1114-17 NY Times Crossword Answers 14 Nov 2017, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Jerry Miccolis & Jeff Chen
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: Triple Double

Each of today’s themed answers includes a triple occurrence of doubled letters:

  • 37A. With 39-Across, impressive basketball feat … or a feature shared by the answers to the six starred clues : TRIPLE
  • 39A. See 37-Across : -DOUBLE
  • 17A. *Sugar craving : SWEET TOOTH
  • 21A. *Carved figurine popular around Christmas : WOOD DEER
  • 23A. *What never goes unpunished, it’s said : GOOD DEED
  • 53A. *Wheelchair foot strap : HEEL LOOP
  • 56A. *Pet cage feature : FEED DOOR
  • 60A. *Figurehead? : BOOKKEEPER

Bill’s time: 6m 37s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10. “___ and the Real Girl” (Ryan Gosling film) : LARS

“Lars and the Real Girl” is a pretty weird film about a shy young man who develops a relationship with an anatomically-correct, life-size doll. Said shy, young man is played by actor Ryan Gosling.

Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor who really seems to be riding high right now. He is one of a string of entertainers to graduate from the Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel.

14. Video game lover of Princess Peach : MARIO

Princess Peach is the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom in Nintendo’s “Mario” universe. She is also Mario’s love interest.

19. Whom Dory and Marlin found, in film : NEMO

“Finding Nemo” is a 2003 animated blockbuster from Pixar. The film was the winner of the Oscar that year for Best Animated Feature. Believe it or not, “Finding Nemo” is the best-selling DVD of all time and, until 2010’s “Toy Story 3”, it was the highest-grossing, G-rated movie at the box office.

20. Niihau neckwear : LEI

The Hawaiian island of Niihau lies about 17 miles southwest of Kauai, with a population of just over 100 people. Niihau is privately owned and so only a few tourists are welcome, and only in the past few decades. The lack of access led to the island earning the nickname “the Forbidden Isle”.

28. Iraq War concerns, for short : WMDS

The first recorded use of the term “Weapon of Mass Destruction” (WMD) was in 1937. The words were used by Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, in reference to the bombardment of Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War by the German Luftwaffe. He said, “Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean, waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?”

29. O. J.’s alma mater : USC

The University of Southern California (USC) is a private school in Los Angeles. Apart from its excellent academic record, USC is known the success of its athletic program. USC athletes have won more Olympic medals than the students of any other university in the world. The USC marching band is very famous as well, and is known as the “Spirit of Troy”. The band has performed with many celebrities, and is the only college band to have two platinum records.

31. Son of Aphrodite : EROS

As always seems to be the case with Greek gods, Eros and Aphrodite have overlapping spheres of influence. Aphrodite was the goddess of love between a man and a woman, and Eros was the god who stirred the passions of the male. The Roman equivalent of Aphrodite was Venus, and the equivalent of Eros was Cupid.

33. Knight’s title : SIR

Kneel, and a monarch might “dub thee a knight” if you’re lucky. “Dub” is a specific term derived from Old English that was used to mean “make a knight”. As the knight was also given a knightly name at the same time, “dub” has come to mean “give someone a name”.

35. Boat in “Jaws” : ORCA

“Jaws” is a thrilling 1975 movie directed by Steven Spielberg that is based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. The film has a powerful cast, led by Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. “Jaws” was perhaps the first “summer blockbuster” with the highest box office take in history, a record that stood until “Star Wars” was released two years later.

37. With 39-Across, impressive basketball feat … or a feature shared by the answers to the six starred clues : TRIPLE
39. See 37-Across : -DOUBLE

In the world of basketball, a “double” is the accumulation of double digits in either points, rebounds, assists, steals or blocked shots. A “double-double” is getting double digits in two of these five categories. A player can also earn a triple-double, quadruple-double or quintuple-double.

42. Kindle competitor : NOOK

The Barnes & Noble electronic-book reader is called the Nook. The Nook accounts for 10-15% of electronic book readers in the world.

44. First word of the Lord’s Prayer : OUR

The Lord’s Prayer is a central prayer in Christian religions, and is found in two places in the New Testament. In the version in the Gospel of Matthew, the last line of the prayer is “deliver us from evil”. In the Gospel of Luke, the last line is “lead us not into temptation”. The last words of the prayer as it most often said today are:

For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen

46. Website subscriber’s creation: Abbr. : ACCT

Account (acct.)

48. Common place for a sports injury, for short : ACL

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee.

58. Emceed, e.g. : LED

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism standing for Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

66. Princess created by L. Frank Baum : OZMA

L. Frank Baum wrote a whole series of books about the Land of Oz, and Princess Ozma appears in all of them except the one that’s most famous, namely “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.

67. Garlic unit : CLOVE

Our word “garlic” evolved via Old English from “gar” (spear) and “leac” (leek). The use of “spear” is apparently a reference to the shape of a clove.

68. Small change : CENT

The US one-cent coin has borne the profile of President Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. Fifty years later, a representation of the Lincoln Memorial was added to the reverse side.

Down

6. Kerfuffle : ADO

“Kerfuffle” comes from the Scottish “curfuffle”, with both words meaning “disruption”.

7. Sights at malls on Black Friday : CROWDS

In the world of retail, “Black Friday” is the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Black Friday is when many stores start the holiday shopping season, and so offer deep discounts to get ahead of the competition.

8. Post-W.W. II alliance : NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded not long after WWII in 1949 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The first NATO Secretary General was Lord Ismay, Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during WWII. Famously, Lord Ismay said the goal of NATO was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

11. Big name in skin care : AVEENO

Aveeno is a manufacturer of skincare and haircare products that was founded in 1945. The name Aveeno comes from the Latin name for the common oat: “Avena sativa”.

18. Scenario before extra innings : TIE

That would be baseball.

22. Like a jigsaw puzzle : DIE-CUT

Jigsaws are saws designed for the cutting of irregular curves by hand. The original jigsaw puzzles were created by painting a picture on a sheet of wood and then cutting the picture into small pieces using a jigsaw, hence the name. Today, almost all jigsaw puzzles are pictures glued onto cardboard. The puzzle pieces are then die-cut, and there’s no jigsaw involved at all.

23. Prez with the same initials as an N.Y.C. landmark : GWB

President George W. Bush (GWB) is named for his father, George H. W. Bush. The “W” in the name of both father and son stands for “Walker”. Walker was the family name of President George H. W. Bush’s mother, Dorothy Walker.

New York City’s George Washington Bridge (GWB) spans the Hudson River and links the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan with Fort Lee in New Jersey. When the bridge was opened in 1931 it had one deck, allowing six lanes of traffic to traverse the river. The bridge’s designer allowed for the construction of a second deck under the first, and this was added in 1946. Some locals refer to the second deck as “Martha”, a reference to the president’s wife.

26. “I’ve found it!” : EUREKA!

“Eureka” translates from Greek as “I have found it”. The word is usually associated with Archimedes, uttered as he stepped into his bath one day. His discovery was that the volume of water that was displaced was equal to that of the object (presumably his foot) that had been submerged. He used this fact to determine the volume of a crown, something he needed in order to determine if it was made of pure gold or was a forgery.

30. Baby : CODDLE

The verb “to coddle”, meaning “to treat tenderly”, was actually coined in 1815 by Jane Austen in her novel “Emma”. At least, that is the first written record we have of the verb’s usage. John Knightley (younger brother of George Knightley) addresses his wife Isabella (elder sister of Emma Woodhouse) with the following words:

“My dear Isabella,” exclaimed he, hastily, “pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I chuse.”

34. U.N. agcy. headquartered in Geneva : ILO

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is an agency, now administered by the UN, that was established by the League of Nations after WWI. The ILO deals with important issues such as health and safety, discrimination, child labor and forced labor. The organization was recognized for its work in 1969 when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

36. Aussie hopper : ROO

The word “kangaroo” comes from the Australian Aborigine term for the animal. There’s an oft-quoted story that the explorer James Cook (later Captain Cook) asked a local native what was the name of this remarkable-looking animal, and the native responded with “Kangaroo”. The story is that the native was actually saying “I don’t understand you”, but as cute as that tale is, it’s just an urban myth.

40. Snapchat’s ghost, e.g. : LOGO

Snapchat is a messaging system that allows users to send photos and video clips to a limited list of recipients. The photos and clips, called “snaps”, can be viewed for only a few seconds before they are deleted from the recipient’s device, and from the Snapchat servers.

41. Coin of many countries : EURO

The “eurozone” or “euro area” is a monetary and economic union within the European Union that uses the euro as a shared legal tender and sole currency.

45. What people know about you, informally : REP

Reputation (rep)

47. Dimwit : CRETIN

“Cretin” is a slang term meaning “idiot”, and is a term that I do not like at all. “Cretin” was a medical term in the 1900s that derived from Alpine French dialect. Congenital hypothyroidism was particularly associated with an area in the French Alps and manifested itself as impaired physical and mental development, a condition known as “cretinism”.

49. Google’s web browser : CHROME

Google’s Chrome is now the most popular web browser used in the US, with Mozilla Firefox in second place and Internet Explorer in third. I find Chrome to be much, much more user-friendly than Internet Explorer, and more featured than Firefox. Chrome also works more seamlessly with other Google products and with Android phones.

50. Yale, affectionately : OLD ELI

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1701, making it the third-oldest university in the US. Originally called the Collegiate School, it was renamed to Yale University in honor of retired merchant from London called Elihu Yale, who made generous contributions to the institution. Yale University’s nickname is “Old Eli”, in a nod to the benefactor.

51. “Ask about it at work” sloganeer, once : AFLAC

In 1999, Aflac (American Family Life Assurance Company) was huge in the world of insurance but it wasn’t a household name, so a New York advertising agency was given the task of making the Aflac brand more memorable. One of the agency’s art directors, while walking around Central Park one lunchtime, heard a duck quacking and in his mind linked it with “Aflac”, and that duck has been “Aflacking” ever since …

52. University of New Mexico team : LOBOS

The University of New Mexico (UNM) is a school in Albuquerque, founded in 1889. The sports teams of UNM are called the Lobos, and there are two mascots who work the crowds called Lobo Louie and Lobo Lucy.

54. Big game : ELK

The elk (also known as “wapiti”) is the one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were familiar with the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and incorrectly gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct name for the beast is “wapiti”, which means “white rump” in Shawnee. It’s all very confusing …

55. Little sucker : LEECH

We are most familiar with medicinal leeches, which feed on the blood of mainly vertebrate animals. However, most leeches are predatory and swallow other invertebrates for food.

61. Manhattan’s home: Abbr. : KAN

Manhattan, Kansas is the fourth largest city in the state and is known as a college town, home to Kansas State University. The original settlement that grew to be Manhattan was known as Boston back in the mid-1800s when settlers from the Cincinnati-Manhattan Company of Ohio landed (actually, they ran aground!) in the area. The settlers agreed to stay in Boston provided the settlement was renamed to Manhattan, a condition that was readily agreed to. In 1977 Manhattan was officially given the nickname of “The Little Apple”, for obvious reasons.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. No longer a minor : GROWN
6. Teenager’s woe : ACNE
10. “___ and the Real Girl” (Ryan Gosling film) : LARS
14. Video game lover of Princess Peach : MARIO
15. “Darn it!” : DRAT!
16. Affirm : AVOW
17. *Sugar craving : SWEET TOOTH
19. Whom Dory and Marlin found, in film : NEMO
20. Niihau neckwear : LEI
21. *Carved figurine popular around Christmas : WOOD DEER
23. *What never goes unpunished, it’s said : GOOD DEED
27. Enroll : SIGN ON
28. Iraq War concerns, for short : WMDS
29. O. J.’s alma mater : USC
31. Son of Aphrodite : EROS
32. Bit that might have the heading “About Me” : BIO
33. Knight’s title : SIR
35. Boat in “Jaws” : ORCA
37. With 39-Across, impressive basketball feat … or a feature shared by the answers to the six starred clues : TRIPLE
39. See 37-Across : -DOUBLE
42. Kindle competitor : NOOK
43. Half of a colon : DOT
44. First word of the Lord’s Prayer : OUR
46. Website subscriber’s creation: Abbr. : ACCT
48. Common place for a sports injury, for short : ACL
50. Fantasy beast : OGRE
51. ___ fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm) : ATRIAL
53. *Wheelchair foot strap : HEEL LOOP
56. *Pet cage feature : FEED DOOR
58. Emceed, e.g. : LED
59. Running behind : LATE
60. *Figurehead? : BOOKKEEPER
65. P ___ psychology (unhelpful spelling clarification) : AS IN
66. Princess created by L. Frank Baum : OZMA
67. Garlic unit : CLOVE
68. Small change : CENT
69. Witnessed : SEEN
70. Far from fuzzy, for short : HI-DEF

Down

1. Baseball execs : GMS
2. Kind of food or footage : RAW
3. Mined find : ORE
4. Brandishes : WIELDS
5. “O.K., understood” : NOTED
6. Kerfuffle : ADO
7. Sights at malls on Black Friday : CROWDS
8. Post-W.W. II alliance : NATO
9. Cultural value system : ETHOS
10. Russia’s seizure of Crimea, e.g. : LAND GRAB
11. Big name in skin care : AVEENO
12. Ladies’ men : ROMEOS
13. Like some enemies or testimonies : SWORN
18. Scenario before extra innings : TIE
22. Like a jigsaw puzzle : DIE-CUT
23. Prez with the same initials as an N.Y.C. landmark : GWB
24. Leave out : OMIT
25. Stench : ODOR
26. “I’ve found it!” : EUREKA!
30. Baby : CODDLE
33. Expense item for a political campaign : SPOT AD
34. U.N. agcy. headquartered in Geneva : ILO
36. Aussie hopper : ROO
38. Episode : INCIDENT
40. Snapchat’s ghost, e.g. : LOGO
41. Coin of many countries : EURO
45. What people know about you, informally : REP
46. Order to relax : AT EASE
47. Dimwit : CRETIN
49. Google’s web browser : CHROME
50. Yale, affectionately : OLD ELI
51. “Ask about it at work” sloganeer, once : AFLAC
52. University of New Mexico team : LOBOS
54. Big game : ELK
55. Little sucker : LEECH
57. Seep : OOZE
61. Manhattan’s home: Abbr. : KAN
62. Seed case : POD
63. Anticipatory time : EVE
64. One crying foul? : REF

12 thoughts on “1114-17 NY Times Crossword Answers 14 Nov 2017, Tuesday”

  1. 10:15 Average for Tuesday but felt harder as I was doing it. The section including and below HEELLOOP was defintiely a trouble spot. Everything else was pretty straightforward. I saw Lars and the Real Girl but that wasn’t a big box office smash. I wonder if most people will have heard of it.

  2. 14:31. I saw TRIPLE DOUBLE pretty quickly. I was not real familiar with FEED DOOR, HEELLOOP or WOODDEER, but the fact that I knew the theme made guessing the letters easy enough. A more typical Tuesday after struggling on yesterday’s puzzle.

    Best –

  3. 12:02, 2 errors. Did not fill the A square in OZMA/KAN. When it was apparent that 61D was not NYC, I moved on and did not give it a second look.

    1. FWIW, I read it. I must be getting pretty close to the mark for you to be so riled about it. You go on ahead with your “preferences” (I’d call them “outs”) for how to complete puzzles and how to judge how well you’ve done on them. Most people can see that for what it is.

      As for my blaming “cynical clueing” and “stupid themes”, as I often do*, I *still* will own up to my mistakes, or to not finishing the puzzle if I can’t, whatever the reason, or excuse, if you prefer that term. Because, as I related it to you, it *still* doesn’t change the facts on the ground. You finish the puzzle…. or you DON’T. Very simple. (And after that, it’s a measure of whether you had any mistakes in your grid. Or, is that “flexible” with you, too?)

      *I also notice that when I rant about certain aspects of certain puzzles, I’m seldom alone. Others’ remarks usually cite the exact same “problem areas” I do.

  4. No errors. I had some trouble getting through this one. I even thought for a while that I was not going to finish. That would have been humiliating for me if I had not been able to finish a Tuesday-level puzzle.

    A turning point for me was realizing that 61-Down was not NYC. I once lived in a neighboring state to Kansas and remembered that indeed there was a city named Manhattan there. I am sure that the constructors of today’s puzzle knew full well that a sizable number of us would be diverted at that point and be misled into assuming that the answer was the borough of New York City.

  5. 15:11, escaped with no damage. This one was about as tough as scoring a triple double in the NBA; it was NOT easy. This one will go down as a feather in my cap, as far as Tuesday puzzles go.

    1. Oops, wait, 3 errors! Missed KAN crossed by BOOKKEEPER and OZMA! Lack of a last-minute scan laid me low!

  6. Mix of easy, medium, and challenging clues/answers today, affecting both theme and fill. Bogged down in the SW, where I wanted and stayed with INstance over INCIDENT, and had to look up the latter [sigh] to complete that corner. A costly error.

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