0828-17 New York Times Crossword Answers 28 Aug 17, Monday

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Constructed by: Dan Margolis

Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Syndicated Crossword

Complete List of Clues/Answers

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Theme: Equine Phrases

Each of today’s themed answers is a common phrase that ends with the name of an equine:

  • 17A. Extremely obstinate : STUBBORN AS A MULE
  • 26A. Person who’s talented but not versatile : ONE-TRICK PONY
  • 44A. Notable (and grammatically incorrect) declaration by Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist” : THE LAW IS A ASS
  • 57A. Acting haughtily and pompously : ON ONE’S HIGH HORSE

Bill’s time: 5m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Battery fluid : ACID

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

10. Loch ___ monster : NESS

The monster that is reputed to inhabit the depths of Loch Ness in Scotland is often referred affectionately as “Nessie”.

14. Variety of wrestling : SUMO

Sumo is a sport that is practiced professionally only in Japan, the country of its origin. There is an international federation of sumo wrestling now, and one of the organization’s aims is to have the sport accepted as an Olympic event.

20. Kathmandu’s land : NEPAL

Although Kathmandu is the capital city of the lofty nation of Nepal, it sits in a bowl-shaped valley and so is only at an elevation of 4,600 ft. Air pollution is a huge problem in the city. Industry and residents launch a lot of smog into the air, and given the surrounding geography and climate, any pollution blown away during the day tends to fall back into the valley at night.

23. Rikki-tikki-___ (Kipling mongoose) : TAVI

In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, one of the short stories is titled “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, the story about a mongoose, the brave pet of an English family that protects them from a succession of snakes.

25. City in Spain or Ohio : TOLEDO

Toledo is a city in central Spain that is located just over 40 miles south of the capital Madrid. Toledo is sometimes called the “City of Three Cultures”, due to the historical co-existence of Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions.

Toledo, Ohio lies in the northwest of the state, at the western end of Lake Erie. Toledo was founded as a result of the prosperity that hit the area when the Miami and Erie Canal was constructed in the 19th century connecting Cincinnati to the Great Lakes. Toledo is known as the Glass City as several glass companies originated there, including Owens Corning and Pilkington North America. There is a large exhibition of glass art at the Toledo Museum of Art.

31. “To be, or not to be” speaker : HAMLET

There has been centuries of debate about how one interprets Hamlet’s soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be …”. My favorite opinion is that Hamlet is weighing up the pros and cons of suicide (“to not be”).

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles …

36. Charades player, essentially : MIME

In the parlor game known as charades, players take turns in acting out words or phrases. “Charade” is a French word describing a literary puzzle that was popular in 18th-century France. In said game, the word or phrase was broken into its constituent syllables, with each syllable being described somewhat enigmatically. This puzzle evolved into “acted charades”, which we now refer to simply as “charades”.

37. Fortuneteller’s card : TAROT

Tarot cards have been around since the mid-1400s, and for centuries were simply used for entertainment as a game. It has only been since the late 1800s that the cards have been used by fortune tellers to predict the future. The list of tarot cards includes the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man and the Lovers.

39. Road shoulder : BERM

The term “berm” can be used to describe a physical barrier of some kind. For example, berms can be constructed along a highway to protect those living and working nearby from noise pollution.

42. Rest of the afternoon : SIESTA

We use the word “siesta” to describe a short nap in the early afternoon, and imported the word into English from Spanish. In turn, the Spanish word is derived from the Latin “hora sexta” meaning “the sixth hour”. The idea is that the nap is taken at the sixth hour after dawn.

44. Notable (and grammatically incorrect) declaration by Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist” : THE LAW IS A ASS

Charles Dickens wrote the following lines in his novel “Oliver Twist”:

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

51. Staple of sci-fi filmmaking, for short : CGI

Computer-generated imagery (CGI)

53. Web site? : ATTIC

An attic or loft is a room or space located below the roof of a building. The term “attic” is a shortened form of “attic story”, the uppermost story or level of a house. This term “attic story” originally applied to a low, decorative level built on top of the uppermost story behind a building’s decorative facade. This use of decoration at the top of buildings was common in ancient Greece, and was particularly important in the Attica style. That Attica style was so called because it originated in the historical region of Attica that encompassed the city of Athens. And that’s how our attics are linked to ancient Greece.

63. Work units, in physics : ERGS

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, as there are 10 million ergs in one joule. it has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

65. London’s ___ Coward Theater : NOEL

I think that we should be using the British “Theatre” spelling here.

The Noël Coward Theatre in the West End of London opened in 1903 as the New Theatre. It was renamed the Albery Theatre in 1973, and took on the Noël Coward name in 2006. Noël Coward himself had appeared in one of his own plays at the then New Theatre in 1920.

Noël Coward was the most flamboyant of personalities. A playwright, composer and actor, Coward worked in a remarkable range of genres. He wrote the wonderfully airy play “Blithe Spirit”, as well as the Oscar-winning WWII naval drama “In Which We Serve”. A couple of his more famous songs, many of which he performed himself in cabaret, are “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” and “London Pride”.

Down

1. The first “A” of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr. : ASSN

The full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is remarkable in that it actually still uses the offensive term “colored people”. The NAACP was founded in 1909, by a group that included suffragette and journalist Mary White Ovington, wealthy socialist William English Walling, and civil rights activist Henry Moscowitz. Another member of the founding group was W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University. The date chosen for the founding of the NAACP was February 12th, 1909, the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, the man most visibly associated with the emancipation of African-American slaves.

10. To wit : NAMELY

The verb “to wit” means “to know”. The verb really isn’t used anymore except in the phrase “to wit” meaning “that is to say, namely”.

12. Not liquid or gaseous : SOLID

When I was a schoolkid, I was taught that there were three fundamental states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. I think it is now generally accepted that there is a fourth fundamental state matter, namely plasma. Plasma is a state without a definite shape or volume, and in that sense is similar to a gas. In a plasma, electrons have been ripped away from their nuclei, forming a conductive electron “sea”. Plasmas are created from gases by applying a massive voltage difference or an extremely high temperature.

13. ___ pad (reporter’s notebook) : STENO

Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

24. Food, informally : VITTLES

“Victuals” is a term for food that is fit for consumption. We tend to pronounce “victuals” as “vittles”, and we use the term “vittles” and “victuals” interchangeably.

25. 1982 comedy for which Jessica Lange won Best Supporting Actress : TOOTSIE

“Tootsie” is a hilarious 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman in the title role, a male actor who adopts a female identity in order to land an acting job. Jessica Lange won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the film. “Tootsie” was also provided Geena Davis with her first movie role.

26. Units of resistance : OHMS

The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every schoolkid knows as Ohm’s Law.

28. TV award : EMMY

The Emmy Awards are the television equivalent of the Oscars from the world of film, the Grammy Awards in music and the Tony Awards for the stage. Emmy Awards are presented throughout the year, depending on the sector of television being honored. The most famous of these ceremonies are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards. The distinctive name of “Emmy” is a softened version of the word “immy”, the nickname given to the video camera tubes found in old television cameras.

29. Destiny : KARMA

Karma is religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, one’s future life, or one’s afterlife. And, bad deeds have bad consequences.

30. West Bank inits. : PLO

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. The PLO’s early stated goal was the liberation of Palestine, with Palestine defined as the geographic entity that existed under the terms of the British Mandate granted by the League of Nations back in 1923. The PLO was granted observer status (i.e. no voting rights) at the United Nations in 1974.

33. Big butte : MESA

“What’s the difference between a butte and a mesa?” Both are hills with flat tops, but a mesa has a top that is wider than it is tall. A butte is a much narrower formation, taller than it is wide.

35. Big workday for Saint Nick : XMAS

The abbreviation “Xmas” that is used for “Christmas” comes from the Greek letter chi (X), which is the first letter of the Greek word for “Christ” (“Χριστός”).

Saint Nicholas of Myra is the inspiration for Santa Claus. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra (now in modern-day Turkey) during the 4th century AD, and was known for being generous to the poor. Centuries after he died, his remains were desecrated by Italian sailors and moved to Bari in Italy. One legend has it that the relics were moved again centuries later and reburied in the grounds of Jerpoint Abbey in Co. Kilkenny in Ireland, where you can visit the grave today. I choose to believe that Santa Claus’s relics are indeed buried in Ireland …

39. Boston, informally : BEANTOWN

In the days of sail, the natural trade routes across the Atlantic involved a lot of ships arriving in Boston directly from West Indies. One of the main cargoes carried by these vessels coming from the West Indies was molasses. An abundance of cheap molasses led to an abundance of baked beans in the port city, and all those baked beans gave rise to Boston’s nickname “Beantown”.

41. Oil-producing rock : SHALE

Shale oil can be extracted from oil shale (!), although the extraction process is more expensive than that used to produce crude oil.

43. ___ Thomas, N.B.A. Hall-of-Famer : ISIAH

Isiah Thomas played his whole professional career with the Detroit Pistons, and he is now the head coach with the Florida International University Golden Panthers. When you’re out shopping for popcorn, keep an eye out for the Dale & Thomas brand, as it’s co-owned by Isiah Thomas.

45. Orville or Wilbur : WRIGHT

Wilbur was the older of the two Wright brothers, and he was born in 1867 in Millville, Indiana. By the time that Orville was born in 1871, the family was living in Dayton, Ohio. The Wrights spent a few years of their youth back in Richmond, Indiana, before settling in Dayton for the rest of their lives. The brothers both died in Dayton; Wilbur in 1912 and Orville in 1948.

47. Like some eclipses : LUNAR

A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes into the shadow cast by the earth from the light of the sun, in other words when the earth is positioned directly between the sun and the moon. The more spectacular solar eclipse takes place when moon passes in front of the sun, so that the earth falls into the shadow cast by the moon.

51. “Pet” that’s a plant : CHIA

Chia is a flowering plant in the mint family. Chia seeds are an excellent food source and are often added to breakfast cereals and energy bars. There is also the famous Chia Pet, an invention of a San Francisco company. Chia Pets are terracotta figurines to which are applied moistened chia seeds. The seeds sprout and the seedlings become the “fur” of the Chia Pet.

52. Play dates? : GIGS

Musicians use “gig” to describe a job, a performance. The term originated in the early 1900s in the world of jazz. The term “gig economy” applies to a relatively recent phenomenon where workers find themselves jumping from temporary job to temporary job, from gig to gig.

54. The Supremes, e.g. : TRIO

The Supremes were the most successful vocal group in US history based on number-one hits. The group started out in 1959 as a four-member lineup called the Primettes. The name was changed to the Supremes in 1961. One member dropped out in 1962, leaving the Supremes as a trio. Lead singer Diana Ross began to garner much of the attention, which eventually led to a further name change, to Diana Ross & the Supremes.

55. ___ of Man : ISLE

The Isle of Man is a large island located in the middle of the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. I used to spend a lot of time there in my youth, and a very interesting place it is indeed. The Isle of Man is classed as a British Crown Dependency and isn’t part of the United Kingdom at all. It is self-governing and has its own parliament called the Tynwald. The Tynwald was created in AD 979 and is arguably the oldest continuously-running parliament in the world. The inhabitants of the island speak English, although they do have their own language as well called Manx, which is very similar to Irish Gaeilge and Scottish Gaelic. And then there are those Manx cats, the ones without any tails. I’ve seen lots of them, and can attest that they are indeed found all over the island.

59. Elevations: Abbr. : HTS

Height (ht.)

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Battery fluid : ACID

5. Wide keyboard key : ENTER

10. Loch ___ monster : NESS

14. Variety of wrestling : SUMO

15. Overcharge : GOUGE

16. Loads and loads : A LOT

17. Extremely obstinate : STUBBORN AS A MULE

20. Kathmandu’s land : NEPAL

21. Little League coach, often : DAD

22. Ushered : LED IN

23. Rikki-tikki-___ (Kipling mongoose) : TAVI

25. City in Spain or Ohio : TOLEDO

26. Person who’s talented but not versatile : ONE-TRICK PONY

31. “To be, or not to be” speaker : HAMLET

32. Sleep like ___ : A LOG

33. To the ___ (fully) : MAX

36. Charades player, essentially : MIME

37. Fortuneteller’s card : TAROT

39. Road shoulder : BERM

40. Foxy : SLY

41. Negligible : SLIM

42. Rest of the afternoon : SIESTA

44. Notable (and grammatically incorrect) declaration by Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist” : THE LAW IS A ASS

46. Top dogs : ALPHAS

49. Curb, with “in” : REIN

50. Urban’s opposite : RURAL

51. Staple of sci-fi filmmaking, for short : CGI

53. Web site? : ATTIC

57. Acting haughtily and pompously : ON ONE’S HIGH HORSE

60. Fell to the seabed : SANK

61. Figure made by a figure skater : EIGHT

62. Document with the line “I hereby bequeath …” : WILL

63. Work units, in physics : ERGS

64. Chooses actors for : CASTS

65. London’s ___ Coward Theater : NOEL

Down

1. The first “A” of N.A.A.C.P.: Abbr. : ASSN

2. Like puppies and kittens : CUTE

3. “No need to wake me” : I’M UP

4. Fight (with) : DO BATTLE

5. “I” problem? : EGO

6. Light-skinned and blond, say : NORDIC

7. Fish that’s a sushi staple : TUNA

8. “Holy mackerel!” : EGAD!

9. Hi-___ monitor : RES

10. To wit : NAMELY

11. Escape capture by : ELUDE

12. Not liquid or gaseous : SOLID

13. ___ pad (reporter’s notebook) : STENO

18. Trumpet : BLARE

19. “Moving right ___ …” : ALONG

24. Food, informally : VITTLES

25. 1982 comedy for which Jessica Lange won Best Supporting Actress : TOOTSIE

26. Units of resistance : OHMS

27. Execute perfectly, as a routine : NAIL

28. TV award : EMMY

29. Destiny : KARMA

30. West Bank inits. : PLO

33. Big butte : MESA

34. ___ and crafts : ARTS

35. Big workday for Saint Nick : XMAS

38. Not feel 100% : AIL

39. Boston, informally : BEANTOWN

41. Oil-producing rock : SHALE

43. ___ Thomas, N.B.A. Hall-of-Famer : ISIAH

44. “Appreciate it!” : THANKS!

45. Orville or Wilbur : WRIGHT

46. Came up : AROSE

47. Like some eclipses : LUNAR

48. Point on antlers : PRONG

51. “Pet” that’s a plant : CHIA

52. Play dates? : GIGS

54. The Supremes, e.g. : TRIO

55. ___ of Man : ISLE

56. Prison compartment : CELL

58. Instant, for short : SEC

59. Elevations: Abbr. : HTS

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7 thoughts on “0828-17 New York Times Crossword Answers 28 Aug 17, Monday”

  1. @PIX, Dave Kennison

    Good catch. I have to update the time from the prior day each evening when I make the new post. I forgot to do so last night. All fixed now. Thanks!

  2. Hate trying to find your solutions anymore. Guess I’ll get used to it, but don’t know what was wrong with the old method.

  3. Easy Monday puzzle. Not at at all easy to focus on or think about after seeing what happened in Las Vegas last night.

  4. 8:05, no issues. Guess I lagged the crowd today, huh? I guess I stared too long at THE LAW IS A ASS, when I should have just moved beyond it, and cross-filled.

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