0710-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 10 Jul 14, Thursday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: John Guzzetta
THEME: Silent Start … today’s themed answers all need the word SILENT in front, in order to make sense of the clue. An additional twist is the word crossing the first letter of each themed answer has a SILENT letter at that crossing point:

1A. Takeover : COUP (has a SILENT P)
4D. Business associate uninvolved in management : (SILENT) PARTNER

5A. Hit 2006 horror film based on a video game series : (SILENT) HILL
5D. What a girl becomes after marriage, in an old expression : HONEST WOMAN (has a SILENT H)

9A. Curses : DAMNS (has a SILENT N)
12D. Popular Christmas carol : (SILENT) NIGHT

50A. “Every good boy does fine,” e.g. : MNEMONIC (has a silent M)
50D. Almost any pre-1927 Hollywood production : (SILENT) MOVIE

54A. Seminal 1962 book on the environment : (SILENT) SPRING
24D. Great Hall locale : ELLIS ISLAND (has a SILENT S)

63A. Some passive-aggressive behavior : (SILENT) TREATMENT
47D. Tune in : LISTEN (has a SILENT T)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 10m 22s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Takeover : COUP
A coup d’état (often just “coup”) is the sudden overthrow of a government, and comes from the French for “stroke of state”. The Swiss German word “putsch” is sometimes used instead of “coup”, with “Putsch” translating literally as “sudden blow”.

5. Hit 2006 horror film based on a video game series : (SILENT) HILL
Silent Hill is a series of video games that fall into the survival horror genre. The video game was adapted into a 2006 film of the same name.

14. Seltzer lead-in : ALKA
The antacid known as Alka-Seltzer used an animated character called Speedy in its adverts from 1951 to 1964. Speedy had an Alka-Seltzer tablet as a body and another as a hat. His job was to get out the message that Alka-Seltzer provided speedy relief!

15. Cousin of a cor anglais : OBOE
The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”. When you hear an orchestra tuning before a performance you’ll note (pun intended!) that the oboe starts off the process by playing an “A”. The rest of the musicians in turn tune to that oboe’s “A”.

The English Horn is also known by its French name “Cor Anglais”, and is a double-reed woodwind instrument.

16. Lock combination? : PLAIT
Locks of hair might be arranged in a plait.

20. Art lovers : AESTHETES
An aesthete (also “esthete”) is someone who appreciates beauty in art or in nature. Often someone described as an aesthete might show excessive or affected admiration of beauty.

21. German chancellor between Schmidt and Schröder : KOHL
Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of West Germany when the Berlin Wall came down leading to German reunification. Kohl was Chancellor of West Germany from 1982 to 1990, and Chancellor of Germany from 1990 to 1998. That made Kohl the longest serving Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck.

26. Fangorn denizens : ENTS
Ents are those tree-like creatures that live in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth in his series of books “The Lord of the Rings”. “Ent” is an Old English word for “giant”.

Nowadays we use “denizen” to mean simply a resident, but historically a denizen was an immigrant to whom certain rights had been granted, something like today’s “resident alien”.

28. Spacecraft designer ___ Musk : ELON
Elon Musk is successful businessman who has founded or led some very high-profile companies, namely PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX.

29. 3-Down issuer : CZAR
(3D. Decree : UKASE)
The term czar (also tsar) is a Slavic word that was first used as a title by Simeon I of Bulgaria in 913 AD. “Czar” is derived from the word “Caesar”, which was synonymous with “emperor” at that time.

34. Start of a director’s cry : LIGHTS
Lights, camera, action!

38. ___ point : DEW
The dew point is a temperature, the temperature to which humid air must be cooled in order for water vapor to condense. We call the condensed water “dew”.

39. Buster Keaton hat : PORK PIE
The pork pie hat originated in the mid-1800s. It is round, usually made of felt, and has a flat top. When first introduced it was a woman’s hat, but then men grabbed hold of it …

Buster Keaton was a comic actor, most famous for his work during the silent era. Keaton starred in and co-directed the 1926 silent comedy “The General”, lauded by some as the greatest movie of all time.

42. Once in a blue moon : SELDOM
As there is a full moon once every four weeks, approximately monthly, there are usually twelve full moons in any given year. However, every 2-3 years, depending on the phase of the moon at the beginning of the calendar year, there may be a thirteenth full moon. The “extra” full moon is called a “blue moon”, although no one seems to really know why the term “blue” is used, as far as I can tell. Which of the thirteen full moons that is designated as the blue moon varies depending on tradition. My favorite definition is from the Farmer’s Almanac. It states that as each of the seasons normally has three full moons (twelve divided by the four seasons), then the season with four full moons is designated as “special”, then the THIRD (and not the fourth) full moon in that “special” season is the blue moon. Complicated, huh?

46. JFK-to-TLV option : EL AL
El Al Israel Airlines is the flag carrier of Israel. The term “el al” translates from Hebrew as “to the skies”.

The Idlewild Golf Course was taken over by the city of New York in 1943 and construction started on a new airport to serve the metropolis and relieve congestion at La Guardia. The Idlewild name still persists, even though the airport was named after Major General Alexander E. Anderson from the first days of the project. When the facility started operating in 1948 it was known as New York International Airport, Anderson Field. It was renamed to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in 1963, one month after the President was assassinated.

Ben-Gurion International (TLV) is Israel’s main airport, and is located in the city of Lod just a few miles southeast of Tel Aviv. The airport is named for David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister.

48. Kind of paste : MISO
Miso is the name of the seasoning that makes the soup. Basic miso seasoning is made by fermenting rice, barley and soybeans with salt and a fungus (!) to produce a paste. The paste can be added to stock to make miso soup, or perhaps to flavor tofu.

50. “Every good boy does fine,” e.g. : MNEMONIC
In the world of music, EGBDF are the notes on the lines of the treble clef. The notes are often remembered with a mnemonic such as “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” or “Every Good Boy Does Fine”.

54. Seminal 1962 book on the environment : (SILENT) SPRING
DDT is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (don’t forget now!). DDT was used with great success to control disease-carrying insects during WWII, and when made available for use after the war it became by far the most popular pesticide. And then Rachel Carson published her famous book “Silent Spring”, suggesting there was a link between DDT and diminishing populations of certain wildlife. It was the public outcry sparked by the book, and reports of links between DDT and cancer, that led to the ban on the use of the chemical in 1972. That ban is touted as the main reason that the bald eagle was rescued from near extinction.

59. Company providing financial assistance to college students : SALLIE MAE
“Sallie Mae” is a nickname for SLM Corporation, created in 1972 by the US government as the Student Loan Marketing Association. By 2004 the government had severed all its ties with Sallie Mae, and today SLM is basically a profit-focused lender.

64. Fatuous : INANE
Our word “inane”, meaning silly or lacking substance, comes from the Latin “inanitis” meaning “empty space”.

65. Pizazz : ELAN
Our word “élan” was imported from French, in which language the word has a similar meaning to ours i.e “style” or “flair”.

66. Yours, in Tours : A TOI
“À toi” is the French term for “yours”, when talking to someone with whom one is familiar. “À toi” literally means “to you”.

Tours is the largest city in the Centre region of France. It is said that the people of Tours speak the “purest” form of French in the whole country, and when spoken by a local it is also said to be free of any accent.

67. Car with a “rolling dome” speedometer : EDSEL
The Edsel brand of automobile was named for Edsel, son of Henry Ford. Sadly, the name “Edsel” has become synonymous with “failure”, which was no fault of Edsel himself who had died several years before the Edsel line was introduced.

68. Times Sq. watcher : NYPD
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest municipal police force in the country. The department’s roots go back as far at 1625 when there was an eight-man night watch in the days when New York was still known as New Amsterdam. Several disparate forces with policing responsibility were amalgamated in 1844 to form the New York City Police Department, signalling the end of the night watch force that had existed for over 200 years.

Times Square in New York City of course isn’t a square at all, but rather a triangle. When the New York Times newspaper opened new headquarters in the area in 1904, the city agreed to the name “Times Square”, changing it from Longacre Square.

69. Condé ___ : NAST
Condé Nast has a very large portfolio of publications, including “Vogue”, “GQ”, “House and Garden”, “Golf Digest”, “Wired”, “Vanity Fair” and “The New Yorker”.

Down
1. Rio residences : CASAS
“Casa” is Portuguese for “house”.

Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil (after São Paulo). “Rio de Janeiro” translates as “January River”. The name reflects the discovery of the bay on which Rio sits, on New Years Day in 1502.

2. Dweller in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán : OLMEC
The Olmec were an ancient civilization that lived in the lowlands of south-central Mexico from about 1500 BC to about 400 BC.

3. Decree : UKASE
In Imperial Russia, a ukase was a proclamation issued by the government or the tsar.

9. Vaccine combo : DPT
The DPT vaccine is combination vaccine providing protection against diphtheria (D), pertussis (P, also known as whooping cough) and tetanus (T).

10. One way to prepare chicken : A LA KING
A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.

11. Jules Massenet opéra comique : MANON
Manon is a comic opera by Jules Massenet that was first performed in 1884.

12. Popular Christmas carol : (SILENT) NIGHT
The beautiful Christmas Carol “Silent Night” was first performed in Austria in 1818, with words by a priest, Father Joseph Mohr, and melody by an Austrian headmaster, Franz Xaver Gruber. The carol was of course in German and called “Stille Nacht”. The English translation that we use today was provided to us by an American bishop, John Freeman Young from Florida, in 1859.

24. Great Hall locale : ELLIS ISLAND
Ellis Island is an exclave of New York City that is geographically located within Jersey City, New Jersey. The name comes from a Samuel Ellis who owned the island around the time of the American Revolution.

25. Mousseline de ___ (fabric) : SOIE
Mousseline de soie (“silk muslin” in French) is a fine crisp fabric made from silk, or perhaps nowadays from rayon.

27. Rugby official, whether male or female : SIR
Tradition holds that all officials in a rugby match are addressed as “sir”, whether they are male or female.

29. What there may be a lot of interest in, for short? : CDS
A certificate of deposit (CD) is like a less-flexible and higher-paying savings account. Instead of depositing money into a savings account and earning interest periodically, one can open a CD. With a CD one deposits a minimum amount of money but must leave it there for a specified length of time. In return for committing the funds for a fixed period, one is given a higher interest rate than a savings account and can redeem that interest and the initial deposit when the term has expired. CDs are relatively low-risk investments as they are FDIC insured, just like savings accounts.

30. Zodiac starter? : ZEE
The first letter in the word “Zodiac” is a letter Z (zee).

33. What a punch may result in, briefly : TKO
In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

36. Carry-on inspector, in brief : TSA
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created in 2001, soon after the 9/11 attacks.

39. Preppy wear : POLO
René Lacoste was a French tennis player who went into the clothing business, and came up with a more comfortable shirt that players could use. This became known as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted for use in the sport of polo, the shirts also became known as “polo shirts”. And then the “golf shirt” is basically the same thing.

40. Poe title character : PYM
American author Edgar Allen Poe was noted mainly for his short stories and only wrote one complete novel in his short life, namely “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”. The novel recounts the adventures of a young man who journeys to the South Seas aboard four different vessels. The book was to become an inspiration for the more famous “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville.

43. Lord’s estate : DEMESNE
All of the land owned and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system was called “the demesne”. The demesne did not include land owned by the lord that was managed by tenants.

49. Narrow projection of land into the sea : SPIT
A spit is a sandy projection into the sea that has been formed by deposition. The term comes from the pointed rod used for roasting meat, also called a spit.

52. Pound and Stone : EZRAS
Ezra Pound was an American poet who spent much of his life wandering the world, spending years in London, Paris, and Italy. In Italy, Pound’s work and sympathies for Mussolini’s regime led to his arrest at the end of the war. His major work was the epic, albeit incomplete, “The Cantos”. This epic poem is divided into 120 sections, each known as a canto.

Ezra Stone was an American director and actor. As an actor, Stone is best remembered as the teenage character Henry in the radio sitcom “The Aldrich Family” that aired from the thirties to the fifties. Stone was well into his thirties when he stopped playing the awkward and mischievous teenager.

53. Singer Simon : CARLY
Carly Simon is a fabulous singer-songwriter who had her break in the 1970s with a series of hit records including “You’re So Vain” and “Nobody Does It Better”. Simon was married for over ten years to fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor.

55. “… ___ man with seven wives” : I MET A
You might remember the nursery rhyme “As I was going to St. Ives” from the third “Die Hard” movie, “Die Hard With a Vengeance”, in which it is treated as a riddle. The rhyme goes like this:

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Each wife had seven sacks
Each sack had seven cats
Each cat had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, wives
How many were going to St Ives?

There is more than one place called St. Ives in England, but most think the reference is to the seaside town of St. Ives in Cornwall. By the way, the answer to the riddle is “one”, because just the narrator was going to St. Ives, and the rest were characters he met along the way.

56. Certain iPods : NANOS
The iPod Nano is the successor to the iPod Mini and was introduced to the market at the end of 2005. There have been seven versions of the Nano to date and the current Nano as well as playing tunes is an FM player, records voice memos, has a pedometer and can connect with external devices (like a heart monitor, maybe) using Bluetooth technology.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Takeover : COUP
5. Hit 2006 horror film based on a video game series : (SILENT) HILL
9. Curses : DAMNS
14. Seltzer lead-in : ALKA
15. Cousin of a cor anglais : OBOE
16. Lock combination? : PLAIT
17. Brains : SMARTNESS
19. Having a bite : TANGY
20. Art lovers : AESTHETES
21. German chancellor between Schmidt and Schröder : KOHL
22. Film series : SCENES
23. Probes : SEES INTO
26. Fangorn denizens : ENTS
28. Spacecraft designer ___ Musk : ELON
29. 3-Down issuer : CZAR
32. Cleverness : WIT
34. Start of a director’s cry : LIGHTS
38. ___ point : DEW
39. Buster Keaton hat : PORK PIE
41. Milk : USE
42. Once in a blue moon : SELDOM
44. Cries of exasperation : OYS
45. Breaking a world record, e.g. : FEAT
46. JFK-to-TLV option : EL AL
48. Kind of paste : MISO
50. “Every good boy does fine,” e.g. : MNEMONIC
54. Seminal 1962 book on the environment : (SILENT) SPRING
58. Exude : OOZE
59. Company providing financial assistance to college students : SALLIE MAE
61. Chapter part : VERSE
63. Some passive-aggressive behavior : (SILENT) TREATMENT
64. Fatuous : INANE
65. Pizazz : ELAN
66. Yours, in Tours : A TOI
67. Car with a “rolling dome” speedometer : EDSEL
68. Times Sq. watcher : NYPD
69. Condé ___ : NAST

Down
1. Rio residences : CASAS
2. Dweller in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán : OLMEC
3. Decree : UKASE
4. Business associate uninvolved in management : (SILENT) PARTNER
5. What a girl becomes after marriage, in an old expression : HONEST WOMAN
6. Sarcastic “Sure you can!” : I BET!
7. Squanders : LOSES
8. Tenant : LESSEE
9. Vaccine combo : DPT
10. One way to prepare chicken : A LA KING
11. Jules Massenet opéra comique : MANON
12. Popular Christmas carol : (SILENT) NIGHT
13. Pen, in Paris : STYLO
18. Segue word : THEN
24. Great Hall locale : ELLIS ISLAND
25. Mousseline de ___ (fabric) : SOIE
27. Rugby official, whether male or female : SIR
29. What there may be a lot of interest in, for short? : CDS
30. Zodiac starter? : ZEE
31. Punch : AWL
33. What a punch may result in, briefly : TKO
35. Rose, e.g. : HUE
36. Carry-on inspector, in brief : TSA
37. Collector’s desire : SET
39. Preppy wear : POLO
40. Poe title character : PYM
43. Lord’s estate : DEMESNE
45. Overseer : FOREMAN
47. Tune in : LISTEN
49. Narrow projection of land into the sea : SPIT
50. Almost any pre-1927 Hollywood production : (SILENT) MOVIE
51. Ceaselessly : NO END
52. Pound and Stone : EZRAS
53. Singer Simon : CARLY
55. “… ___ man with seven wives” : I MET A
56. Certain iPods : NANOS
57. “Is that clear?” : GET IT?
60. Big step : LEAP
62. Reef dweller : EEL

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5 thoughts on “0710-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 10 Jul 14, Thursday”

  1. Bill,

    I think you missed one of the theme elements. The silent "C" of "CZAR" is used as part of the answer for 29 Down: "Silent CD's".

    I had never heard of such a thing, but if you do a Google search, you will find descriptions. If your car has a CD player, you can jury-rig it to accept input from an MP3 player, but the process requires that, at the same time, you also play back a totally silent CD.

  2. Upon further reflection, I have decided that "Silent CD's" was not intended to be one of the theme answers; if it had been, the clue would have been worded differently.

  3. @Rick
    Thanks for spotting that "silent S/T" error. Another case of more haste, less speed on my part. All fixed now.

    @Sarah
    I am afraid that you have the advantage over me. I've never seen "Manon".

    @Dave
    Yep, I think your "further reflection" is on the money 🙂

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