0322-18 NY Times Crossword Answers 22 Mar 2018, Thursday

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Constructed by: Ross Trudeau
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Social Media Success?

Themed clues appear to refer to success on various social media platforms, but the answers are much more traditional in nature:

  • 17A. One with a lot of likes? : VALLEY GIRL
  • 23A. One with a lot of tweets? : ROCKIN’ ROBIN
  • 35A. One with a lot of shares? : MAJORITY OWNER
  • 49A. One with a lot of posts? : FENCE MENDER
  • 57A. One with a lot of followers? : MOTHER DUCK

Bill’s time: 11m 06s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14. Lake tribe : ERIE

The Erie people lived on lands south of Lake Erie, in parts of the modern-day US states of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Erie were sometimes referred to as the Cat Nation, a reference to the mountain lions that were ever-present in the area that they lived. The name “Erie” is a shortened form of “Erielhonan” meaning “long tail”, possibly a further reference to the mountain lion or cat, which was possibly used as a totem. The Erie people gave their name to the Great Lake.

15. Mann of pop : AIMEE

Aimee Mann is a rock singer and guitarist from Virginia. Mann is married to Michael Penn, the brother of actor Sean Penn.

16. Big 12 college town : AMES

The Iowa city of Ames was founded as a stop on the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad in 1864. It was named for US Congressman Oakes Ames from the state of Massachusetts in honor of the role that Ames played in the building of the transcontinental railroad.

Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) is located in Ames, Iowa. Among many other notable milestones, ISU created the country’s first school of veterinary medicine, in 1879. The sports teams of ISU are known as the Cyclones.

17. One with a lot of likes? : VALLEY GIRL

The original “valley girls” were the young, middle-class females living in San Fernando Valley in Southern California.

19. Yukons and Envoys : GMCS

GMC is a division of General Motors (GM) established in 1901 that started out as GMC Truck.

20. Thyme piece? : SILENT H

The second letter in the word “thyme” is a silent letter H (aitch).

21. Cheddar : MOOLA

Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dough, scratch, cheddar, simoleons, clams and moola(h) are all slang terms for money.

23. One with a lot of tweets? : ROCKIN’ ROBIN

1995’s “Rockin’ Robin” was the only number-one hit for rock and roll singer Bobby Day. The song was famously covered by Michael Jackson in 1972.

Rockin’ robin, (tweet-tweet-tweet)
Rock-rock-rockin’ robin’ (tweet-tweedilly-tweet)
Go rockin’ robin ’cause we’re really gonna rock tonight (tweet-tweedilly-tweet)

27. Kind of dish : PETRI

Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

29. Round after the Elite Eight : SEMIS

In the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship, the teams remaining at various stages of the tournament are known as:

  • The “Sweet Sixteen” (the regional semi-finalists)
  • The “Elite Eight” (the regional finalists)
  • The “Final Four” (the national semi-finalists)

30. Dutch financial giant : ING

ING is a huge Dutch banking institution created via a merger in 1991. The company headquarters is in a spectacular building in Amsterdam called simply ING House. ING stands for Internationale Nederlanden Groep.

31. Blue Devils’ grp. : ACC

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

Duke University was founded in 1838 as Brown’s Schoolhouse. The school was renamed to Trinity College in 1859, and to this day the town where the college was located back then is known as Trinity, in honor of the school. The school was moved in 1892 to Durham, North Carolina in part due to generous donations from the wealthy tobacco industrialist Washington Duke. Duke’s donation required that the school open its doors to women, placing them on an equal footing with men. Trinity’s name was changed to Duke in 1924 in recognition of the generosity of the Duke family. Duke’s athletic teams are known as the Blue Devils.

33. Jim’s wife on “The Office” : PAM

In the excellent sitcom “The Office”, the character Pam Halpert (née Beesly) is played very ably by Jenna Fischer. If you’ve seen the original version of “The Office” from the UK, then you’d have met Pam’s equivalent character, whose name is Dawn Tinsley.

39. Weekly reading for drs. : JAMA

The American Medical Association (AMA) has been publishing the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) since 1883.

40. Techno is a subgenre of it, for short : EDM

Electronic dance music (EDM)

43. ___ Lama : DALAI

The Dalai Lama is a religious leader in the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th to hold the office. He has indicated that the next Dalai Lama might be found outside of Tibet for the first time, and may even be female.

45. A walk is not counted as one : AT BAT

That would be baseball.

52. Org. established during Nixon’s presidency : EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set up during the Nixon administration and began operation at the end of 1970.

56. Where “Tosca” is set : ROME

Unlike so many operas, Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” was a big hit right from day one, when it was first performed in 1900 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. “Tosca” is currently the eighth-most performed opera in America.

61. Kind of committee : AD HOC

The Latin phrase “ad hoc” means “for this purpose”. An ad hoc committee, for example, is formed for a specific purpose and is disbanded after making its final report.

62. Athlete posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom : ASHE

Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player from Richmond, Virginia. In his youth, Ashe found himself having to travel great distances to play against Caucasian opponents due to the segregation that still existed in his home state. He was rewarded for his dedication by being selected for the 1963 US Davis Cup team, the first African American player to be so honored. Ashe continued to run into trouble because of his ethnicity though, and in 1968 was denied entry into South Africa to play in the South African Open. In 1979 Ashe suffered a heart attack and had bypass surgery, with follow-up surgery four years later during which he contracted HIV from blood transfusions. Ashe passed away in 1993 due to complications from AIDS. Shortly afterwards, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

63. Urges : YENS

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.

64. Relative of “exempli gratia” : ID EST

“Id est” is Latin for “that is”, and is often abbreviated to “i.e.” when used in English.

The Latin “exempli gratia” means “for the sake of example”, and isa phrase we often use in English. “Exempli gratia” is almost always shortened to “e.g.”

Down

3. Salmon cut : FILLET

A fillet is a boneless cut of meat or fish. The term comes from the Old French “filet” meaning “small thread, filament”. Apparently we applied the term to food as the piece of fish or meat was tied up with string after it was boned. Here in the US, we tend to use the French spelling “filet”.

6. Hard-to-hit pitches : HIGH CS

Those would be musical notes.

10. Master of the cartoon dog McBarker : MAGOO

Mr. Quincy Magoo is a wonderful cartoon character voiced by Jim Backus. Backus is probably equally well-known for playing Mr. Magoo as well as Thurston Howell, III on “Gilligan’s Island”. Mr. Magoo first appeared on the screen in a short called “The Ragtime Bear” in 1949. His persona was at least in part based on the antics of W. C. Fields. Backus originally used a fake rubber nose that pinched his nostrils in order to create the distinctive voice, although in time he learned to do the voice without the prop. My absolute favorite appearance by Mr. Magoo is in “Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol”, a true classic from the sixties. There was a movie adaptation of “Mr Magoo” released in 1997, with Leslie Nielsen playing the title role.

12. La-Z-Boy offering : RECLINER

La-Z-Boy is a furniture manufacturer based in Monroe, Michigan. Although the company makes furniture for every room in the house, it is famous for its recliner chairs found in family rooms all over the country.

13. WikiLeaks founder : ASSANGE

Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the website that is notorious for publishing information that governments and individuals would rather remain secret. Assange is currently in England and lost an appeal to avoid extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking political asylum in 2012. He was granted that asylum and now lives at the embassy.

18. “Lucia di Lammermoor” baritone : ENRICO

“Lucia di Lammermoor” is an 1835 opera by Gaetano Donizetti, which is loosely based on the historical novel “The Bride of Lammermoor” written by Sir Walter Scott.

21. Wifey, with “the” : MRS

Mr. is an abbreviation for “master”, and Mrs. is an abbreviation for “mistress”.

24. Gigolo : KEPT MAN

In French, a “gigole” is a “dancing girl, prostitute”. The male form of the word, “gigolo”, came into use in English in the 1920s.

26. “I Am Not Spock” memoirist … who then wrote “I Am Spock” 20 years later : NIMOY

Leonard Nimoy played the logical Mr. Spock in the original “Star Trek” television series. Spock has to be the most popular character on the show, and he kept popping up in “Star Trek” spin offs. Nimoy first worked alongside William Shatner (Captain Kirk) in an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (I loved that show as a kid!), with Nimoy playing a bad guy and Shatner playing an U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

28. Indian prince : RAJA

“Raja” (also “rajah”) is word derived from Sanskrit that is used particularly in India for a monarch or princely ruler. The female form is “rani” (also “ranee”) and is used for a raja’s wife.

34. Little irritant : GNAT

Gnats are attracted to the smell of rotting food, and to vinegar. Simple homemade traps that use vinegar are often constructed to attract and kill gnats.

36. “You tell it, preacher!” : AMEN AMEN!

The word “amen” translates as “so be it”. “Amen” is said to be of Hebrew origin, but it is also likely to be influenced by Aramaic and Arabic.

43. Actor Billy ___ Williams : DEE

The actor Billy Dee Williams is most famous for playing the character Lando Calrissian in two of the “Stars Wars” movies.

44. Certain potatoes : IDAHOS

Idaho has the nickname “Gem State”, mainly because almost every known type of gemstone has been found there. Idaho is also sometimes called the Potato State as potatoes are such a popular crop in the state. I’d go for the potatoes over the gems, but that’s probably just me …

47. Geronimo’s people : APACHE

Cochise and Geronimo were perhaps the two most famous Apache leaders to resist intrusions by the European Americans in 1800s. Both lived lives full of conflict, but both also lived relatively long lives. Cochise eventually entered into a treaty putting an end to the fighting, and retired onto a new reservation. Cochise died of natural causes in 1874, at the age of 69. Geronimo surrendered, and spent years as a prisoner of war. He spent his last years as a celebrity, and even rode in the inaugural parade for President Theodore Roosevelt. Geronimo died of pneumonia in 1909 at the age of 79.

48. Exxon Valdez, e.g. : TANKER

The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that famously went aground in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989, spilling hundreds of thousands of crude oil. The ship was repaired after the incident and went back into service under the new name “Exxon Mediterranean”.

57. Final full month before été begins : MAI

In French, the month of “mai” (May) is in the season of “printemps” (spring).

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Falling-out : RIFT
5. Mold : SHAPE
10. ___ Nair, “Mississippi Masala” director : MIRA
14. Lake tribe : ERIE
15. Mann of pop : AIMEE
16. Big 12 college town : AMES
17. One with a lot of likes? : VALLEY GIRL
19. Yukons and Envoys : GMCS
20. Thyme piece? : SILENT H
21. Cheddar : MOOLA
22. Employ : USE
23. One with a lot of tweets? : ROCKIN’ ROBIN
27. Kind of dish : PETRI
29. Round after the Elite Eight : SEMIS
30. Dutch financial giant : ING
31. Blue Devils’ grp. : ACC
33. Jim’s wife on “The Office” : PAM
34. Elation : GLEE
35. One with a lot of shares? : MAJORITY OWNER
39. Weekly reading for drs. : JAMA
40. Techno is a subgenre of it, for short : EDM
41. ___ big : YEA
42. Some words from an admirer : ODE
43. ___ Lama : DALAI
45. A walk is not counted as one : AT BAT
49. One with a lot of posts? : FENCE MENDER
52. Org. established during Nixon’s presidency : EPA
53. Aid for a search-and-rescue team : FLARE
54. Local, in a news article : AREA MAN
56. Where “Tosca” is set : ROME
57. One with a lot of followers? : MOTHER DUCK
60. Times when you might have trouble sleeping : EVES
61. Kind of committee : AD HOC
62. Athlete posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom : ASHE
63. Urges : YENS
64. Relative of “exempli gratia” : ID EST
65. Happy hour order : BEER

Down

1. Gets going : REVS UP
2. Poker table declaration : I RAISE
3. Salmon cut : FILLET
4. Prompter or printer lead-in : TELE-
5. Tell : SAY TO
6. Hard-to-hit pitches : HIGH CS
7. “___ crazy?” : AM I
8. What “/” might signify : PER
9. ___ sauce (sushi condiment) : EEL
10. Master of the cartoon dog McBarker : MAGOO
11. Stock-still : IMMOBILE
12. La-Z-Boy offering : RECLINER
13. WikiLeaks founder : ASSANGE
18. “Lucia di Lammermoor” baritone : ENRICO
21. Wifey, with “the” : MRS
24. Gigolo : KEPT MAN
25. “It’s a possibility for me” : I MAY
26. “I Am Not Spock” memoirist … who then wrote “I Am Spock” 20 years later : NIMOY
28. Indian prince : RAJA
32. Smash : CREAM
34. Little irritant : GNAT
35. Was physically intimate : MADE LOVE
36. “You tell it, preacher!” : AMEN AMEN!
37. Unused : IDLE
38. One with something on : WEARER
39. Boy king on “Game of Thrones” : JOFFREY
43. Actor Billy ___ Williams : DEE
44. Certain potatoes : IDAHOS
46. Baffle : BEMUSE
47. Geronimo’s people : APACHE
48. Exxon Valdez, e.g. : TANKER
50. Salad green : CRESS
51. Put up : ERECT
55. Not much, as of lotion : A DAB
57. Final full month before été begins : MAI
58. Not quite right : ODD
59. Not just a : THE

11 thoughts on “0322-18 NY Times Crossword Answers 22 Mar 2018, Thursday”

  1. 14:32 Felt like I was struggling through but my time ended up pretty fast for Thursday. I didn’t get what was happening with the theme for awhile. Upper left was the toughest part for me. 6D and the beginning of 23A were tough and I didn’t know filet could have two Ls

  2. 13:43, no errors. Slightly puzzled by the theme at first, but I finally got it. And, as for “filet” versus “fillet”, see

    http://grammarist.com/usage/filet-fillet/

    (Short version: Both spellings exist, but there seems to be some confusion about when to use which. At least, in spite of what some here will say, it’s not the fault of the setter or the editor. ?)

    1. Correction! 15:16, no errors! (The number above is for today’s WSJ puzzle … and I’m getting more error-prone by the day … it’s really beginning to scare me … ?.)

  3. 32:53. For whatever reason this felt more like a Friday to me. More missteps than I could possibly list here. Didn’t pay attention to the theme until the very end when I got VALLEY GIRL for “One with a lot of likes” which gave me a good laugh.

    I too had fits over the 2 “L’s” in FILLET. HIGHCS also gave me fits until I guessed my way there through crosses. Put “curves” at first, but quickly saw that wasn’t going to work.

    Best –

  4. Bobby Day’s hit was in 1958. Interestingly, the flip side, “Over and Over,” as covered by the Dave Clark Five, was that group’s only #1 hit in the States. Not that any of this matters….

    1. Doesn’t have to matter, one feature of this blog is the interesting tidbits supplied by the commenters.

  5. 18:56, no errors. Figured there must be some theme going on today, could not figure it out; glad @Bill could tie it together. A lot of curveballs thrown in this grid, but they all seemed to sort themselves out, eventually.

    My 2 cents: shouldn’t a KEPT MAN be called a gigolee rather than a gigolo?? 🙂

  6. One letter wrong for two errors at the BEMUSE/AREA MAN cross. I erroneously had BEFUSE in an attempt to come off of CONFUSE somehow. I originally thought of BEMUSE but it just did not seem right. It seemed to me that if you amuse someone that you are delightfully entertaining them but not “baffling” them.

  7. 15:22, and no errors, although there were a few hiccups and overwrites along the way. Theme was kind of cute, I have to say.

    At least there were no evil tricks! You have to be on guard for that on a Thursday!

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