is Latin for “three times a day”, abbreviated to “TID”. “Bis in die” (BID) would be twice a day, and “quater in die” (QID) would be four times a day.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Latin word on a cornerstone : ANNO
5. ___-Saxon : ANGLO-
10. Drafts may be served on it : TAP
13. Serves a draft, e.g. : POURS
15. Undomesticated : FERAL
16. Org. for fillers and drillers : ADA
17. 62-Across to a mathematician : PERFECT CUBE
19. Kith’s companion : KIN
20. Like some inclement weather : SLEETY
21. Money V.I.P. : CFO
22. What nonparallel lines do eventually : MEET
23. 62-Across to an astronomer : MOONS OF URANUS
26. Elbow : JAB
28. Federal biomedical agcy. : NIH
29. Family member: Abbr. : REL
30. Olive genus : OLEA
32. ___-black : COAL-
35. Usefulness : VALUE
39. 62-Across to a Yankees fan : WORLD SERIES WINS
42. Long-limbed : LEGGY
43. Video game manufacturer : SEGA
44. “___ ain’t broke …” : IF IT
45. Province on Hudson Bay: Abbr. : ONT
47. Princely inits. : HRH
49. Summer, in about one-sixth of Canada : ETE
50. 62-Across to a student of Semitic languages : HEBREW LETTERS
56. Elis’ school : YALE
57. “___ the land of the free …” : O’ER
58. Drum kit components : HI-HATS
61. Sense of self : EGO
62. Age at which Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse died : TWENTY-SEVEN
64. Prefix with con : NEO-
65. Sexy woman in a Beatles song : SADIE
66. Inscribed pillar : STELA
67. The law has a long one : ARM
68. Bandleader Kay : KYSER
69. Extinct carnivore, familiarly : T REX

Down
1. iPad users’ purchases : APPS
2. “Joy to the World,” for one : NOEL
3. German city noted for trials : NUREMBERG
4. Monteverdi opera hero : ORFEO
5. Helm location in a sloop : AFT
6. Candy wafer manufacturer : NECCO
7. Stern and brusque : GRUFF
8. British party : LABOUR
9. Cry to a torero : OLE
10. Already occupied, as a seat : TAKEN
11. Closing bid? : ADIEU
12. Part of an outfit : PANTS
14. Determined to accomplish : SET ON
18. Jaded ones : CYNICS
22. Nyasaland, now : MALAWI
24. Parts of an outfit : SHOES
25. Guns, as an engine : REVS
26. Prominent Nixon feature : JOWL
27. Skin-care product ingredient : ALOE
31. Politico whose name is an anagram of GAOLER : AL GORE
33. “___ you O.K.?” : ARE
34. Miner’s hat feature : LIGHT
36. Candy item that comes in five basic flavors : LIFE SAVER
37. Metric ___ : UNIT
38. Sunrise direction in Spain : ESTE
40. Bit of force : DYNE
41. Ribald : EARTHY
46. Like most roads : TWO-WAY
48. Carol ___, five-time world figure-skating champion : HEISS
50. Striped scavenger : HYENA
51. Beaverlike : EAGER
52. Come to fruition : BLOOM
53. Yorkshire city : LEEDS
54. Banks or Els : ERNIE
55. Love for Scarlett : RHETT
59. TV component : TELE-
60. Pretzels and chips, in adspeak : SNAX
62. “For shame!” : TSK
63. Thrice, in prescriptions : TER

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