1221-22 NY Times Crossword 21 Dec 22, Wednesday

Constructed by: Nancy Stark & Will Nediger
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: What’s the Big Deal?

Themed answers are BIG DEALS:

  • 63A “Why are you making such a fuss?” … or a hint to 17-, 36- and 43-Across : WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
  • 17A Sign in a clearance section : FIFTY PERCENT OFF
  • 36A Large-scale corporate union : MEGAMERGER
  • 43A Dream hand for a poker player : ROYAL FLUSH

Bill’s time: 6m 03s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Belabor, with “on” : HARP …

To harp on something is to talk about it too much. The original expression with the same meaning was “to harp on the same string”, which is a reference to the musical instrument.

14 Follower of Bay or gray : … AREA

The San Francisco Bay Area comprises the nine counties that impinge on the San Francisco Bay itself: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. The region also includes the major cities of San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland.

15 ___ setter : IRISH

An Irish setter is a breed of dog …
… or maybe someone from Dublin who sets crosswords …

21 The duck in “Peter and the Wolf” : OBOE

As is the case for many I am sure, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” was my introduction to the world of classical music, as it was played for us at school many, many moons ago. Prokofiev wrote the piece as a commissioned work for the Central Children’s Theater in Moscow, in 1936. He loved the idea of the project, and wrote the story and music in just four days!

23 Country with the second-most Portuguese speakers : ANGOLA

Angola is a country in south-central Africa on the west coast. It is the fourth largest diamond exporter in Africa, after Botswana, the Congo and South Africa. Such a valuable export hasn’t really helped the living standard of the country’s citizens as life expectancy and infant mortality rates are among the poorest on the continent.

27 Party people, for short : POLS

Politician (pol)

30 Download that might use a freemium model : APP

The “freemium” pricing strategy is common for applications available online. In such cases, a basic product is provided free of charge, and a premium is charged for proprietary features.

33 “A fickle food,” per Emily Dickinson : FAME

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades. Try this one for size:

Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s corn
Men eat of it and die

41 One able to lift 10 to 50 times its body weight : ANT

The study of ants is known as myrmecology. The term “myrmecology” derives from the Greek “myrmex” meaning “ant”.

43 Dream hand for a poker player : ROYAL FLUSH

The poker hand called a royal flush is the highest-ranking hand possible. It consists of a run of 10, jack, queen, king and ace, with all in the same suit.

46 ___ slicker : CITY

A city slicker is a person accustomed to an urban lifestyle, and who is particularly unsuited for life in a rural setting. When the term was coined, it was used somewhat derisively by rural Americans. However, that implication seems to have softened somewhat over the years.

47 “Cabin Fever” director Roth : ELI

Eli Roth is one of a group of directors of horror movies known quite graphically as “The Splat Pack”. I can’t stand “splat” movies and avoid them as best I can. Roth is also famous for playing Donny Donowitz in the Quentin Tarantino movie “Inglourious Basterds”, a good film I thought, if you close your eyes during the gruesome bits.

60 Ideal for audiophiles, in brief : HI-FI

Hi-fi systems were introduced in the late 1940s. They are pieces of audio equipment designed to give a much higher quality reproduction of sound than cheaper systems available up to that point. “Hi-fi” stands for “high fidelity”.

66 It means nothing at Wimbledon : LOVE

In tennis the score of zero is designated as “love”. Some people believe that this usage originates from the French “l’oeuf” (meaning “the egg”). The idea is that the written character “0” looks like an egg.

67 U.S. theater awards : OBIES

The Obies are the Off-Broadway Theater Awards. They have been presented annually since 1956. The recipients used to be chosen by “The Village Voice” newspaper, but now are jointly administered with the American Theatre Wing.

70 Word with due or true : … NORTH

True north is the direction pointing towards the Earth’s geographic North Pole. Magnetic north is the direction pointing towards the Earth’s Magnetic North Pole, and is the direction indicated by a compass needle.

71 Manhattan, on an envelope : NY, NY

The island we know as Manhattan was inhabited by the Lenape Indians when the first Europeans explorers arrived in the area. According to the logbook of one of the officers on explorer Henry Hudson’s yacht, the island was called “Manna-hata” in the local language, from which the modern name derives.

Down

1 U.K. acting award : BAFTA

The BAFTA awards are presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). The BAFTAs are the UK equivalent of the US’s Oscar and Emmy awards, all rolled into one.

2 Hunter visible at night : ORION

According to Greek mythology, Orion was a giant hunter who was placed in the night sky by Zeus, the king of the gods. Orion is very recognizable as a constellation, especially with the three bright stars known as “Orion’s Belt”. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, is said to be Orion’s hunting dog, and this star sits at Orion’s “foot”.

4 Conquer a hero? : EAT

A hero is a submarine sandwich. It originated in New York City in the 1800s among Italian immigrants who wanted an Italian sandwich that reminded them of home. The name “hero” was coined in the 1930s, supposedly by a food critic in the “New York Herald Tribune” when he wrote that “one had to be a hero” to finish the gigantic sandwich. Hero is a prevalent term to this day in New York City, reserved for a submarine sandwich with an Italian flavor.

6 Snack item sometimes shown in ads next to a glass of milk : OREO

There is an “official” competition involving Oreo cookies, in case anyone is interested in participating. A competitor has to take several steps to finish an OREO Lick Race:

  1. Twist open the cookie.
  2. Lick each half clean of creme.
  3. Show the clean cookie halves to the fellow competitors.
  4. Dunk the cookie halves in a glass of milk.
  5. Eat the cookie halves.
  6. Drink the milk.
  7. Ready, set, go …

8 Key for getting out, not in : ESC

The escape key (Esc) was originally used just to control computer peripherals. It was a key that allowed the computer operator to stop what the peripheral was doing (cancel a print job, for example). Nowadays the escape key is used for all sorts of things, especially in gaming programs.

9 Metal next to tungsten on the periodic table : RHENIUM

Rhenium is one of the rarest metals found in the earth’s crust. It was the last naturally occurring, stable element to be discovered, in 1925. It is named for the river Rhine.

11 Brouhahas : ADOS

“Brouhaha”, meaning “ado, stir”, was a French word that back in the 1550s meant “the cry of the devil disguised as clergy” . Wow!

13 E-tickets often come as these : PDFS

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

18 Risk taker’s acronym : YOLO

You only live once (YOLO)

24 Field for Maria Callas : OPERA

Although Maria Callas was born in New York City, she was educated in music in Greece and launched her career in Italy. Her marvelous performances earned her the nickname “La Davina”, and she was described by Leonard Bernstein as “the Bible of opera …”

34 Nowhere to be found : AWOL

MPs (military police officers) often track down personnel who go AWOL (absent without leave).

37 Antelope with chin hair : GNU

The gnu is also known as the wildebeest, and is an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is a Dutch word meaning “wild beast”.

38 One side of a page : RECTO

The left and right pages of a book or magazine are known in publishing circles as verso and recto. Recto comes from the Latin for “right”, and verso comes from the Latin word for “turned”. The idea is that the left side of the page is “turned” and is the reverse of the recto/right side.

44 Shove down the throat of : FOIST ON

The word “foist”, meaning “to pass off fraudulently as genuine”, comes from the Dutch word meaning “take in hand”. The original concept came from playing dice, in which one die was held surreptitiously in one hand.

52 “A League of ___ Own” : THEIR

“A League of Their Own” is a comedy drama film released in 1992 that tells a tale about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League active during WWII. The lead actors were Tom Hanks and Geena Davis. The film spawned one of the most famous quotes in movie history: “There’s no crying in baseball!”

54 Like marshes or bagpipes : REEDY

Bagpipes have been played for centuries all across Europe, in parts of Asia and North Africa, and in the Persian Gulf. However, the most famous versions of the instrument today are the Scottish Great Highland bagpipe and the Irish uilleann pipes (my personal favorite; I’m biased!). The bag in the Scottish version is inflated by blowing into it, whereas the Irish version uses a bellows under the arm.

57 Bevy : quails :: parliament : ___ : OWLS

Here are some colorful collective nouns:

  • A pride of lions
  • A shrewdness of apes
  • A cloud of bats
  • A bench of bishops
  • A parliament of owls
  • A clowder of cats
  • A waddling of ducks
  • An army of frogs
  • A knot of toads

59 Blue shade : NAVY

Navy blue is a dark blue shade that was named for the color of uniforms worn by officers in the British Royal Navy as early as 1748. When the color’s name first took on the association with uniforms in the early 1800s, it was known as “marine blue”, but soon changed to “navy blue”.

64 “Euphoria” channel : HBO

“Euphoria” is an HBO teen drama show that is loosely based on a miniseries of the same name from Israel. Lead actress in the show is Zendaya, who plays a recovering teenage drug addict.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Be an omen of : BODE
5 Reduce : LOWER
10 Belabor, with “on” : HARP …
14 Follower of Bay or gray : … AREA
15 ___ setter : IRISH
16 Sheepish answer to “Who broke this?” : I DID
17 Sign in a clearance section : FIFTY PERCENT OFF
20 “___ soon?” : TOO
21 The duck in “Peter and the Wolf” : OBOE
22 Grunts and groans, e.g. : NOISES
23 Country with the second-most Portuguese speakers : ANGOLA
25 Stretch : STINT
27 Party people, for short : POLS
29 Peach or plum : HUE
30 Download that might use a freemium model : APP
33 “A fickle food,” per Emily Dickinson : FAME
36 Large-scale corporate union : MEGAMERGER
39 In the loop : AWARE
41 One able to lift 10 to 50 times its body weight : ANT
42 Like flourless cake : DENSE
43 Dream hand for a poker player : ROYAL FLUSH
46 ___ slicker : CITY
47 “Cabin Fever” director Roth : ELI
48 Enthusiastic response to “Wanna come?” : DO I?
49 Expel : OUST
51 Deceptive movement : FEINT
53 “Fudge,” “fie” and “fiddlesticks” are some of the printable ones : F-WORDS
57 Title holders : OWNERS
60 Ideal for audiophiles, in brief : HI-FI
62 Swing ___ : ERA
63 “Why are you making such a fuss?” … or a hint to 17-, 36- and 43-Across : WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
66 It means nothing at Wimbledon : LOVE
67 U.S. theater awards : OBIES
68 Modify, as an article : EDIT
69 Key word when writing dialogue : SAYS
70 Word with due or true : … NORTH
71 Manhattan, on an envelope : NY, NY

Down

1 U.K. acting award : BAFTA
2 Hunter visible at night : ORION
3 Remove condensation from : DEFOG
4 Conquer a hero? : EAT
5 It can prevent cracking : LIP BALM
6 Snack item sometimes shown in ads next to a glass of milk : OREO
7 Confusion might ensue when they’re crossed : WIRES
8 Key for getting out, not in : ESC
9 Metal next to tungsten on the periodic table : RHENIUM
10 Signal to play : HIT IT!
11 Brouhahas : ADOS
12 Widespread : RIFE
13 E-tickets often come as these : PDFS
18 Risk taker’s acronym : YOLO
19 “You don’t really have to” : NO NEED
24 Field for Maria Callas : OPERA
26 “Oh yeah?” : THAT SO?
28 Protect, as freshness : SEAL IN
30 Hindu fire god : AGNI
31 Target for an exterminator : PEST
32 Food, potentially : PREY
33 Food : FARE
34 Nowhere to be found : AWOL
35 “Do you mind?” : MAY I?
37 Antelope with chin hair : GNU
38 One side of a page : RECTO
40 Patriarchs and matriarchs : ELDERS
44 Shove down the throat of : FOIST ON
45 Sulky : HUFFISH
50 Large swallow : SWIG
51 Major bashes : FETES
52 “A League of ___ Own” : THEIR
54 Like marshes or bagpipes : REEDY
55 Exhaust physically : DRAIN
56 Like tears and some language : SALTY
57 Bevy : quails :: parliament : ___ : OWLS
58 “Now wait just a second!” : WHOA!
59 Blue shade : NAVY
61 “Yeah, sure” : I BET
64 “Euphoria” channel : HBO
65 Place for thieves : DEN