1226-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 26 Dec 14, Friday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
14. One who gets upset twice? : SORE LOSER
Someone who loses suffers an upset, and if that person gets upset about the upset, then he or she is a sore loser … and upset twice!

17. Ladylove : INAMORATA
“Inamorata” is an Italian term that we’ve imported into English. It describes a female lover. An “innamorato” is a male lover.

18. Love ballad from the 1973 album “Goats Head Soup” : ANGIE
For my money, “Angie” is the greatest ballad ever performed by the Rolling Stones. Despite rumors to the contrary, “Angie” doesn’t refer to a particular woman. If fact, songwriter Keith Richard says that “Angie” is a pseudonym for heroin, and the lyrics tell of his efforts to get off the drug at a detox facility in Switzerland.

19. Way to bear arms : AKIMBO
Akimbo is such a lovely word, I think (as in “arms akimbo”). I failed to dig up anything too exciting about the term’s etymology. It seems to stem from Middle English, “in kekbowe” or “on kenbow” meaning “bend in a curve”.

20. Frank Capra title character : MR DEEDS
“Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” is a great Frank Capra film released in 1936, starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The movie is an adaptation of the short story called “Opera Hat” by Clarence Budington Kelland, which had been published a year earlier. The storyline is all about a relatively poor man (Mr. Deeds) who inherits millions of dollars. Mr. Deeds heads for New York City and is chased around by a devious reporter looking for an inside scoop.

I can’t tell you how many of Frank Capra’s movies are on my list of all-time favorites. He directed such classics as “It Happened One Night”, “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”, “Lost Horizon”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, “Meet John Doe”, “Arsenic and Old Lace” and the holiday favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Capra also did his bit during WWII, enlisting just a few days after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Given his great talent, and the fact that he enlisted at the relatively advanced age of 44, the US Army put him to work directing 11 documentary war films in the “Why We Fight” series, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

22. Oscar nominee Rowlands : GENA
Gena Rowlands is an actress best known for the films made with her husband, actor and director John Cassavetes. More recently, Rowlands played a lead role opposite James Garner in the weepy, weepy 2004 film “The Notebook”. “The Notebook” was directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes. Rowlands was nominated for Oscars for her performances in two films: “Gloria” (1980) and “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974).

25. Bobs, e.g. : DOS
A “bob cut” is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s a “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …

27. Vessels of the Napoleonic Wars : SLOOPS
Sloops-of-war were warship in the British Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries. Sloops-of-war were quite different from civilian vessels called sloops. The warships had a single gun deck with perhaps up to 18 guns in total.

29. Silent “ick” : MOUE
The term “moue” comes from French, and means a small grimace or a pout.

39. Page with many views : OP-ED
Op-ed is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

45. Maximum on a hurricane wind scale : FIVE
The Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale was developed in 1971 by Herbert Saffir, a civil engineer, and Bob Simpson, who back then was the director of the US National Hurricane Center. Saffir came up with the first version of the 1-5 scale, showing anticipated damage to structures. Simpson added the impact of storm surge and flooding.

48. Caduceus carrier : HERMES
Hermes was the Greek god of transitions and boundaries, one who intercedes between mortals and the divine. He could move freely between the mortal and divine worlds and so was regarded as the messenger of the gods. The Roman equivalent to Hermes was the god Mercury.

The icon known as the caduceus is a staff around which are twisted two serpents and which has two wings at the top. The caduceus was carried by the Greek god Hermes. The traditional symbol for the medical profession was the rod of Asclepius, a Greek god associated with healing and medicine. The rod of Asclepius is similar to the caduceus, being a staff with a single serpent-entwined. Some medical organizations use the caduceus as a symbol, apparently due to confusion that dates by to the its mistaken use by the US Army Medical Corps in 1902.

50. Soft white mineral : BORAX
Borax is also known as sodium borate, and is a salt of boric acid. Borax is a white powder that dissolves easily in water. The compound has many uses, for example as an antifungal agent and an antiseptic. Actor and future US president Ronald Reagan used to tout 20 Mule Team Borax that was used as a laundry product.

51. Operation Neptune Spear group : NAVY SEALS
SEAL is an acronym used by the US Navy’s SEa, Air and Land teams. The SEALs were born out of the Navy’s special warfare groups from WWII, like the Underwater Demolition Teams and the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons. The Navy SEAL unit was established soon after President Kennedy’s famous speech in which he announced the plan to put a man on the moon, as in the same speech the president allocated $100m of funding to strengthen special operations forces. The Navy used some of this money to set up guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units, which soon became the SEALs.

The remarkable mission that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 was carried out by Navy Seals. The mission’s codename was Operation Neptune Spear.

54. Like aspen leaves : OVATE
The “quaking” aspen tree is so called because the structure of the leaves causes them to move easily in the wind, to “tremble, quake”.

55. Stand-up guy Dave : CHAPPELLE
Dave Chapelle is a stand-up comedian who has also had some roles in big movies, like “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Con Air”. Chappelle lives on a 65-acre farm outside Yellow Springs, Ohio, the town where his father lived when Dave was growing up in Washington, D.C.

56. First inert gas made into a compound : XENON
Xenon was the first of the noble gases to be made into a compound, which was somewhat remarkable in that the noble gases were thought by many to be completely inert, nonreactive.

58. Instrument in Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000” : SAX
“Pennsylvania 6-5000″ is a classic swing song that was famously recorded by Glenn Miller in 1940. The Glenn Miller Orchestra often played in the Cafe Rouge in New York City’s Hotel Pennsylvania. The hotel’s phone was Pennsylvania 6-5000.

Down
1. Often-grated cheese : ASIAGO
Asiago is a crumbly cheese, named after the region in northeastern Italy from where it originates.

2. Game played by British schoolkids : CONKERS
We used to love playing conkers as kids. A “conker” is the seed of a horse chestnut tree. We used to collect the conkers and make a whole through the middle. We’d then thread the conker onto a piece of string. The idea was to strike each other’s conker until one broke.

5. John Deere rival : TORO
Toro is a manufacturer of mainly lawn mowers and snow removal equipment based in Bloomington, Minnesota. The company was started in 1914 to build tractor engines.

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”.

6. Ryder Cup side : USA
The Ryder Cup trophy was donated to the game of golf by Samuel Ryder, an English entrepreneur. Ryder made his money selling garden seeds in small packets. He only took up golf when he was in his fifties but became quite the enthusiast and eventually donated the trophy in 1927, when it was valued at 100 guineas.

7. URL ending : NET
The .net domain was one of the six original generic top-level domains specified. The complete original list is:

– .com (commercial enterprise)
– .net (entity involved in network infrastructure e.g. an ISP)
– .mil (US military)
– .org (not-for-profit organization)
– .gov (US federal government entity)
– .edu (college-level educational institution)

Internet addresses (like NYTCrossword.com and LAXCrossword.com) are more correctly called Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

8. Record holders of old : GRAMOPHONES
“Phonograph” was an early name for what became known as a gramophone and later a record player. Famously, the phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison.

9. A whole bunch : SCADS
The origin of the word “scads”, meaning “lots and lots”, is unclear, although back in the mid-1800s “scads” was used to mean “dollars”.

10. “It makes a man mistake words for thoughts,” per Samuel Johnson : WINE
Samuel Johnson (also known as Dr. Johnson) was a British author active in the 1700s. Johnson is famous for producing a “Dictionary of the English Language” published in 1755. Johnson’s dictionary was the standard used until the OED was published 150 years later. As a creative writer, Johnson wrote one play, called “Irene”, a work that he believed to have been his worst, and the critics apparently agreed.

11. Given encouragement : EGGED ON
The verb “edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

15. Miss Woodhouse of Highbury : EMMA
I listened to one of my favorite Jane Austen novels on Audio Book not so long ago. “Emma” is the tale of Emma Woodhouse and the wonderful George Knightley. At the end of the story, Emma marries Knightley and her young friend Harriet marries Robert Martin, who had been trying to get Harriet’s attention practically from page one of the novel!

24. Web-based service succeeded by Outlook in 2013 : HOTMAIL
Hotmail was introduced in 1996 and was one of the world’s first webmail services Webmail is an email service in which the emails are stored remotely on a server, rather than on a user’s own computer. Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997, who replaced it with Outlook.com in 2013.

27. Acronymic weapon name : STEN
The STEN gun is an iconic armament that was used by the British military. The name STEN is an acronym. The S and the T comes from the name of the gun’s designers, Shepherd and Turpin. The EN comes from the Enfield brand name, which in turn comes from the Enfield location where the guns were manufactured for the Royal Small Arms Factory, an enterprise owned by the British government.

29. Ingredient in Marie Rose sauce : MAYO
Marie Rose sauce is also called cocktail sauce. There is a simple version of the sauce that is made by mixing tomato ketchup with mayonnaise. The more sophisticated recipe calls for tomatoes, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and pepper.

32. Hide : PELT
The “pelt” is the skin of a furry animal.

34. Something to express views on : SOAPBOX
Back in the 1650s, a “soap box” was just that, a wooden box for holding or transporting soap. Empty soap boxes were easily carried by a potential orator and used as a stand from which to deliver an address.

37. Fabled characters? : ANIMALS
Most fables involves characters who are animals.

38. Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” e.g. : NOVELLA
“Of Mice and Men” is a novella written by American author John Steinbeck, published in 1937. The title comes from the famous poem by Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”. The inspirational line from the poem is “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft tagley.” Steinbeck actually wrote “Of Mice and Men” as a “novel-play”, intending that the line from the novel used as a script for a play. I actually saw the theatrical version on stage for the first time quite recently, and really enjoyed it.

42. Alfred the Great’s kingdom : WESSEX
Wessex was the familiar name of the Kingdom of the West Saxons in the southwest of Great Britain.

Alfred the Great was the King of Wessex in the latter part of the ninth century, and the dominant ruler in the whole of England.

44. Yuletide team member : VIXEN
We get the names for Santa’s reindeer from the famous 1823 poem called “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, although we’ve modified a couple of the names over the years. The full list is:

– Dasher
– Dancer
– Prancer
– Vixen
– Comet
– Cupid
– Donder (originally published as “Dunder” in error, and now often “Donner”)
– Blitzen (originally “Blixem”)

47. Punic War agitator : CATO
Cato the Elder was a Roman statesman, known historically as “the elder” in order to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger. Cato the Elder’s ultimate position within Roman society was that of Censor, making him responsible for maintaining the census, and for supervising public morality. Famously, Cato made several forceful speeches in which he urged the Roman Republic to do battle with her ancient rival Carthage. He ended almost all of his speeches with the phrase “Carthage must be destroyed”.

The Punic Wars were a series of three conflicts fought between Ancient Rome and Ancient Carthage. With Carthage on the North African coast and Rome on the east coast of Italy, the Punic wars were largely an attempt to control the western Mediterranean Sea and were centered on the island of Sicily.

49. “Outside the Lines” broadcaster : ESPN
“Outside the Lines” (OTL) is an ESPN show that has aired since 1990.

53. Tanyard sight : VAT
Leather is of course made from animal skins. When the flesh, fat and hair is removed from the skin and it is dried, the resulting product is called “rawhide”. An additional treatment of the skin with chemicals that permanently alter the protein structure of the skin is called “tanning”, and the resulting product is “leather”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Take measures : ACT
4. Deeply offended : STUNG
9. Did a little housekeeping : SWEPT
14. One who gets upset twice? : SORE LOSER
16. Thick smoke : CIGAR
17. Ladylove : INAMORATA
18. Love ballad from the 1973 album “Goats Head Soup” : ANGIE
19. Way to bear arms : AKIMBO
20. Frank Capra title character : MR DEEDS
22. Oscar nominee Rowlands : GENA
23. They’re often underfoot : SHOES
25. Bobs, e.g. : DOS
26. Some slurry stuff : ORE
27. Vessels of the Napoleonic Wars : SLOOPS
29. Silent “ick” : MOUE
30. Based on instinct and guesswork : SEAT-OF-THE-PANTS
33. Letter’s capital? : RENT MONEY
34. Thrift : SAVINGS AND LOAN
39. Page with many views : OP-ED
40. Most treacherous for driving, maybe : ICIEST
41. Trendy : NOW
43. Fitting : APT
44. Hides : VEILS
45. Maximum on a hurricane wind scale : FIVE
46. Detail-oriented : PRECISE
48. Caduceus carrier : HERMES
50. Soft white mineral : BORAX
51. Operation Neptune Spear group : NAVY SEALS
54. Like aspen leaves : OVATE
55. Stand-up guy Dave : CHAPPELLE
56. First inert gas made into a compound : XENON
57. In the pit of one’s stomach? : EATEN
58. Instrument in Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000” : SAX

Down
1. Often-grated cheese : ASIAGO
2. Game played by British schoolkids : CONKERS
3. Recent staff addition : TRAINEE
4. Home wrecker? : SLOB
5. John Deere rival : TORO
6. Ryder Cup side : USA
7. URL ending : NET
8. Record holders of old : GRAMOPHONES
9. A whole bunch : SCADS
10. “It makes a man mistake words for thoughts,” per Samuel Johnson : WINE
11. Given encouragement : EGGED ON
12. Disbursed : PAID OUT
13. Head set? : TRESSES
15. Miss Woodhouse of Highbury : EMMA
21. Forwards : RESENDS
23. Psychology or sociology : SOFT SCIENCE
24. Web-based service succeeded by Outlook in 2013 : HOTMAIL
27. Acronymic weapon name : STEN
28. Winter underwear, informally : LONGIES
29. Ingredient in Marie Rose sauce : MAYO
31. Uninteresting : ARID
32. Hide : PELT
34. Something to express views on : SOAPBOX
35. O.K. : APPROVE
36. Longtime : VETERAN
37. Fabled characters? : ANIMALS
38. Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” e.g. : NOVELLA
42. Alfred the Great’s kingdom : WESSEX
44. Yuletide team member : VIXEN
45. Not occupied : FREE
47. Punic War agitator : CATO
48. Talk up : HYPE
49. “Outside the Lines” broadcaster : ESPN
52. Sound of a light going on? : AHA!
53. Tanyard sight : VAT

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