1118-24 NY Times Crossword 18 Nov 24, Monday

Bill’s time: 6m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Welsh dog breed : CORGI

The Welsh corgi is a herding dog that originated in Britain, with two recognized breeds: the Pembroke and Cardigan. Corgis aren’t fast enough to do their job by running around livestock like collies, and instead nip at the heels. “Corgi” is Welsh for “dwarf dog”.

14 Self-evident truth : AXIOM

In the world of mathematics, an axiom is a proposition, one that is taken as basic and self-evident. The term “axiom” extends beyond mathematics with a similar meaning, an established or self-evident truth.

20 ___ Scurry, first Black woman in the National Soccer Hall of Fame : BRIANA

Briana Scurry is a former professional goalkeeper who played with the US national team when they won the World Cup in 1999. Scurry appeared for the US 173 times, making her the second-most capped female goalkeeper in the world (after Gemma Fay of Scotland).

24 ___ Moines, Iowa : DES

The city of Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, and takes its name from the Des Moines River. The river in turn takes its name from the French “Riviere des Moines” meaning “River of the Monks”. It looks like there isn’t any “monkish” connection to the city’s name per se. “Des Moines” was just the name given by French traders who corrupted “Moingona”, the name of a group of Illinois Native Americans who lived by the river. However, others contend that French Trappist monks, who lived a full 200 miles from the river, somehow influenced the name.

28 Who went “up the hill” in a nursery rhyme : JACK AND JILL

The “Jack and Jill” nursery rhyme dates back at least to the 1700s:

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

37 Great Plains tribe : OTOE

The Great Plains lie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains in North America. This vast grassland is known as “the Prairies” in Canada.

38 Speaking and pointing at objects, in a game of charades : NO-NOS

In the parlor game known as charades, players take turns acting out words or phrases. “Charade” is a French word describing a literary puzzle that was popular in 18th-century France. In said game, the word or phrase was broken into its constituent syllables, with each syllable being described somewhat enigmatically. This puzzle evolved into “acted charades”, which we now refer to simply as “charades”.

39 Mel in the Baseball Hall of Fame : OTT

I wonder if Mel Ott had any idea that he would turn in crosswords so very often?

40 High-fives, basically : SLAPS

The celebratory gesture that we call a “high five” is said to have been invented by former baseball players Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke when they were both playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the late 1970s.

41 Actor Guinness : ALEC

Sir Alec Guinness played many great roles over a long and distinguished career, but nowadays is best remembered (sadly, I think) for playing the original Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”. He won his only Best Actor Oscar for playing Colonel Nicholson in the marvelous 1957 WWII movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. Guinness did himself serve during the Second World War, in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He commanded a landing craft during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

47 Instructional talk at an expo, informally : DEMO

The first World’s Fair was held in 1851, known back then as the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. The fair was the idea of Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. It was held in a magnificent glass and cast-iron structure called the Crystal Palace that was purpose-built for the occasion. The Great Exhibition spawned a tradition of what became known as World’s Fairs, expositions that feature national pavilions created by participating countries. The term “Expo” was coined for Expo 67, a 1967 World’s Fair held in Montreal. Since then, we’ve been using “expo” to describe any large exposition or trade show.

53 Steamy literary genre : EROTICA

The name of Eros, the Greek god of love, gives rise to our word “erotic” meaning “arousing sexual desire”. Eros was referred to in Latin as both “Amor” (meaning “love”) and “Cupid” (meaning “desire”).

58 Bit of cricket gear : BAT

Cricket is the national game of England. The term “cricket” apparently comes from the Old French word “criquet” meaning “goalpost, stick”.

59 Like a hard-to-believe story : COCK AND BULL

A cock-and-bull story is a tale that is fanciful and unbelievable. There are several etymologies floated for the phrase “cock and bull story”. One is that they described fabulous tales related in two coaching inns called “The Cock and Bull” located in Buckinghamshire, England. Another is that the reference is to tales about magical cocks and bulls. Take your pick …

62 Broadway, for one: Abbr : AVE

Broadway really is, and always has been, the Main Street of New York City. It started out as the Wickquasgeck Trail that was trampled into the Manhattan brush land by the Native Americans of the area. In the days of the Dutch, the trail became the main road through the island of Manhattan, down to the New Amsterdam settlement in the south. The Dutch described it as a “Breede weg”, a broad street or broad way. The name Broadway was adopted as the official name for the whole thoroughfare in 1899 … on Valentine’s Day.

63 Corrected with Ctrl+Z : UNDID

Ctrl+Z is a Windows keyboard shortcut for the command UNDO.

64 “Kate & ___” (1980s sitcom) : ALLIE

The sitcom “Kate & Allie” ran from 1984 to 1989, starring Susan Saint James as Kate, and Jane Curtin as Allie. Jane Curtin won two Emmy awards for her work on the series, while Susan Saint James … did not.

Down

5 Marvel Comics mutant : X-MAN

In the Marvel Comics universe, mutants are beings with an X-gene. Such mutants are humans who naturally develop superhuman powers. The most celebrated of these mutants are known as the X-Men.

6 Real scoundrel : CAD

Our word “cad”, meaning “person lacking in finer feelings”, is a shortening of the word “cadet”. “Cad” was first used for a servant, and then students at British universities used “cad” as a term for a boy from the local town. “Cad” took on its current meaning in the 1830s.

7 Soldier of Sauron in “The Lord of the Rings” : ORC

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, Sauron is the actual “Lord of the Rings”. He was the Dark Lord Morgoth’s trusted lieutenant.

10 One of more than 14,000 that make up Japan : ISLAND

The island nation of Japan comprises 6,852 islands in total. The five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa.

11 Iconic landmark in Yosemite Valley : EL CAPITAN

El Capitan is a stunning vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California. The top of El Capitan has been used as the take-off point for many BASE jumps, parachute jumps made by diving off the top of the rock face. The National Park Service put a stop to the practice in 1999. Soon afterwards, a BASE jumper made an illegal jump to protest the ban. She died …

13 Boggle find : WORD

Boggle is a word game in which one uses 16 lettered dice in a 4×4 tray to find words. There was even a “Boggle” game show that ran on the Family Channel for a few months in 1994.

18 Zippo : NADA

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.

28 Law school grads, in brief : JDS

The law degree that is abbreviated to “J.D.” stands for “Juris Doctor” or “Doctor of Jurisprudence”.

29 Subgenre for Lorde and Lana Del Rey : ALT-POP

“Lorde” is a stage name of the singer-songwriter Ella Yelich-O’Connor from New Zealand. Lorde’s cover version of the great Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was used in the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” (2013). Her song “Yellow Flicker Beat” is included in the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1”.

“Lana Del Rey” is the stage name of singer/songwriter Elizabeth Grant. Del Rey calls herself a “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra”. Nice …

33 Hindu festival of colors : HOLI

Holi is a Hindu festival, one celebrated in spring, that is also known as the Festival of Colours.

34 Amusing stories from a public speaker : ANECDOTES

An anecdote is a short account of an event, usually something amusing. The term “anecdote” ultimately derives from the Greek “anekdota” meaning “things unpublished”, or more literally “things not given out”.

45 ___ curiae (friend of the court) : AMICUS

An “amicus curiae” is a “friend of the court”, and is a concept that originated in Roman law. An amicus curiae is someone who assists a court in a decision, without being a party to the case in question.

46 On which croquet and cornhole are played : LAWN

The very genteel game of croquet is played on lawns all over the world. It’s the game where mallets are used to hit wooden balls through hoops embedded in the grass. The name “croquet” is from French dialect and means “hockey stick”. The game originated in Brittany in France, and was popularized in Ireland in the 1830s.

Cornhole is a game in which contestants throw bean bags towards a tilted-up platform with a hole in it. Bags that land in the hole score 3 points, and bags that land on the board score 1 point.

49 On which Ping-Pong and air hockey are played : TABLE

Ping-Pong is called table tennis in the UK, where the sport originated in the 1880s. Table tennis started as an after-dinner activity among the elite, and was called “wiff-waff”. To play the game, books were stacked in the center of a table as a “net”, two more books served as “”rackets” and the ball used was actually a golf ball. The game evolved over time with the rackets being upgraded to the lids of cigar boxes and the ball becoming a champagne cork (how snooty is that?). Eventually the game was produced commercially, and the sound of the ball hitting the racket was deemed to be a “ping” and a “pong”, giving the sport its alternative name. The name “Ping-Pong” was trademarked in Britain in 1901, and eventually sold to Parker Brothers in the US.

50 Tiny egg : OVULE

As we all remember from botany class (don’t we?), an ovule is a small structure in many plants that develops into the seed after fertilization.

51 Like the Olympic cauldron every four years : RELIT

A flame is used as the symbol for the Olympic Games in commemoration of the theft of fire for humanity by Prometheus from Zeus in Greek mythology. The symbolic flame was introduced to the Modern Olympics in the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam. The tradition of the Olympic torch relay started out as political theater devised and funded by Nazi Germany for the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin.

53 Site where NWT = “New With Tags” and GU = “Gently Used” : EBAY

eBay was founded in 1995 as AuctionWeb. One of the first items purchased was a broken laser pointer, for $14.83. The buyer was a collector of broken laser pointers …

55 Rock band with an electric name : AC/DC

The Heavy Metal band known as AC/DC was formed by two brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in Australia. Malcolm and Angus chose the name “AC/DC” after their sister Margaret noticed them on a sewing machine (the abbreviation for alternating current/direct current). The group is usually called “Acca Dacca” down under.

57 Wax-coated cheese : EDAM

Edam cheese takes its name from the Dutch town of Edam in North Holland. The cheese is famous for its coating of red paraffin wax, a layer of protection that helps Edam travel well and prevents spoiling. You might occasionally come across an Edam cheese that is coated in black wax. The black color indicates that the underlying cheese has been aged for a minimum of 17 weeks.