1113-20 NY Times Crossword 13 Nov 20, Friday

Bill’s time: 11m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Wikipedia articles that need expanding : STUBS

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and is the most-used reference site on the Internet. The site was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. I, for one, am very grateful …

16 “Dear Mama” rapper : TUPAC

Rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur adopted the inventive stage name “2Pac”. He was a hard man, spending eleven months in prison for sexual assault. He was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas at only 25 years of age.

19 Letter after 53-Across : ETA
(53 Letter before 19-Across : ZETA )

Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”. Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.

21 Physicist Tesla : NIKOLA

Nikola Tesla was born in Serbia, but later moved to the US. Tesla’s work on mechanical and electrical engineering was crucial to the development of alternating current technology, the same technology that is used by equipment at the backbone of modern power generation and distribution systems.

22 Japanese electronics company bought by Sony in 2002 : AIWA

Aiwa was a Japanese company that produced consumer electronics, mainly audio and video equipment. Sony bought Aiwa in 2002 and eventually discontinued the brand in 2006. The Aiwa trademark was acquired by a Chicago-based consumer electronics company in 2015.

24 Soup dumpling : WONTON

A wonton is a dumpling used in Chinese cooking. Wontons are often boiled and served in a wonton soup.

29 Soft, squishy material : NERF

Nerf is a soft material used in a whole series of toys designed for “safe” play indoors. The Nerf product is used to make darts, balls and ammunition for toy guns. “NERF” is an acronym, standing for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam.

30 “Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the ___”: Pope : SOUL

Alexander Pope was an English poet who was famous for his own compositions as well as for a translation of Homer’s works. One of Pope’s most notable poems is “Ode on Solitude” that opens with:

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Pope wrote that when he was just twelve years old!

35 Key of Dvorak’s “Serenade for Strings”: Abbr. : E MAJ

Antonín Dvořák was a composer from Czechoslovakia who spent three years working and composing in the United States. He was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York from 1892 to 1895. Certainly here in the US, Dvořák’s best known work is his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, which is often referred to as “The New World Symphony”. His career was very much helped along by fellow composer Johannes Brahms, who very much appreciated Dvořák’s work.

50 Park in N.Y.C.: Abbr. : AVE

Park Avenue in New York City used to be known as Fourth Avenue, and for much of its length carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad. When the line was built, some of it was constructed by cutting through the length of the street and then forming underground tunnels by covering over the line with grates and greenery. This greenery formed a parkland between 34th and 40th Streets, and in 1860 the grassy section of Fourth Avenue was renamed Park Avenue, a name that was eventually used for the whole thoroughfare.

51 Afresh : DE NOVO

“De novo” is Latin for “anew”, and is a term that we use in English with the same meaning.

53 Letter before 19-Across : ZETA
(19 Letter after 53-Across : ETA)

Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a precursor of our Roman letter Z. The word “zeta” is also the ancestor of the letter name “zed”, which became “zee”, the term that we use here in the US.

54 Soy product originally from Indonesia : TEMPEH

Tempeh is a soy product that originated in Indonesia. It is made from soybeans that have been partly cooked and fermented. I’ve had quite a bit of tempeh used as a meat substitute in vegetarian dishes. It doesn’t have an appealing texture to me, so I’m not a fan …

59 I-, for one : ANION

As we all recall from science class, a positive ion is called a cation and a negative ion is an anion. The names “cation” and “anion” come from Greek, with “kation” meaning “going down” and “anion” meaning “going up”.

62 Early tablet user : MOSES

According to the Book of Exodus, God inscribed the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to Moses on Mount Sinai.

63 Like a cakewalk : EASY AS PIE

The Cakewalk is a dance that originated in the African-American community from the “Prize Walk”, in the days of slavery. The Prize Walk was a procession in which couples “walked” with as much style as possible, with the intent of winning the big prize, a large cake. Our term “cakewalk”, meaning something easily accomplished, derives from this tradition. The expression “take the cake” has the same etymology.

Down

1 Ancient undeciphered writing system : LINEAR A

There were two linear scripts used in ancient Crete. One is known as Linear A. The other, imaginatively enough, is known as Linear B.

4 ___ Balls : SNO

The Hostess cakes called Sno Balls are usually pink in color, although in its original form each packet of two cakes contained one white and one pink. Around Halloween you can buy Sno Balls in the form of Scary Cakes and Glo Balls that are colored orange and green. and on St. Paddy’s Day there’s a green one available. Yoo hoo!

8 Hit the jackpot, with “up” : CLEANED …

The term “jackpot” dates back to the 1800s and comes from the game of poker. In some variants there are progressive antes. This means that players have to ante up, add to the “pot”, when no player has a pair of “jacks” or better. They build a “jackpot”.

9 They’re high up in Chi-Town : ELS

Elevated railroad (El)

25 Successful shot from downtown, in basketball lingo : TREY

A trey is a three in a deck of cards. The term “trey” can also be used for a domino with three pips, and even for a three-point play in basketball.

30 Honker : SCHNOZ

“Schnoz(z)” is a slang term describing a nose, particularly a large one.

32 Name so sacred that some refuse to speak it : YAHWEH

“Tetragrammaton” is a Greek word meaning “consisting of four letters” It is the name given to the four-letter word in Hebrew for the name God. The four letters are usually translated into English as YHWH, with “Yahweh” used as the ancient pronunciation. Another pronunciation that has been used is “Jehovah”.

36 Most common papal name : JOHN

The last pope named John was Pope John XXIII, who held office until his death in 1963. Even though he used the regnal number XXIII, he cannot really be considered the 23rd pope. John XVI was an antipope who made an illegitimate claim to the position from 997 to 998. In addition, there never was a Pope John XX. During the nineteenth century, historians discovered an error in records in which the papacy of John XIV was mistakenly interpreted as the reign of two different popes named John. So, the last Pope John was named the “23rd”, but was actually the “21st”.

38 End of a riddle : … WHAT AM I?

Here are a few riddles:

1. Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out?
2. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
3. There is a word and six letters it contains. Take one away and twelve is what remains. What word is it?
4. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month and year and yet they’re not twins. How can this be?
5. What is so delicate that even saying its name will break it?
6. What word in the English Language is always spelled incorrectly?

And the answers:

1. Stop imagining.
2. A stamp
3. Dozens
4. They’re in a set of triplets
5. Silence
6. Incorrectly

40 College football rival of ‘Bama : OLE MISS

“Ole Miss” is the nickname for the University of Mississippi. The name “Ole Miss” dates back to 1897, the first year a student yearbook was published. The graduating class held a competition to name the yearbook and “Ole Miss” emerged as the winner. The name stuck to the yearbook, and also as a nickname for the school itself. The University of Mississippi sports teams have been known as the Rebels since 1936. Prior to 1936, they were known as the Mississippi Flood.

43 Wigs out : GOES APE

The idea behind the expression “to wig out”, meaning “to go crazy”, is that there is so much going on in your brain that it might “lift your hair/wig”.

55 It may be measured in feet : POEM

In poetry, a foot is the natural unit of stressed and unstressed syllables which make up the work. For example, an iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

57 “___ brillig …” : ‘TWAS

Here are the first two verses of “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, probably the one poem that we all just loved learning to recite at school

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!