0628-24 NY Times Crossword 28 Jun 24, Friday

Bill’s time: 26m 08s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16 Singer Gaye, daughter of Marvin : NONA

Actress Nona Gaye is best known for playing the character Zee in the last two of “The Matrix” series of films. Nona is the only daughter of singer Marvin Gaye.

18 Address letters : HTTP

“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”).

19 Where Fiat is headquartered : TURIN

Turin (“Torino” in Italian) is a major city in the north of Italy that sits on the Po River. Back in 1861, when the Kingdom of Italy was formed, Turin was chosen as the first capital of the country.

Fiat is the largest car manufacturer in Italy, and is headquartered in Turin in the Piedmont region in the north of the country. Fiat was founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli, when the company’s name was “Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino” (FIAT). A few years ago, Fiat became the majority shareholder in Chrysler.

33 “Frankly,” in texting shorthand : TBH

To be honest (TBH)

35 Nashville awards org. : CMA

Country Music Association (CMA)

The Tennessee city of Nashville was founded in 1779 near a stockade in the Cumberland River valley called Fort Nashborough. Both the settlement and the fort were named for General Francis Nash, a war hero who died in combat during the American Revolution.

38 What Anne Brontë and Anaïs Nin have in common : DIAERESES

The umlaut and the diaeresis are diacritical marks that look identical, as they comprise two dots placed over a letter. However, each serves a different purpose in phonology. An example of a diaeresis is found in the English word “naïve”, where it tells us to pronounce the letter I separately from the preceding letter A.

Anne was the youngest of the three sisters in the literary Brontë family. Her older sisters wrote novels that are more recognized, but Anne’s two novels do have a following. “Agnes Grey” is based on her own experiences working as a governess. Her other novel, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is written as a long letter from a young man describing the events leading up to his first meeting with his wife-to-be. Anne Brontë’s writing career was cut short in 1849, when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, at only 29 years of age.

Anaïs Nin was a French author who was famous for the journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.

44 Jesuit university that counts Bill Murray as an alum : REGIS

Regis University is a Jesuit school in Denver, Colorado that was founded in 1877 in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Las Vegas school was merged with Sacred Heart College in Morrison, Colorado and moved to the present location in 1887.

Actor and comedian Bill Murray got his big break on “Saturday Night Live” when he replaced the departing Chevy Chase in the show’s second season. Murray then launched a hugely successful film career, starring in a host of hit movies such as “Caddyshack”, “Stripes”, “Tootsie”, “Ghostbusters”, “What About Bob?” and “Groundhog Day”. His film career took off again with a lead role in 2003’s “Lost in Translation”. A favorite Bill Murray movie of mine is 2012’s “Hyde Park on the Hudson”, in which Murray plays President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

51 Some compost bin discards : CORES

Composting is the process of decomposing organic matter to make the soil conditioner known as “compost”. The term “compost” ultimately comes from the Latin “com” (together) and “ponere” (to place). Compost is best made by “putting together” green waste that is rich in nitrogen, with brown waste that is rich in carbon, all in the presence of water and air.

59 Building toy brand : K’NEX

The construction toy with the name K’Nex is the phonetic spelling of the word “connects”. The toy was invented by Joel Glickman, who came up with the idea while playing with straws as he sat at a table after a wedding. He launched K’Nex in 1993, and it is still sold in stores.

60 Like the flavor of much mezcal : SMOKY

Mezcal (also “mescal”) is a distilled spirit made from the agave plant. Technically, tequila is a type of mezcal that is distilled specifically from the blue agave.

Down

3 Triangular bones : SACRA

The sacrum (plural “sacra”) and the two ilia (singular “ileum”) are three bones in the human pelvis.

5 In which you might be asked “Where to?” : CAB

A hansom cab is a very specific design of horse and buggy that was patented by Joseph Hansom in 1834 in England. The “cab” in the name is short for “cabriolet”, an earlier design of carriage on which the hansom was based. It’s from “hansom cab” that we get our modern term “cab”.

6 Boston skyscraper, with “the” : … PRU

“The Pru” is the familiar name given to the Prudential Tower in Boston. It is currently the second highest building in the city, after the John Hancock Tower. However, if one includes the height of the radio tower on its roof, then it is the highest building in Boston. When it was completed in 1964, the Pru was the tallest building in the country outside of New York City.

7 MGM co-founder Marcus : LOEW

Marcus Loew was a New Yorker born into a poor Jewish family. He started out in a penny arcade business and used its profits to buy into a nickelodeon. He built a whole chain of movie theaters, and then moved into the production of films so that he could guarantee supply of features that he could show in his theaters. Eventually he pulled together the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film production company, and sadly passed away just three years after he inked the deal.

8 What the bottom of the triceps muscle connects to : ULNA

The triceps brachii muscle is found at the back of the upper arm. The muscle’s name translates from Latin to “three-headed arm muscle”, fitting as it is actually made up of three bundles of muscles.

9 Calumny : SLANDER

A calumny is a false statement designed to sully someone’s or something’s reputation. Sadly, calumnies are pretty common around election time …

10 Device for treating asthma : INHALER

In the human body, the windpipe (trachea) divides into the left and right bronchi, which enter the lungs. Inflammation of the bronchi can cause the airways to contract and narrow, leading to the condition known as asthma.

15 Game also called MathDoku : KENKEN

KenKen is an arithmetic and logic puzzle invented quite recently, in 2004 by a Japanese math teacher named Tetsuya Miyamoto. “Ken” is the Japanese word for “cleverness”.

23 Magnus Carlsen achieved one of 2882 : ELO

The Elo rating system is used to compare the skill levels of competing players in games like chess and Scrabble. The system is named for a Hungarian-born professor of physics called Arpad Elo, who was also a master-level chess player active in the US Chess Federation.

Magnus Carlsen is a chess grandmaster from Norway who first became World Chess Champion in 2013. Carlsen achieved world no. 1 ranking for the first time in 2010 when he was just 19 years of age, making him the youngest player ever to be so honored.

27 National advocacy grp. for L.G.B.T.Q. issues : PFLAG

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ)

28 Yelp contributors : RATERS

yelp.com is a website that provides a local business directory and reviews of services. The site is sort of like Yellow Pages on steroids, and the term “yelp” is derived from “yel-low p-ages”.

30 Headache helper : IBUPROFEN

“Ibuprofen” is a shortened version of the drug’s name: Iso-BUtyl-PROpanoic-PHENolic acid. Ibuprofen is primarily an anti-inflammatory, but apparently it is good for headaches too.

31 Ménage à trois : THREESOME

“Ménage” is the French word for “household”. The familiar term “ménage à trois” translates as “household of three” and is used to describe a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household.

37 New York Post gossip section named for its location : PAGE SIX

The “New York Post” is a daily newspaper that has been around since 1801, when it was established by Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. In the 19th century, the paper was known as the “New York Evening Post”, and was a respected broadsheet. Rupert Murdoch took over in 1993 and turned it into the tabloid rag that it is today.

39 Mythical creature likely inspired by Madagascar’s elephant bird : ROC

The mythical roc is a huge bird of prey, one reputedly able to carry off and eat elephants. The roc was said to come from the Indian subcontinent. The supposed existence of the roc was promulgated by Marco Polo in the accounts that he published about his travels through Asia.

46 Greek goddess of peace : IRENE

Eirene (also “Irene”) was the Greek goddess of peace, with “eirene” being the Greek word for “peace”. The Roman equivalent to Eirene was the goddess Pax.

48 Wrapper for a tamale : HUSK

A tamale is a traditional dish from Central America composed of a starchy dough that is steamed or boiled in a wrapper made from a corn husk or banana leaf. The dough is called masa, and can include many different ingredients including meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables. A hot tamale is a kind of tamale that originated in the Mississippi Delta. It is particularly spicy, and the masa is replaced with corn meal.

49 Often-misused pronoun : WHOM

The pronoun “who” is used when referring to either male or female humans. The objective form of “who” is “whom”, and the possessive is “whose”.

50 Lead-in to second : NANO-

“Nanosecond” is more correctly abbreviated to “ns” (as opposed to “nsec”) and really is a tiny amount of time: one billionth of a second.

55 Tik___ : TOK

TikTok is a video-sharing service that is based in China, and is very popular with the younger set (I am told). The TikTok mobile app provides tools facilitating production of sophisticated selfie videos that use special effects.

56 More than zip : ANY

The use of the words “zip” and “zippo” to mean “nothing” dates back to the early 1900s, when it was student slang for being graded zero on a test.