1112-24 NY Times Crossword 12 Nov 24, Tuesday

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 ___ hands (razzle-dazzle display) : JAZZ

Jazz hands is a dance move in which the performer extends the hands with palms towards the audience and fingers splayed. The technique is very much associated with famed choreographer Bob Fosse.

16 “Superfood” berry : ACAI

We hear the word “superfood” a lot these days. I think it’s important that we realize that our friends in marketing coined the term to promote foods that have supposed health benefits, even though there’s no obligation to prove those health benefits exist. Since 2007, the European Union (EU) has banned the use of the term “superfood” in marketing of foodstuffs unless there is credible scientific research to back up any health claim. Good for the EU …

17 Make out, in Manchester : SNOG

“Snogging” is British slang of unknown origin that dates back to the end of WWII. The term is used for “kissing and cuddling”, what we call “making out” over here in the US.

Manchester is the second-most populous city in the UK, and is located in the northwest of England. Manchester grew in size dramatically during the Industrial Revolution. Home to a thriving textile industry, Manchester is often referred to as the world’s first industrialized city. People from Manchester are known as “Mancunians”.

18 Chowder morsels : CLAMS

The type of soup known as “chowder” is possibly named for the pot in which it used to be cooked called a “chaudière”, a French term.

20 Father ___, personification of New York City in old cartoons : KNICKERBOCKER (giving “nicker”)

To nicker is to neigh softly. The verb that probably comes from “to neigh”.

23 Oscar winner Michelle : YEOH

Michelle Yeoh is an actress from Malaysia who appeared in several Hong Kong action films in which she did her own stunts and martial arts scenes. Her most famous action performance was in the 2000 movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, although I best know her for playing opposite Pierce Brosnan in the Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies”.

29 Online investment platform : E-TRADE

E-Trade is mainly an online discount brokerage. It was founded in 1982 in Palo Alto, California, and I used to drive by its headquarters almost every day. The company is now run out of New York City. E-Trade used to produce those famous Super Bowl ads with the talking babies staring into a webcam.

32 Part of an email address : AT-SIGN

The “at symbol” (@) originated in the commercial world, as shorthand for “each at, per” and similar phrases. I suppose we see the symbol most commonly these days as part of email addresses.

36 “___ she blows!” : THAR

“Thar she blows!” is a phrase that originated on whaling ships. A lookout spotting a whale surfacing to breathe might see the spray from the blowhole caused by the expulsion of carbon dioxide. Thar (there) she blows!

37 “RuPaul’s Drag Race” walk : STRUT

RuPaul is a famous drag queen who has developed a diverse career beyond performing on stage. He works as an actor, model, author and a recording artist. Famously, RuPaul doesn’t mind whether one addresses him as “he” or as “she” …

You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathie Lee; I don’t care! Just as long as you call me.

He currently hosts his own reality TV show called “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which is billed as a search for “America’s next drag superstar”.

42 Fast-food chain that has a long-running feud with Jon Stewart : ARBY’S

The Arby’s chain of fast food restaurants was founded in 1964 by two brothers, Forrest and Leroy Raffel. The name “Arby’s” is a homonym of “RB’s”, standing for “Raffel Brothers”. There is a rumor out there that the initials “RB” were chosen for “roast beef”, but that’s not true.

Comedian Jon Stewart is best known for hosting “The Daily Show”. He is a fan of crosswords. Stewart proposed to his girlfriend and future wife in a personalized crossword that was created with the help of crossword editor Will Shortz.

44 Grain that may be steel-cut : OAT

Oat cereals all start out as “groats”, toasted oat grains with the hull still intact:

• Steel-cut oats, sometimes called “Irish oats”, are groats that have been chopped into chunks about the size of sesame seeds.
• Stone-ground oats, sometimes called “Scottish oats”, have been ground into smaller pieces, about the size of poppy seeds.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats are made by first steaming the toasted groats, and then rolling them into flakes.
• Quick-cooking oats are similar to rolled oats, but thinner flakes.
• Instant oats have been chopped, rolled, pre-cooked, dehydrated and often have salt and sugar added.

45 Assignment outsourced to ChatGPT, perhaps : ESSAY

ChatGPT is an advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI. It uses a vast amount of text data to understand and generate human-like text responses to a wide range of prompts and questions. You can ask it to write stories, explain complex topics, translate languages, or even help you with coding.

46 First half of an alley-oop : LOB

An alley-oop is a play in basketball in which one player lobs the ball close to the basket for a teammate who usually scores with a slam dunk.

47 Certain lacrosse gear : ARM PADS

Even though lacrosse was dropped from the Olympics after the 1908 games, the sport is currently enjoying a resurgence of popularity outside of North America. It is the oldest organized sport on the continent, and was declared as “Canada’s National Summer Sport” in 1994.

51 Bear who sings “I’m so rumbly in my tumbly” : WINNIE THE POOH (giving “whinny”)

Alan Alexander (A.A.) Milne was an English author who is best known for his delightful “Winnie-the-Pooh” series of books. He had only one son, Christopher Robin Milne, born in 1920. The young Milne was the inspiration for the Christopher Robin character in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Winnie-the-Pooh was named after Christopher Robin’s real teddy bear, one he called Winnie, who in turn was named after a Canadian black bear called Winnie that the Milnes would visit in London Zoo. The original Winnie teddy bear is on display at the main branch of the New York Public Library in New York.

60 Restaurant chain with an acronymic name : IHOP

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was founded back in 1958. IHOP was originally intended to be called IHOE, the International House of Eggs, but that name didn’t do too well in marketing tests.

Strictly speaking, words formed from the first letters or other words are known as “initialisms”. Examples would be FBI and NBC, where the initials are spoken by sounding out each letter. Certain initialisms are pronounced as words in their own right, such as NATO and AWOL, and are called “acronyms”. So, acronyms are a subset of initialisms. As I say, that’s “strictly speaking”, so please don’t write in …

62 Slinky shape : HELIX

The marvelous Slinky toy was invented in the early forties by a naval engineer named Richard James. James was developing springs for the navy that could stabilize sensitive instruments in rough seas. One day he accidentally knocked one of his experimental coils off a shelf and watched it “step” onto a stack of books, then onto a table and from there onto the floor where it recoiled itself very neatly. The Slinky was born …

66 Burrowing rodent : VOLE

Vole populations can increase very rapidly. Mama vole is pregnant for just three weeks before giving birth to litters of 5-10 baby voles. Then, the young voles become sexually mature in just one month! If you have one pregnant vole in your yard, within a year you could have over a hundred of the little critters.

67 Blockers for the QB, familiarly : O-LINE

Offensive line (O-line)

68 Pesky insect : GNAT

Gnats have a relatively short lifespan, of about 7-10 days.

69 Blue parts of boobies : FEET

The bird called a blue-footed booby really lives up to its name. The bright blue feet are very distinctive. The coloring is thought to be a result of the bird’s fish diet. Birds with brighter feet tend to be more sexually active, probably because the brighter the blue hue, the healthier the bird.

71 Like French toast or frittatas : EGGY

The dish made from bread soaked in milk with beaten eggs and then fried is usually called French toast in the US, but it also goes by the names German toast and Spanish toast. In France, the dish is known as “pain perdu”, which translates as “lost bread”. This name is a reference to the fact that “lost” or “stale” bread can be reclaimed by dipping it in a mixture of milk and eggs and then frying it.

A frittata is an omelet dish from Italy. The word “frittata” is Italian, and comes from “fritto” meaning “fried”.

Down

2 Finger used to swear? : PINKY

The use of “pinkie” or “pinky” for the little finger or toe comes into English from “pinkje”, the Dutch word for the same digit. Who knew …?

3 Like Tom Hanks for the majority of “Cast Away” : ALONE

“Cast Away” is a very entertaining adventure film released in 2000 starring Tom Hanks as a castaway on a South Pacific island. The Hanks character ends up on the island after a FedEx plane crashes, leaving him marooned there for four years before he manages to escape on a raft. The film had to be filmed in two sessions. For the first session, Hanks gained 50 pounds to make himself look pudgy for the early scenes. The crew had to wait a whole year for Hanks to lose the weight so that they could film the “cast away” scenes.

6 Fjords and bays : INLETS

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, and both are formed as sea levels rise. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

7 Region in which many fed. workers live : DC AREA

The District of Columbia (DC) was established by the Residence Act in 1790. Article One, Section 8 of the US constitution provides for the establishment of a district outside of the states, over which the federal government has authority. The constitution also specifies that the district cannot exceed an area of ten miles square. On the same day in 1791, the federal district was formally named Columbia, and the city within was named Washington in honor of the nation’s first president.

10 Bozos : JACKASSES

A female donkey/ass is known as a jenny and a male is known as a jack, or sometimes “jackass”. We started using the term “jackass” to mean “fool” in the 1820s.

The unsavory word “bozo” describes a person with a low IQ, and someone who is usually quite muscular. The term has been used since the early 1900s, and possibly comes from the Spanish “bozal” that was used to describe someone who spoke Spanish poorly.

12 Former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo : ZAIRE

The African nation once called Zaire is a neighbor of Rwanda. The genocide and war in Rwanda spilled over into Zaire in 1996, with the conflict escalating into what is now called the First Congo War. As part of the war’s fallout there was a regime change, and in 1997 Zaire became the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

13 44444, for Newton Falls, OH : ZIP

The official “code” used by the US Postal Service (USPS) is the ZIP Code, introduced in 1963. The USPS also has a list of recommended abbreviations used in addresses. There are three classes of abbreviations:

• States (e.g. AK for Alaska, HI for Hawaii)
• Street Suffixes (e.g. AVE for Avenue, ST for Street)
• Secondary Units (e.g. APT for Apartment, BLDG for Building)

21 Actor ___ Michael Murray of “One Tree Hill” : CHAD

“One Tree HIll” is a TV drama that first aired from 2003 until 2012. Filmed around Wilmington, North Carolina, the show is set in the fictional North Carolina town of Tree Hill.

35 “Glee” actress Rivera : NAYA

Naya Rivera is an actress and singer whose big break came with the role of high school cheerleader Santana Lopez on the TV show “Glee”. Offscreen, Rivera was engaged for a while to rap artist Big Sean, and was married for four years to actor Ryan Dorsey.

38 Heavy book : TOME

“Tome” first came into English from the Latin “tomus” which means “section of a book”. The original usage in English was for a single volume in a multi-volume work. By the late 16th century, “tome” had come to mean “large book”.

45 Channel on which to watch N.C.A.A. games : ESPNU

ESPNU (short for “ESPN Universities”) is a sports channel focused on college athletics.

48 Punch line punctuator : RIM SHOT

A rim shot is a sound made when a drummer hits the head of a drum and the rim at the same time. It’s a sound often used by comics to help punctuate a gag.

52 Virtual animal companion : NEOPET

Neopets.com is a website where one can own a virtual pet. I wouldn’t bother if I were you …

59 “Be ___” (candy heart words) : MINE

The forerunner to Sweethearts candy was introduced in 1866, with the famous sayings written on the candy tailored for use at weddings. One of the original expressions was, “Married in pink, he will take a drink”. The original candy was a lot bigger, to fit all those words! The smaller, heart-shaped candy hit the shelves in 1901. We’ve been able to buy Sweethearts with the words “Text me” since 2010.

60 Assisted pregnancy procedure, for short : IVF

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm cells outside of the body in vitro. The phrase “in vitro” translates from Latin as “in glass”. The process is usually carried out in a glass culture dish.

64 Twitch glitch : LAG

Twitch is a live-streaming platform used primarily by gamers. Folks playing games can broadcast their game play live to an audience.