0224-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 24 Feb 16, Wednesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
14. Apple originally marketed to schools : EMAC
Apple makes versions of its iMac line of computers that are aimed at schools. These are usually low-end machines that sell at a reduced price. Apple used to name such an offering an “eMac”, short for “education Mac”.

15. Blackmore’s Doone : LORNA
The novel “Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor” was written by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. R. D. Blackmore was an English novelist, very celebrated and in demand in his day (the late 1800s). His romantic story “Lorna Doone” was by no means a personal favorite of his, and yet it is the only one of his works still in print.

16. M.I.T. part: Abbr. : INST
17. M.I.T. part: Abbr. : TECH
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

19. City on the Arno : PISA
The city of Pisa is right on the Italian coast, sitting at the mouth of the River Arno, and is famous for its Leaning Tower. The tower is actually the campanile (bell tower) of the city’s cathedral, and it has been leaning since it was completed in 1173. Just shows you how important good foundations are …

20. S.U.V. named for a lake : TAHOE
The Chevrolet Tahoe is basically the same design as the GMC Yukon, both cars being sports utility vehicles. The Tahoe is rated at 15 mpg for city driving, but there is a hybrid version which is rated at a whopping 21 mpg …

22. Football legend Amos Alonzo ___ : STAGG
Amos Alonzo Stagg was an athlete and coach whose talents extended across a number of sports. He is was inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

24. Number of states that border the Mississippi : TEN
The ten states bordering the Mississippi River are:

– Minnesota
– Wisconsin
– Iowa
– Illinois
– Missouri
– Kentucky
– Tennessee
– Arkansas
– Mississippi
– Louisiana

25. Composer of music “as ignorable as it is interesting” : ENO
Brian Eno was one of the pioneers of the “ambient” genre of music. Eno composed an album in 1978 called “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”, the first in a series of four albums with an ambient theme. Eno named the tracks somewhat inventively: 1/1, 2/1, 2/1 and 2/2.

26. D-Day vessels, for short : LSTS
LST stands for Landing Ship, Tank. LSTs were the large vessels used mainly in WWII that had doors at either ends through which tanks and other vehicles could roll off and onto beaches. The design concept persists to this day in the huge fleet of commercial roll-on/roll-off car ferries, all inspired by the LST.

The most famous D-Day in history was June 6, 1944, the date of the Normandy landings in WWII. The term “D-Day” is used by the military to designate the day on which a combat operations are to be launched, especially when the actual date has yet to be determined. What D stands for seems to have been lost in the mists of time although the tradition is that D just stands for “Day”. In fact, the French have a similar term, “Jour J” (Day J), with a similar meaning. We also use H-Hour to denote the hour the attack is to commence.

28. With all judges present : EN BANC
“En banc” is a French term, translating as “on a bench”. It refers to the cases in which all the judges of a court hear a case, as opposed to a case heard just by a panel, a subset of the full complement.

32. Popular Bach piece for the lute : BOURREE
Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Bourrée in E minor” is a very popular piece of music written for the lute. Even though a bourrée is a dance of French origin, Bach’s “Bourrée in E minor” was not written for dancing.

33. Twinings in London is one : TEAHOUSE
Twinings is a distributor of tea that was founded in England in 1706. That’s a long time ago! The Twinings logo is the oldest continuously-used logo in the world.

36. Super Bowl highlights, to many : ADS
The Super Bowl is used for high-profile advertising because of the high viewership numbers. For example, the 2014 season’s Super Bowl XLIX had a viewing audience of 114.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched American TV program in history.

40. “Six-pack” muscles : ABS
The abdominal muscles (“abs”) are more correctly referred to as the rectus abdominis muscles. They are together referred to as a “six-pack” in a person who has developed the muscles and who has low body fat. In my case, more like a keg …

48. Bow respectfully : SALAAM
The word “salaam” is an Anglicized spelling of the Arabic word for “peace”. It can mean an act of deference, in particular a very low bow.

50. Fruitcake fruit : CITRON
Most of our citrus fruits are hybrids of four original fruits. These are the pummelo, the mandarin, the papeda and the citron.

51. Eartha who sang “C’est Si Bon” : KITT
Eartha Kitt sure did have a unique voice and singing style. Her rendition of “Santa Baby” has to be one of the most distinctive and memorable recordings in the popular repertoire. Some of you will no doubt remember Eartha playing Catwoman on the final series of the TV show “Batman”.

53. Mani-pedi spot : SPA
Manicure & pedicure (mani-pedi)

54. Mens ___ (criminal intent) : REA
“Mens rea” is Latin for “guilty mind” and is a central concept in criminal law. The concept is expanded to “actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea” meaning “the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty”. In other words, a someone should not be deemed guilty of an act, unless he or she had a “guilty mind”, intended to do wrong.

55. “Star Wars” droid, informally : ARTOO
Artoo’s proper name is R2-D2. R2-D2 is the smaller of the two famous droids from the “Star Wars” movies. British actor Kenny Baker, who stands just 3 ft 8 ins tall, has been the man inside the R2-D2 droid for all six of the “Star Wars” movies.

59. “You’ve Got a Friend ___” : IN ME
“You’ve Got a Friend in Me” is the theme song for the “Toy Story” series of animated films from Pixar. The song was written and first recorded by Randy Newman for the original “Toy Story” movie, with cover versions being used in subsequent releases.

61. Yoga posture : ASANA
“Asana” is a Sanskrit word literally meaning “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

63. Diva ___ Te Kanawa : KIRI
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is an outstanding soprano from New Zealand who was in great demand for operatic performances in the seventies and eighties.

64. Wasabi ___ (bar snack) : PEAS
Wasabi peas are peas that have been fried and then coated with wasabi powder mixed with sugar, salt and oil. They are a crunchy snack, and a favorite of mine.

Sometimes called Japanese horseradish, wasabi is a root used as a condiment in Japanese cooking. The taste of wasabi is more like mustard than a hot pepper in that the vapors that create the “hotness” stimulate the nasal passages rather than the tongue. Personally, I love the stuff …

65. Politico lampooned by Fey : PALIN
Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” won her an Emmy in 2009. The sketch Fey did with Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton remains NBC’s most popular Internet video clip. Within a few days of the broadcast it had been viewed 5.7 million times. Now that’s what I call viral video …

Down
3. Speed of sound : MACH ONE
The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is it’s speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane travelling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.

6. Comedians’ shindig : ROAST
“Shindig” is such a lovely word, I think, describing a party that usually includes some dancing. Although its origin isn’t really clear, the term perhaps comes from “shinty”, a Scottish game similar to field hockey.

8. Visitor to Siam, on stage and film : ANNA
“Anna and the King of Siam” is a semi-biographical novel written by Margaret Landon and first published in 1944. The book tells the largely true story of Anna Leonowens who spent five years in Siam teaching English to the children and wives of King Mongkut. The novel was adapted as a 1946 movie of the same name starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison. Then followed a 1951 stage musical titled “The King and I”. The musical was written as a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, who played Anna. Rex Harrison was asked to play the King, but he turned it down and Yul Brynner was cast instead. A movie version of the stage musical was released in 1956, famously starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.

9. “Explorer” channel : NAT GEO
The National Geographic Channel is jointly owned by Fox and the National Geographic Society, and was launched in 2001.

11. Acrobat’s wear : UNITARD
A unitard is like a leotard, except that it has long legs and sometime long sleeves. It wouldn’t be a good look for me …

The garment known as a leotard was named for French trapeze artist Jules Léotard. Léotard wore such a garment when he was performing.

12. Dead Sea Scrolls sect : ESSENES
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered over a period of years, between 1947 and 1956, in eleven caves on the shores of the Dead Sea. The scrolls are believed to have been written by an ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, although this has been called into question recently. Many of the texts are copies of writings from the Hebrew Bible.

21. College benefactor Yale : ELIHU
Elihu Yale was a wealthy merchant born in Boston in 1649. Yale worked for the British East India Company, and for many years served as governor of a settlement at Madras (now Chennai) in India. After India, Yale took over his father’s estate near Wrexham in Wales. It was while resident in Wrexham that Yale responded to a request for financial support for the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701. He sent the school a donation, which was used to erect a new building in New Haven that was named “Yale” in his honor. In 1718, the whole school was renamed to “Yale College”. To this day, students of Yale are nicknamed “Elis”, again honoring Elihu.

23. Serengeti antelope : GNU
A gnu is also known as a wildebeest, and is an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is actually the Dutch word for “wild beast”.

The Serengeti is a region in Africa, located in northern Tanzania and southwest Kenya. The name “Serengeti” comes from the Maasai language and means “Endless Plains”.

27. Hoity-toity sort : SNOB
Back in the 1780s, a “snob” was a shoemaker or a shoemaker’s apprentice. By the end of the 18th century the word was being used by students at Cambridge University in England to refer to all local merchants and people of the town. The term evolved to mean one who copies those who are his or her social superior (and not in a good way). From there it wasn’t a big leap for “snob” to include anyone who emphasized their superior social standing and not just those who aspired to rank. Nowadays a snob is anyone who looks down on those considered to be of inferior standing.

Believe it or not, the term “hoity-toity” has been in the English language since the 1660s, but back then it meant “riotous behavior”. It began to mean “haughty” in the late 1800s, simply because the “haughty” sounds similar to “hoity”.

29. Rio’s land, to natives : BRASIL
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 Year’s Day in 1502.

32. Capital on the Aare : BERN
Bern (or Berne) is the capital city of Switzerland. The official language of the city is German, but the language most spoken in Bern is a dialect known as Bernese German.

The Aar (also called the “Aare” in German) is the longest river entirely in Switzerland.

34. World Series game sextet : UMPS
Four umpires are used for regular Major League Baseball games:

– Home plate umpire
– First base umpire
– Second base umpire
– Third base umpire

Two extra umpires are added for particularly crucial fixtures, such as post-season games:

– Left-field umpire
– Right-field umpire

35. Triton’s domain : SEA
Triton was a Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He was usually depicted as “merman”, with the body of a man and the tail of a fish. Triton carried a trident, like his father Poseidon, and a twisted conch shell that he used as trumpet. By blowing in the conch shell he could calm or raise the waves.

38. Tale of adventure : GEST
Our word “gest” meaning a great deed or an exploit has been around since about 1300, and comes from the Old French word “geste” meaning the same thing. These days “geste” can also mean “gesture”.

41. Loser to VHS : BETAMAX
The video standard known as VHS is more fully referred to as the Video Home System. VHS was one of many standards touted by various manufacturers in the seventies. The biggest rival to VHS was Betamax, but we all knew which of the two standards won the final round in that fight.

43. Sushi bar option : SASHIMI
“Sashimi” is thinly sliced raw fish, although it can also be raw meat. The word “sashimi” translates literally as “pierced body”, which may be a reference to the practice of sticking the tail and fin to sliced fish to identify it.

45. The “2” in the formula for water, e.g. : SUBSCRIPT
A water molecule is composed of an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms on roughly opposite sides (about a 150-degree angle). So, sometimes the molecule is represented by “HOH”, although more usually it’s “H2O”.

46. U.S. broadcaster overseas : VOA
The United States Information Agency (USIA) was established under President Eisenhower in 1953, and continued operating until 1999. It’s mission was “public diplomacy”, another term for propaganda broadcast over radio airwaves. The intent from day one was to avoid having the broadcasts identified as propaganda, and speaking as a former listener to the USIA’s Voice of America (VOA) over in Europe, there were a lot of fun programs that had one coming back to hear more, but we all knew it was propaganda quite frankly …

49. U.S.S. Nautilus, for one : SUBMARINE
The USS Nautilus is a submarine launched in 1954, and decommissioned 1980. When launched, the Nautilus was the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. She was named for a diesel-electric submarine that served with distinction in WWII that was also bore the Nautilus name. All of the US Navy’s “Nautilus” vessels were named for the submarine in the Jules Verne novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”. After decommissioning in 1980, the latest Nautilus was preserved as a floating museum in Groton, Connecticut.

51. Eucalyptus-munching animal : KOALA
The koala bear really does look like a little bear, but it’s not even closely related. The koala is an arboreal marsupial and a herbivore, native to the east and south coasts of Australia. Koalas aren’t primates, and are one of the few mammals other than primates who have fingerprints. In fact, it can be very difficult to tell human fingerprints from koala fingerprints, even under an electron microscope. Male koalas are called “bucks”, females are “does”, and young koalas are “joeys”. I’m a little jealous of the koala, as it sleeps up to 20 hours a day …

52. Column style : IONIC
The Ionic was one of the three classical orders of architecture, the others being the Doric and the Corinthian. An Ionic column is relatively ornate. It usually has grooves running up and down its length and at the top there is a “scroll” design called a “volute”. The scroll motif makes Ionic columns popular for the design of academic buildings. The term “Ionic” means “pertaining to Ionia”, with Ionia being an ancient territory that is located in modern-day Turkey.

56. Central figure in a Mussorgsky opera : TSAR
Boris Godunov was the Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1605. He is perhaps better known these days because of the artistic works that are based on his life. Alexander Pushkin wrote the play “Boris Godunov”, partially using Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to structure the storyline of Godunov’s life. Modest Mussorgsky then wrote a famous opera “Boris Godunov”, based on the Pushkin play.

58. Ring stoppages, for short : TKOS
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).

60. Guinness suffix : -EST
“The Guinness Book of World Records” holds some records of its own. It is the best-selling, copyrighted series of books of all time and is one of the books most often stolen from public libraries! The book was first published in 1954 by two twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter. The McWhirter twins found themselves with a smash hit, and eventually became very famous in Britain hosting a TV show based on world records.

62. Formicide’s target : ANT
A formicide is a substance used to kill ants. “Formica” is Latin for “ant”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Lofty in thought or manner : SUBLIME
5. Like the area between city and farm : SUBURBAN
10. Puts down by force : SUBDUES
14. Apple originally marketed to schools : EMAC
15. Blackmore’s Doone : LORNA
16. M.I.T. part: Abbr. : INST
17. M.I.T. part: Abbr. : TECH
18. Make impure : TAINT
19. City on the Arno : PISA
20. S.U.V. named for a lake : TAHOE
22. Football legend Amos Alonzo ___ : STAGG
24. Number of states that border the Mississippi : TEN
25. Composer of music “as ignorable as it is interesting” : ENO
26. D-Day vessels, for short : LSTS
28. With all judges present : EN BANC
30. Greet, as the new year : RING IN
32. Popular Bach piece for the lute : BOURREE
33. Twinings in London is one : TEAHOUSE
36. Super Bowl highlights, to many : ADS
37. Goes underwater … or a hint to the answers on the perimeter of this puzzle : SUBMERGES
40. “Six-pack” muscles : ABS
42. Talent show judge, often : PANELIST
45. LP protectors : SLEEVES
48. Bow respectfully : SALAAM
50. Fruitcake fruit : CITRON
51. Eartha who sang “C’est Si Bon” : KITT
53. Mani-pedi spot : SPA
54. Mens ___ (criminal intent) : REA
55. “Star Wars” droid, informally : ARTOO
57. Upper reaches of space : ETHER
59. “You’ve Got a Friend ___” : IN ME
61. Yoga posture : ASANA
63. Diva ___ Te Kanawa : KIRI
64. Wasabi ___ (bar snack) : PEAS
65. Politico lampooned by Fey : PALIN
66. Sign to heed : OMEN
67. Underlying theme : SUBTEXT
68. Take away : SUBTRACT
69. Become less intense : SUBSIDE

Down
1. Renter from a renter : SUBLETTER
2. “This is no joke!” : I MEAN IT
3. Speed of sound : MACH ONE
4. Guitar amp effect : ECHO
5. Extreme: Abbr. : ULT
6. Comedians’ shindig : ROAST
7. Yanks’ allies in W.W. I and II : BRITS
8. Visitor to Siam, on stage and film : ANNA
9. “Explorer” channel : NAT GEO
10. Stock market fluctuation : DIP
11. Acrobat’s wear : UNITARD
12. Dead Sea Scrolls sect : ESSENES
13. Meat of the matter : SUBSTANCE
21. College benefactor Yale : ELIHU
23. Serengeti antelope : GNU
27. Hoity-toity sort : SNOB
29. Rio’s land, to natives : BRASIL
31. Thigh-slapper : GASSER
32. Capital on the Aare : BERN
34. World Series game sextet : UMPS
35. Triton’s domain : SEA
38. Tale of adventure : GEST
39. Send over the moon : ELATE
40. Property recipient, in law : ALIENEE
41. Loser to VHS : BETAMAX
43. Sushi bar option : SASHIMI
44. Like the pointed end of a pencil : TAPERED
45. The “2” in the formula for water, e.g. : SUBSCRIPT
46. U.S. broadcaster overseas : VOA
47. Totally absorbed : ENRAPT
49. U.S.S. Nautilus, for one : SUBMARINE
51. Eucalyptus-munching animal : KOALA
52. Column style : IONIC
56. Central figure in a Mussorgsky opera : TSAR
58. Ring stoppages, for short : TKOS
60. Guinness suffix : -EST
62. Formicide’s target : ANT

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