0830-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 30 Aug 16, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Roland Huget
THEME: Chemical Symbols
Each of today’s themed answers starts with the name of a CHEMICAL element, after which the element’s CHEMICAL SYMBOL appears, in circled letter(s):

36A. This puzzle’s circled letters, for the words that precede them : CHEMICAL SYMBOLS

17A. Flowering plants from Australia : COPPER CUPS (hiding “Cu”)
26A. What hath the gardener wrought? : IRON FENCE (hiding “Fe”)
51A. Second-greatest period in something’s history : SILVER AGE (hiding “Ag”)
58A. Antiquated office duplicate : CARBON COPY (hiding “C”)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 6m 22s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Android purchases : APPS
Android is an operating system for mobile devices that was developed by Google. Android is mainly used on touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets, although versions have been developed for cars (Android Auto), for televisions (Android TV) and for wrist watches (Android Wear). Android is the most successful operating system today, having the most extensive installed base.

5. Campfire treat : S’MORE
S’mores are treats peculiar to North America, usually eaten around a campfire. A s’more consists of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers. The earliest written reference to the recipe is in a 1927 publication called “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts”. Girl Scouts always did corner the market on cookies and the like!

10. Ones coming out : DEBS
“Deb” is short for “debutante”, which translates from French as “female beginner”.

14. Lady of the Haus : FRAU
In Germany, a “Mr.” (Herr) is married to a “Mrs.” (Frau), and they live together in a house (Haus).

15. Forty ___ and a mule (post-Civil War allotment) : ACRES
“40 Acres and a Mule” was a promise made to newly-freed slaves, a promise to redistribute some former Confederate-owned lands. The essentials of the “promise” were called out in Union General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 in 1865, which was approved by President Abraham Lincoln. There was no actual mention of mules in the order, although Sherman gave instructions that army mules could be loaned to the settlers. The promise turned out to be an empty one, as Lincoln’s successor President Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman’s order and returned all designated land to the planters who originally owned it.

16. Like only one prime number : EVEN
The only even prime number is 2.

A prime number is a number greater than 1 that can only be divided evenly by 1 and itself. There are still some unanswered questions involving prime numbers, perhaps most notably Goldbach’s Conjecture. This conjecture dates back to the 1740s and is assumed to be true, but has never been proven. It states that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers.

17. Flowering plants from Australia : COPPER CUPS (hiding “Cu”)
“Copper cup” is a common name of the plant genus Pileanthus. All Pileanthus species are native to Australia.

19. End of a movement : CODA
In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

20. Director Kazan : ELIA
Elia Kazan won Oscars for best director in 1948 for “Gentleman’s Agreement” and in 1955 for “On The Waterfront”. In 1999 Kazan was given an Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also directed “East of Eden”, which introduced James Dean to movie audiences, and “Splendor in the Grass” that included Warren Beatty in his debut role.

21. FICA tax payer : EARNER
The Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA) was introduced in the 1930s as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. FICA payments are made by both employees and employers in order to fund Social Security and Medicare.

26. What hath the gardener wrought? : IRON FENCE (hiding “Fe”)
Wrought iron is an iron alloy containing fibrous filaments called slag. The term “wrought” is a allusion to the iron being worked (wrought) by hand. One of the more famous uses of wrought iron was the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

29. Fake : SHAM
A “sham” is something that is imitation, fake. In the world of bed linens a sham is also imitation and fake, in the sense that it is a decorative cover designed to cover up a regular pillow used for sleeping.

32. Region affected by Brexit : EUROPE
The UK held a referendum in June 2016 in which 52% of voters chose to leave the European Union (EU). The term “Brexit” was used for vote, a portmanteau of “Britain” and “exit”. The vote has led to some debate about the future of the UK. The Scottish electorate voted for the UK to stay in the EU, and so there’s a lot of new talk about Scotland leaving the UK. There’s also some discussion about Northern Ireland’s future in the UK, as the Northern Irish electorate also voted to stay in the EU.

34. Sun and Sky org. : WNBA
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) includes the Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky.

42. Bell town in a Longfellow poem : ATRI
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “The Sicilian’s Tale; The Bell of Atri”, a narrative poem set in the small town of Atri in the Abruzzo region of Italy.

44. Buddy who played Jed Clampett in 1960s TV : EBSEN
The actor Buddy Ebsen was best known for playing Jed Clampett in television’s “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Ebsen had been cast in the role of the Tin Man in the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”, but he developed an allergy to the aluminium dust that was used in the makeup. He ended up in hospital and had to walk away from the part. Ebsen blamed “The Wizard of Oz” on persistent problems that he had with his lungs in subsequent years. But Ebsen lived 16 years longers that any of the other major cast members of the film, so maybe he got the last laugh!

55. Contact lens care brand : RENU
ReNu is a brand name of contact lens products sold by Bausch & Lomb.

57. Had too much, briefly : ODED
Overdose (OD)

58. Antiquated office duplicate : CARBON COPY (hiding “C”)
I wonder do the kids of today know that “cc” stands for carbon copy, and do they have any idea what a carbon copy was? Do you remember how messy carbon paper was to handle?

69. Barbecue side dish : SLAW
The term “coleslaw” is an Anglicized version of the Dutch name “koolsla”, which in itself is a shortened form of “Koolsalade” meaning “cabbage salad”.

Down
1. Patriots’ org. : AFC
American Football Conference (AFC)

The New England Patriots football team was founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots. The “Patriots” name was selected from suggestions made by football fans in Boston. The team played at several different stadiums in the Boston area for just over ten years, before moving to their current home base in Foxborough, Massachusetts. At the time of the move, the “Boston” name was dropped and changed to “New England”.

3. Soft food for babies : PAP
One meaning of “pap” is soft or semi-liquid food for babies and small children. “Pap” comes into English via French, from the Latin word used by children for “food”. In the 1500s, “pap” also came to mean “an oversimplified” idea. This gives us a usage that’s common today, describing literature or perhaps TV programming that lacks real value or substance. Hands up those who think there’s a lot of pap out there, especially on television …

5. Bollywood costume : SARI
Bollywood is the informal name given to the huge film industry based in Mumbai in India. The term “Bollywood” is a melding of “Bombay”, the old name for Mumbai, and “Hollywood”.

6. Palin was his running mate : MCCAIN
When John McCain selected Sarah Palin as candidate for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she became the first Alaskan to go on the national ticket for a major party. She also became the first woman nominated for Vice President by the Republican Party.

7. Tulsa sch. named for an evangelist : ORU
Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ORU was founded relatively recently, in 1963 by the late televangelist Oral Roberts. The campus includes a Prayer Tower at its center, a spectacular glass and steel structure designed by architect Frank Wallace. The tower includes an observation deck, and is a popular tourist attraction. The school’s sports teams are known as the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles.

9. Ruhr Valley city : ESSEN
Essen is a large industrial city located on the River Ruhr in western Germany.

The Ruhr is a large urban area in western Germany. The area is heavily populated, and is the fifth largest urban area in the whole of Europe, after Istanbul, Moscow, London and Paris. The Ruhr became heavily industrialized due to its large deposits of coal. By 1850, the area contained nearly 300 operating coal mines. Any coal deposits remaining in the area today are too expensive to exploit.

11. Goolagong of tennis : EVONNE
Evonne Goolagong is a former Australian tennis player who was at the pinnacle of her success in seventies and early eighties. Her colorful family name, Goolagong, came from her Aboriginal father who worked for much of his life as an itinerant sheep shearer. I remember seeing Goolagong play back then, and I always thought that she was so elegant and such a lady on the court …

13. Some drums : SNARES
Snare drums are so called because they have a set of wire strands (called snares) stretched across the bottom surface of the drum. When the drum is struck, the snares vibrate against the bottom drumhead producing a unique sound.

18. Old Third Ave. trains in New York City : ELS
The IRT Third Avenue El was one of the last elevated trains to operate in Manhattan. The line opened in 1878, and the last of the service was shut down in 1973. Trains running along the Third Avenue El were a popular backdrop used in movies set in New York City.

22. Ski lodge, often : A-FRAME
An A-frame house is one that has a steeply-angled roof, one forming the shape of the letter “A”. The A-frame design is popular in snowy regions, as the roof is so steeply pitched that it does not collect snow.

23. Tiny fraction of a min. : PSEC
A picosecond is one trillionth of a second, and is correctly abbreviated to “ps” in the SI system of measurements. I guess that’s what “psec” is meant to be …

27. Best-selling author who was a runner-up for Time’s 2007 Person of the Year : ROWLING
The author of the amazingly successful “Harry Potter” series of books is J. K. Rowling. Rowling wrote the first book when she was living on welfare in Edinburgh in Scotland, and in longhand. She would often write in local cafes, largely because she needed to get her baby daughter out of the house (she was a single mom), and the youngster would tend to fall asleep on walks. Within five years, the single mom on welfare became a very rich woman, and is now worth about $1 billion!

“Time” magazine started naming a “Man of the Year” in 1927, only changing the concept to “Person of the Year” in 1999. Prior to 1999, the magazine did recognize four females as “Woman of the Year”: Wallis Simpson (1936), Soong May-ling a.k.a. Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1937), Queen Elizabeth II (1952) and Corazon Aquino (1986). “Time” named Albert Einstein as Person of the Century in 1999, with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi as runners-up.

33. Electric keyboard heard on “I Am the Walrus” : PIANET
“I Am the Walrus” is a Beatles song released in 1967. It was written by John Lennon, with the Walrus being a reference to the poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass”.

35. Admiral who explored the Antarctic : BYRD
Rear Admiral Richard Byrd was an officer in the US Navy, famous as an aviator and explorer of the polar regions. Byrd was the first person to cross the South Pole by air, in 1929. Three years earlier, Byrd claimed he had flown over the North Pole, and would have been the first person to have done so if this was true. But whether or not Byrd actually made it over the North Pole continues to be the subject of much debate.

37. Vegas resort with a musical name : ARIA
Aria is one of the newer casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. “Popular Mechanics” magazine described Aria as “the most technologically-advanced hotel ever built”.

39. Fit for service : ONE-A
The US government maintains information on all males who are potentially subject to military conscription, using what is called the Selective Service System(SS). In the event that a draft was held, men registered would be classified into groups to determine eligibility for service. Class 1-A registrants are those available for unrestricted military service. Other classes are 1-A-O (conscientious objector available for noncombatant service), 4-A (registrant who has completed military service) and 4-D (Minister of religion).

40. Dryer screen buildup : LINT
“Lint”, meaning “fluff”, is one of those terms that I had to learn when I moved to the US. We call the same thing “fuzz” on the other side of the Atlantic.

41. Old blade : SNEE
A “snee” is a type of dagger formerly used by Scottish highlanders.

45. One over an eagle : BIRDIE
The following terms are routinely used in golf for scores relative to par:

Bogey: one over par
Par
Birdie: one under par
Eagle: two under par
Albatross (also “double eagle”): three under par
Condor: four under par

No one has ever recorded a condor during a professional tournament.

46. Something a tank top lacks : SLEEVE
“Tank top” is another one of those terms that always catches me out, as it has a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic. In the US a tank top is a sleeveless shirt, something we would call a “vest” back in Ireland (and the US “vest” is what we call a “waist coat”). A tank top in Ireland is a sleeveless sweater, which further adds to the confusion. The name “tank top” is derived from “tank suit”, an old name for a woman’s one-piece bathing suit. The use of “tank” for the bathing suit came from “swimming tank”, an obsolete term used in the 1920s for a swimming pool.

53. Massachusetts’ Cape ___ : ANN
Cape Ann is 30 miles north of Boston and is on the northernmost edge of Massachusetts Bay. The Cape was first mapped by the explorer John Smith. Early in his adventurous life Smith had been captured and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire. His “owner” in his days of slavery was a woman called Tragabigzanda, and apparently the slave and owner fell in love. Smith originally called Cape Tragabigzanda in her memory, but King Charles I changed the name to Cape Ann in honor of his own mother, Anne of Denmark.

59. Notre Dame’s Parseghian : ARA
Ara Parseghian coached the Notre Dame football team from 1964 to 1974, a period known as “The Era of Ara”.

60. Ballpark fig. : RBI
Run batted in (RBI)

61. Tin Man’s need : OIL
Actor Jack Haley played the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz”. Haley was the second choice for the role, as it was originally given to Buddy Ebsen (who later played Jed Clampett in “The Beverly Hillbillies”). Ebsen was being “painted up” as the Tin Man when he had an extreme, near-fatal reaction from inhaling the aluminum dust makeup that was being used. When Haley took over, the makeup was changed to a paste, but it was still uncomfortable and caused him to miss the first four days of shooting due to a reaction in his eyes. During filming, Haley must have made good friends with the movie’s star, Judy Garland, as years later Jack’s son married Judy’s daughter, Liza Minnelli.

62. Sch. group : PTA
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

63. Tree used in bow-making : YEW
Yew is the wood of choice for the longbow, a valued weapon in the history of England. The longbow is constructed with a core of yew heartwood (as the heartwood resists compression) that has a sheath of yew sapwood (as the sapwood resists stretching). The yew was in such demand for longbows that for centuries yew trees were in short supply in Britain and the wood had to be imported from all over Europe.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Android purchases : APPS
5. Campfire treat : S’MORE
10. Ones coming out : DEBS
14. Lady of the Haus : FRAU
15. Forty ___ and a mule (post-Civil War allotment) : ACRES
16. Like only one prime number : EVEN
17. Flowering plants from Australia : COPPER CUPS (hiding “Cu”)
19. End of a movement : CODA
20. Director Kazan : ELIA
21. FICA tax payer : EARNER
23. Sounds from a happy kitty : PURRS
26. What hath the gardener wrought? : IRON FENCE (hiding “Fe”)
29. Fake : SHAM
30. Reason for school cancellation : SNOW
31. Makes a big stink : REEKS
32. Region affected by Brexit : EUROPE
34. Sun and Sky org. : WNBA
36. This puzzle’s circled letters, for the words that precede them : CHEMICAL SYMBOLS
42. Bell town in a Longfellow poem : ATRI
43. Bring under control : REIN IN
44. Buddy who played Jed Clampett in 1960s TV : EBSEN
48. How M.L.B. games are often broadcast : IN HD
50. Part of a family inheritance : GENE
51. Second-greatest period in something’s history : SILVER AGE (hiding “Ag”)
53. Subside : ABATE
54. Invent : CREATE
55. Contact lens care brand : RENU
57. Had too much, briefly : ODED
58. Antiquated office duplicate : CARBON COPY (hiding “C”)
64. Tear apart : RIVE
65. ___ sprawl : URBAN
66. Toy with a tail : KITE
67. Ticked (off) : TEED
68. Train track parts : RAILS
69. Barbecue side dish : SLAW

Down
1. Patriots’ org. : AFC
2. Old hand : PRO
3. Soft food for babies : PAP
4. Family multitasker : SUPERMOM
5. Bollywood costume : SARI
6. Palin was his running mate : MCCAIN
7. Tulsa sch. named for an evangelist : ORU
8. Gym unit : REP
9. Ruhr Valley city : ESSEN
10. Court order : DECREE
11. Goolagong of tennis : EVONNE
12. Festoon : BEDECK
13. Some drums : SNARES
18. Old Third Ave. trains in New York City : ELS
22. Ski lodge, often : A-FRAME
23. Tiny fraction of a min. : PSEC
24. “No way!” : UH-UH!
25. Steak specification : RARE
27. Best-selling author who was a runner-up for Time’s 2007 Person of the Year : ROWLING
28. Completely dominates : OWNS
30. Splinter group : SECT
33. Electric keyboard heard on “I Am the Walrus” : PIANET
35. Admiral who explored the Antarctic : BYRD
37. Vegas resort with a musical name : ARIA
38. Considerable salary to pull down : BIG BUCKS
39. Fit for service : ONE-A
40. Dryer screen buildup : LINT
41. Old blade : SNEE
44. Go along with : ESCORT
45. One over an eagle : BIRDIE
46. Something a tank top lacks : SLEEVE
47. Got around : EVADED
49. Kind of supplement : HERBAL
52. Come around again : RECUR
53. Massachusetts’ Cape ___ : ANN
56. Stars exist over them : EONS
59. Notre Dame’s Parseghian : ARA
60. Ballpark fig. : RBI
61. Tin Man’s need : OIL
62. Sch. group : PTA
63. Tree used in bow-making : YEW

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6 thoughts on “0830-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 30 Aug 16, Tuesday”

  1. Catching on to the theme quickly made some crucial differences in the ease of the fills. Thank goodness the setter chose four of the more common chemical elements and did not spring some of those obscure ones on us.

  2. 8:29, no errors.

    As a science geek in school, I found chemistry interesting. I had often wondered why some of the chemical symbols seemed to make no sense regarding the chemical names they represented. It turns out that that the older known elements have symbols based on their Latin or neo-Latin names. Hence Copper is Cu from the Latin Cuprum; Iron is Fe from Ferrum; Silver is Ag from Argentum. Others are: Mercury (Hg) = Hagnum; Potassium (K) = Kallium; Gold (Au) = Aurum; Tin (Sn) = Stannum.

    One of the more interesting is Lead (Pb) = Plumbum. The Romans used to pour molten lead into flat sheets, roll them up, and hammer the seams together to form tubes, which were then used to distribute water throughout the city; providing the earliest indoor plumbing.

  3. 13:04, 2 errors (CU/Coppercups). 56 Down clue worded *exceptionally* clumsy, and designed to mislead. All in all, this one doesn't meet the AU standard, by any stretch of the imagination. ..

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