0119-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 19 Jan 16, Tuesday

QuickLinks:
Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
Solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword in all other publications
Solution to today’s New York Times crossword found online at the Seattle Times website
Jump to a complete list of today’s clues and answers

CROSSWORD SETTER: Byron Walden
THEME: Gone Fishing … each of today’s themed answers starts with a type of fish:

59A. Classic out-of-office sign … or what this puzzle’s author has done? : GONE FISHING

19A. Criticized nigglingly : CARPED ABOUT (starts with “carp”)
21A. Roosted on : PERCHED ATOP (starts with “perch”)
36A. Struggled to make progress : FLOUNDERED AROUND (starts with “flounder”)
56A. Proceeded without trying very hard : SKATED ALONG (starts with “skate”)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 59s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Triangle on a pool table : RACK
The more correct name for the game of pool is pocket billiards. The name “pool” arose after pocket billiards became a common feature in “pool halls”, places where gamblers “pooled” their money to bet on horse races.

15. ___ Reader (alternative digest) : UTNE
The “Utne Reader” is known for aggregation and republishing of articles on politics, culture and the environment from other sources in the media. The “Utne Reader” was founded in 1984, with “Utne” being the family name of the couple that started the publication.

17. Arthurian island : AVALON
Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legends. The name Avalon probably comes from the word “afal”, the Welsh word for “apple”, reflecting the fact that the island was noted for its beautiful apples. Avalon is where King Arthur’s famous sword (Excalibur) was forged, and supposedly where Arthur was buried.

18. Some PC screens : LCDS
Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) are the screens that are found in most laptops today, and in flat panel computer screens and some televisions. LCD monitors basically replaced Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screens, the old television technology.

19. Criticized nigglingly : CARPED ABOUT (starts with “carp”)
The word “carp” used to mean simply “talk” back in the 13th century, with its roots in the Old Norwegian “karpa” meaning “to brag”. A century later the Latin word “carpere” meaning “to slander” influenced the use of “carp” so that it came to mean “find fault with”.

Carp are freshwater fish that are used as food around the world, although they aren’t very popular in North American kitchens. The ornamental fish that we know as goldfish and koi are all types of carp.

21. Roosted on : PERCHED ATOP (starts with “perch”)
Perch are carnivorous freshwater fish that are found all over the world. However, perch are particularly common in the Great Lakes and in Lake Erie in particular.

23. Mentalist Geller : URI
Uri Geller’s most famous performance is perhaps his uncomfortable failure on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in 1973. Carson “hijacked” Geller on live television by providing him with spoons to bend and watches to start, none of which had been available to Geller before the show aired. Clever!

28. Travelers with paddles : CANOEISTS
The boat called a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

34. Mideast ruler : EMIR
In English, emir can also be written as emeer, amir and ameer (watch out for those spellings in crosswords!).

36. Struggled to make progress : FLOUNDERED AROUND (starts with “flounder”)
Flounder are flatfish that are typically found lying on the bottom of estuaries and coastal lagoons. Just after it hatches, a young flunder has eyes on either side of its brain. As the fish matures, one of these eyes migrates to the other side of its body. The adult flounder then has two eyes which face up as the fish lies camouflaged on the ocean floor.

43. Beano competitor : GAS-X
Gas-X is a trade name for the anti-foaming agent called simethicone. Simethicone causes small gas bubbles in the stomach to combine into larger bubbles that can then be “burped” more easily.

Beano is a dietary supplement that is used to reduce gas in the digestive tract. Beano contains an enzyme which breaks down complex sugars found in many vegetables. This makes the food more digestible and apparently cuts down on gas.

44. Bull session? : RODEO
“Rodeo” is a Spanish word, which is usually translated as “round up”.

45. Halite formations that might be oil reservoirs : SALT DOMES
Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, and is also known as “rock salt”. Halite is used melt ice, as salt water has a lower freezing point than pure water. Adding salt to icy sidewalks can therefore cause any ice to melt (as long as the ambient temperature isn’t too low). A mixture of halite and ice can also be used to cool things below the freezing point of water, perhaps to make ice cream.

52. Address of Juliet’s balcony? : O ROMEO
In William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, the lovers discuss the sad fact that they have been born into two feuding families in the famous balcony scene. Juliet says:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo’s reply includes the famous lines:

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

54. Umberto ___, author of “The Name of the Rose” : ECO
Umberto Eco is an Italian writer, probably best known for his novel “The Name of the Rose” published in 1980. In 1986, “The Name of the Rose” was adapted into a movie with the same title starring Sean Connery.

56. Proceeded without trying very hard : SKATED ALONG (starts with “skate”)
Skates (formally “Rajidae”) are a family of fish in the superorder of rays (formally “Batoidea”). Skates look very similar to stingrays but they lack stinging spines.

63. Nearest target for a bowler : ONE-PIN
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.

64. Fashion designer Klein : ANNE
Anne Klein was a fashion designer from Brooklyn, New York.

Down
3. Newswoman Mitchell : ANDREA
Andrea Mitchell is a TV journalist who works for NBC News. Mitchell is married to former Federal Reserve Chairman alan Greenspan.

5. They get the paddy started : RICE SEEDS
A paddy field is the flooded piece of land used to grow rice. The water reduces competition from weeds allowing the rice to thrive. The word “paddy” has nothing to do with us Irish folk, and is an anglicized version of the word “padi”, the Malay name for the rice plant.

6. Part of U.S.C.G.A.: Abbr. : ACAD
The Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) is located in New London, Connecticut. The USCGA was founded in 1876 as the School of Instruction of the Revenue Cutter Service. The main training vessel used by the academy is the USCGC Eagle, a tall ship formerly known as the Horst Wessel that was received from Germany in 1946 as a war reparation.

7. “Juno” actor Michael : CERA
Michael Cera is a Canadian actor, a very talented young man who is riding high right now. He played great characters on the TV show “Arrested Development”, and the 2007 comedy-drama “Juno”. More recently he played the title role in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”.

“Juno” is a great comedy-drama released in 2007 that tells the story of a spunky teenager who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The relatively low-budget movie earned back its initial budget in the first day of its full release to the public. Low-budget blockbuster; my kind of movie …

9. Celeb’s arrest report, to the celeb, say : BAD PR
Public relations (PR)

10. Actress Mendes of “2 Fast 2 Furious” : EVA
I best know the actress Eva Mendes as the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, playing opposite Will Smith. Mendes was known off the screen for dating actor Ryan Gosling from 2011 to 2013.

11. Neighbor of Caps Lock : TAB
Like most features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

12. Bumbling detective of film : CLOUSEAU
Inspector Jacques Clouseau is the wonderful detective character in “The Pink Panther” series of films. The definitive player of the role was English actor Peter Sellers. Clouseau worked for the Sûreté, the detective branch of the French National Police.

13. “Spring forward, fall back” unit : HOUR
(41D. “Spring forward, fall back” inits. : DST)
On the other side of the Atlantic, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring (i.e. “spring forward”) and backwards in the fall (i.e. “fall back”) so that afternoons have more daylight.

22. Aetna offering, briefly : HMO
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

When the health care management and insurance company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mt. Etna, the European volcano.

27. ___ Torretta, 1992 Heisman Trophy winner : GINO
Gino Torretta is a former NFL quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1992 while playing college football for the University of Miami.

29. “___ Mine” (George Harrison autobiography) : I ME
“I Me Mine” is one of the relatively few Beatles songs to have been written by George Harrison (and indeed performed by him). Harrison chose the same title for his autobiography, published in 1980 just a few weeks before John Lennon was assassinated in New York City.

30. Noble knight who found the Holy Grail : SIR GALAHAD
Sir Galahad is one of the Knights of the Round Table of Arthurian legend. Galahad is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot, so appears a little later in the tales. He is very gallant and noble, and some see him as the embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian tradition. Indeed, legend has it that his soul was brought to heaven by Joseph of Arimathea, the man who donated his own tomb for the burial of Jesus according to the Gospels.

The Holy Grail is theme found throughout Arthurian legend. The grail itself is some vessel, with the term “grail” coming from the Old French “graal” meaning “cup or bowl made of earth, wood or metal”. Over time, the legend of the Holy Grail became mingled with stories of the Holy Chalice of the Christian tradition, the cup used to serve wine at the Last Supper. Over time, the term “grail” came to be used for any desired or sought-after object.

32. Wolf Blitzer’s employer : CNN
Wolf Blitzer is the son of Jewish refugees from Poland. He was born in Augsburg in Germany and was given the name “Wolf” in honor of his maternal grandfather. Wolf came with his family to live in the US, and he was raised in Buffalo, New York.

33. You may be asked to arrive 90 mins. prior to this : ETD
Estimated time of departure (ETD)

36. Pres. who recuperated at Warm Springs, Ga. : FDR
President Franklin D. Roosevelt owned a personal retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia that was known as the Little White House. The future president started visiting Warm Springs for treatment of his polio. He came to like the area and had a home built there. After taking up the presidency, FDR used the home as a presidential retreat. President Roosevelt died there in 1945.

37. Sign before Virgo : LEO
Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

39. Eye layer whose name derives from the Latin for “grape” : UVEA
The uvea is the middle of the three layers that make up the eyeball. The term comes from the Latin “uva” meaning “grape”.

40. Gas in signs : NEON
The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

45. Fifth Avenue retailer : SAKS
Saks Fifth Avenue is a high-end specialty store that competes with the likes of Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus. The original Saks & Company business was founded by Andrew Saks in 1867. The first Saks Fifth Avenue store was opened on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1924. There are now Saks Fifth Avenue stores in many major cities in the US, as well in several locations worldwide.

47. Grinding teeth : MOLARS
Molars are grinding teeth. The term “molar” comes from the Latin “mola” meaning “millstone”.

48. Fall Out Boy genre : EMO POP
Fall Out Boy is a rock band from Chicago that formed in 2001. And then, I lost interest …

49. Where John Kerry and Bob Kerrey served : SENATE
Secretary of State John Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and went straight into Officer Candidate School. Kerry’s first post was as an ensign on a frigate in the Vietnam theater, mainly working on rescue missions picking up downed pilots. He requested a transfer to Swift boat duty. While serving on Swift boats Kerry was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

Bob Kerrey is a Democrat who served as US Senator for Nebraska from 1989 to 2001, after having served as the state’s governor for a four-year term. Kerrey also served his country during the Vietnam War as an officer in the Navy SEALs, during which time he was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism. Famously, Kerry dated the actress Debra Winger while he was Governor of Nebraska.

53. Eyed caddishly : OGLED
Our word “cad”, meaning “a person lacking in finer feelings”, is a shortening of the word “cadet”. “Cad” was first used for a servant, and then students at British universities used “cad” as a term for a boy from the local town. “Cad” took on its current meaning in the 1830s.

55. Crash, with “out” : CONK
The phrase “conk out” was coined by airmen during WWI, and was used to describe the stalling of an engine.

58. Feminine suffix : -ENNE
“-ess”, “trix” and “-enne” are feminine suffixes.

60. Prefix with center : EPI-
The “epicenter” is that point on the surface of the earth which is directly above the focus of an earthquake.

61. 1950s car feature : FIN
Tailfins started appearing on cars in the late forties, and became popular in the fifties. The first tailfins were introduced on the 1948 Cadillac by GM designer Harley Earl. Earl got his inspiration from WWII fighter aircraft.

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Boots, backpack, tent, etc. : GEAR
5. Triangle on a pool table : RACK
9. “You ___” (“Sure thing”) : BETCHA
15. ___ Reader (alternative digest) : UTNE
16. Maker of Arctic Blast and Java Freeze beverages : ICEE
17. Arthurian island : AVALON
18. Some PC screens : LCDS
19. Criticized nigglingly : CARPED ABOUT (starts with “carp”)
21. Roosted on : PERCHED ATOP (starts with “perch”)
23. Mentalist Geller : URI
24. Ticks off : STEAMS
25. Tattered : IN RAGS
28. Travelers with paddles : CANOEISTS
31. Gun, slangily : PIECE
34. Mideast ruler : EMIR
35. Landlord’s counterpart : TENANT
36. Struggled to make progress : FLOUNDERED AROUND (starts with “flounder”)
42. Digs deeply (into) : DELVES
43. Beano competitor : GAS-X
44. Bull session? : RODEO
45. Halite formations that might be oil reservoirs : SALT DOMES
50. How-to book : MANUAL
52. Address of Juliet’s balcony? : O ROMEO
54. Umberto ___, author of “The Name of the Rose” : ECO
56. Proceeded without trying very hard : SKATED ALONG (starts with “skate”)
59. Classic out-of-office sign … or what this puzzle’s author has done? : GONE FISHING
62. “C’mon, be ___” : A PAL
63. Nearest target for a bowler : ONE-PIN
64. Fashion designer Klein : ANNE
65. Repetitive means of learning : ROTE
66. Hitting high in the air : SKYING
67. Colors, as Easter eggs : DYES
68. Did 80 on the highway, say : SPED

Down
1. Swallows deeply : GULPS
2. ” … and on and on and on” : ETC ETC
3. Newswoman Mitchell : ANDREA
4. Make another image of : RESCAN
5. They get the paddy started : RICE SEEDS
6. Part of U.S.C.G.A.: Abbr. : ACAD
7. “Juno” actor Michael : CERA
8. Avoided phoniness : KEPT IT REAL
9. Celeb’s arrest report, to the celeb, say : BAD PR
10. Actress Mendes of “2 Fast 2 Furious” : EVA
11. Neighbor of Caps Lock : TAB
12. Bumbling detective of film : CLOUSEAU
13. “Spring forward, fall back” unit : HOUR
14. One in opposition : ANTI
20. Time immemorial : EONS
22. Aetna offering, briefly : HMO
26. Mimic : APER
27. ___ Torretta, 1992 Heisman Trophy winner : GINO
29. “___ Mine” (George Harrison autobiography) : I ME
30. Noble knight who found the Holy Grail : SIR GALAHAD
32. Wolf Blitzer’s employer : CNN
33. You may be asked to arrive 90 mins. prior to this : ETD
35. Sneaky shelters : TAX DODGES
36. Pres. who recuperated at Warm Springs, Ga. : FDR
37. Sign before Virgo : LEO
38. Aristocratic ancestry : OLD MONEY
39. Eye layer whose name derives from the Latin for “grape” : UVEA
40. Gas in signs : NEON
41. “Spring forward, fall back” inits. : DST
45. Fifth Avenue retailer : SAKS
46. 13-Down, in Italian : ORA
47. Grinding teeth : MOLARS
48. Fall Out Boy genre : EMO POP
49. Where John Kerry and Bob Kerrey served : SENATE
51. On drugs : USING
53. Eyed caddishly : OGLED
54. They benefit from boosters : EGOS
55. Crash, with “out” : CONK
57. Minuscule : TINY
58. Feminine suffix : -ENNE
60. Prefix with center : EPI-
61. 1950s car feature : FIN

Return to top of page