1102-24 NY Times Crossword 2 Nov 24, Saturday

Bill’s time: 18m 29s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Early electric lights : ARC LAMPS

The first electric light was an “arc lamp”, a lamp in which light is produced by an “arc” of ionized gas between two electrodes. The arc lamp was largely replaced by incandescent lighting, in which light was produced by a glowing filament that was heated by passing an electric current through it.

9 Modest home in Modesto, say : CASITA

“Casita” is the diminutive form of “casa”, the Spanish word for “house”, and might be translated as “cottage”.

17 Sub’s reference : CLASSROOM ROSTER

Our word “roster”, meaning “list, register”, actually comes from the same root as our word “roast”, would you believe. “Roster” came into English from the Dutch “rooster”, meaning “table, list”. An alternative use of the Dutch “rooster” was “gridiron”, from the “roosten” meaning “to roast”. The connection is that a roster of names is often listed on a sheet of paper that has grid lines resembling the marks left by a gridiron on roasted meat. Quite interesting …

19 What always ends well? : ELS

The word “well” ends with letters L (els).

25 Fed : G-MAN

The nickname “G-men” is short for “government men” and refers to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

27 Noted name in lithographs : IVES

Currier and Ives was a printmaking concern in New York City run by Nathaniel Currier and his partner James Merritt Ives from 1834 to 1907. The firm specialized in making affordable, hand-colored black and white lithographs.

28 English folk singer Billy : BRAGG

Billy Bragg is a singer-songwriter from England. He is very much a left-leaning activist, and so writes a lot of protest songs.

29 Inveigled : COAXED

“To inveigle” is to win over by deceit. Back in the late 1400s, the term meant “to blind someone’s judgment”.

35 Media-based learning sites, informally : AV LABS

Audio-visual (AV)

37 Hanes brand once sold in ovoid packaging : L’EGGS

L’eggs is such a clever brand name, I think. It is a brand of pantyhose (L’eggs = legs) with its product sold, well it used to be, in egg-shaped containers (L’eggs = “the” eggs). The brand was introduced in 1969 and was an instant hit. The inventive marketing of L’eggs pantyhose led to a competitive response by Kayser-Roth who introduced the No Nonsense brand in 1973. The idea behind No Nonsense was that the packaging of L’eggs was just a gimmick, and here was a No Nonsense alternative. L’eggs won the battle though.

39 Team that briefly changed its name during the 1950s to appease McCarthyites : REDS

The Red Scare (i.e. anti-communist sentiment) following WWII had such an effect on the populace that it even caused the Cincinnati baseball team to change its name from the Reds. The team was called the Cincinnati Redlegs from 1953-1958, as the management was fearful of losing money due to public distrust of any association with “Reds”.

Joseph McCarthy served as US Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until he passed away in 1957. McCarthy chaired the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for several years, which he used as a vehicle to uncover alleged Communist subversion and espionage in the government and private industry. His tactics resulted in the destruction of the careers of many career federal employees, as well as notable figures in universities and the film industry. McCarthy was eventually reined in, and in 1954 he became one of the few US senators to be censured by the body.

43 Jumps from one foot to the other : JETES

A jeté is a leap in ballet, with the term “jeté” coming from the French word “jeter” meaning “to throw”. A “jeté en avant” is a “leap to the front”, towards the audience. A “grand jeté” is a long horizontal jump, a split in the air, leaping from one foot to the other.

45 Record company behind (and inside) Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” : EMI

EMI was a British music company, with the initialism standing for Electric and Musical Industries.

“See Emily Play” was the second single ever released by Pink Floyd, in 1967. Their first single was “Arnold Layne”.

46 1988 Summer Olympics host : SEOUL

The 1988 Summer Olympic Games were held in Seoul, South Korea. They were the first Summer Olympics held in South Korea, and the second held in Asia (after Tokyo in 1964).

47 Word that’s a homophone of its middle letter : ARE

Homophones are words that are pronounced in the same way (e.g., ere, air, err and heir). Homonyms are a subset of homophones, and are words that have the same spelling and the same pronunciation but different meanings, for example, skate (a fish) and skate (worn on the foot).

55 Cleans up like the Pied Piper : DERATS

The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin dates back to medieval times. Recently there have been suggestions that the story is rooted in some truth, that the town of Hamelin did in fact lose many of its children, perhaps to plague. The suggestion is that the tale is an allegory. The use of the word “pied” implies that the piper dressed in multi-colored clothing. Our contemporary idiom “to pay the piper” means “to bear the cost of a poor decision”. It is a reference to townsfolk of Hamelin who refused to pay the Pied Piper for ridding the town of rats. They ultimately paid the cost when the piper lured their children away.

Down

2 Arrive curbside : ROLL UP

“Curb” is another of those words that I had to learn when I came to the US. We park by the “kerb” on the other side of the Atlantic. Oh, and the “pavement”, that’s what we call the “footpath” (because the footpath is “paved”!). It’s very confusing when you arrive in this country from Ireland, and a little dangerous, when one has been taught to “walk on the pavement” …

3 Andrés Segovia won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for it : CLASSICAL GUITAR

Andrés Segovia was a classical guitar player from Andalusia in Spain.

4 Temple Square letters : LDS

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is known colloquially as the Mormon Church. When Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, a plot of land on the valley floor was selected by the Church president, Brigham Young, as the place on which a temple should be built. That spot now covers ten square blocks in Salt Lake City, and is known as Temple Square.

5 Window installations, in brief : ACS

Air conditioner (AC)

7 P, B, D, T, K and G : PLOSIVES

In phonetics, a plosive (also “stop”) is a consonant sound produced by completely stopping the airflow in the vocal tract and then suddenly releasing it. This creates a brief burst of sound, like in the words “pen”, “top”, and “gate”.

8 Kitchen flippers : SLOTTED SPATULAS

A spatula is a tool or implement used for mixing, lifting or spreading. “Spatula” is the Latin name for the tool, and is a diminutive of the word “spatha” meaning “broad, flat blade”. “Spatha” also gives rise to our related term “spade”.

18 Subject of the 2021 documentary “Once Upon a Time in Queens” : METS

“Once Upon a Time in Queens” is a 4-part episode in the ESPN documentary series “30 For 30”. It examines the celebrated 1986 season of the New York Mets MLB team, in which they won the World Series.

30 Mass apparel : ALBS

An alb is a white, neck-to-toe vestment worn by priests, usually with a rope cord around the waist. The term alb comes from “albus”, the Latin word for “white”.

32 Had a hiccup : FALTERED

Hiccups is a series of forced intakes of breath, the result of spasms in the muscles of the chest and throat. The most common cause of hiccups is some sort of irritation to the stomach or esophagus, usually taking place while eating. Apparently, we don’t really understand the reason why we hiccup, but a favored suggestion is that it may be something that we inherited from our ancestors of long ago who didn’t stand up quite as straight as we do. Gravity helps us swallow our food, but animals who walk on all fours don’t have that advantage as the food moves horizontally down the throat and into the stomach. Such beasts are in greater need of an involuntary hiccup should some food get stuck. Just a theory …

38 Fair-hiring agcy. : EEOC

“Equal Employment Opportunity” (EEO) is a term that has been around since 1964 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was set up by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin or religion.

40 Home to England’s Jurassic Coast : DORSET

Dorset is a county on the coast in South West England, with the county town of Dorchester. If you’ve read Thomas Hardy (he was born near Dorchester), you might be familiar with Dorset as he set many of his novels in the county.

46 Galley command : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

Galleys are the metal trays into which a printer would arrange type to make up a page. The galleys had clamps that could be used to hold the loose type in place. Even in today’s world of electronic publishing, apparently the term “galley proof” is still used for some version of a layout that is not yet final.

49 Arkansas pol Hutchinson : ASA

Asa Hutchinson is a Republican politician who took over as Governor of Arkansas in January of 2015. He comes from a politically active family. Asa’s older brother Tim served a term as US Senator for Arkansas from 1997 to 2003. Tim’s identical twin sons were the first twins to serve alongside each other in the Arkansas General Assembly.

50 New Orleans setting: Abbr. : CST

Central Standard Time (CST)

51 Carrier to 46-Across, for short : KAL

[46A 1988 Summer Olympics host : SEOUL]
Korean Air (KAL) is South Korea’s largest airline. KAL was founded in 1946 as Korean National Airlines.

52 Device sold with a remote : WII

“Wiimote” is an alternative name for the Wii Remote, the controller for the Nintendo Wii gaming console.