0124-25 NY Times Crossword 24 Jan 25, Friday

Constructed by: Ernest Lim
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 10m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Mobile : CELL

What we mostly call a “cell phone” here in North America is more usually referred to as a “mobile phone” in Britain and Ireland. My favorite term for the device is used in Germany, where it is called a “Handy”.

9 Work on Wall Street : TRADE

New York’s famous Wall Street was originally named by the Dutch “Het Cingel” (or “the Belt”). That “belt” was the city “wall”, a wall erected by Dutch colonists to protect them from an attack by the British from the north. The attack by land never came, but the British did mount a successful invasion by sea. The British demolished the wall two decades later, in 1699.

19 Much Consumer Reports work : TESTS

“Consumer Reports” is a monthly magazine that has been published by Consumers Union since 1936. Consumers Union was established as a non-profit organization with the mission to “test products, inform the public, and protect customers.”

20 Green-skinned god of the afterlife : OSIRIS

Osiris was the Egyptian god of the underworld. He was the son of Geb the Earth god, and Nut the sky goddess. His wife Isis was also his sister. Osiris was killed and mutilated by Set, his own brother. Isis reassembled Osiris and revived him, just long enough that they could conceive their son Horus.

30 Media outlet with a Francophone counterpart : CBC

“CBC” stands for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada’s national public radio and television broadcaster. In terms of financing and structure, the CBC is akin to the BBC in Britain. As commercial advertising is permitted, it is perhaps more akin to RTE, the national broadcasting company in my homeland of Ireland.

33 Revise : EMEND

The verb “to amend” means “to change for the better, put right, alter by adding”. The related verb “to emend” is used more rarely, and mainly in reference to the editing of professional writing. Both terms are derived from the Latin “emendare” meaning “to remove fault”.

34 Make some calls? : REF

Back in the early 17th century, a referee was someone who examined patent applications. We started using the same term for a person presiding over a sporting event in the 1820s. “Referee” is a derivative of the verb “to refer”, and literally describes someone who has the authority to make a decision by “referring” to a book, archive etc.

35 Florida city with the U.S.’s largest equestrian center : OCALA

The city of Ocala, Florida was founded near a historic village with the same name. In the local Timucua language “Ocala” means “Big Hammock”. Back in the 1890s, Ocala was famous for its oranges, with over one third of that fruit shipped from Florida coming from the city. Also, thoroughbred horse farming in Florida started in Ocala, back in 1943. Some folks today call Ocala the “Horse Capital of the World”, but I bet that’s disputed by others …

37 Greek goddess sleeping near the river Oceanus : EOS

In Greek mythology, Eos was the goddess of the dawn who lived at the edge of the ocean. Eos would wake each morning to welcome her brother Helios the sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos was Aurora. Rather delightfully, Homer referred to Eos as “rosy-fingered dawn” in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey”.

Oceanus was a mythical figure and the personification of the enormous river that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed encircled the world. It is from the name “Oceanus” that we get out modern term “Ocean”.

38 TV family you “meet” in the show’s theme song : FLINTSTONES

The theme song for the cartoon show “The Flintstones” was found to be the most recognizable children’s TV theme amongst adults in a survey carried out in 2010. The theme is titled “Meet the Flintstones”. By the way, the theme songs for “Top Cat” and “Postman Pat” came in second and third in the survey.

42 Eschew cooking, say : EAT OUT

“To eschew”, meaning “to avoid, shun”, comes from the Old French word “eschiver” that means the same thing.

49 Development sites? : UTERI

“Uterus” (plural “uteri”) is the Latin word for “womb”.

50 Activist who said “From the time I was a child, I tried to protest against disrespectful treatment” : ROSA PARKS

Rosa Parks was one of a cadre of brave women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

54 Rugby formation : SCRUM

If you’ve ever seen a rugby match, you’ll recognize the scrum, in which the players designated as forwards bind together and push against the forwards on the opposing team. It’s a way of restarting the game after various types of stoppages. “Scrum” is short for “scrummage”, which in itself is a variation of “scrimmage”. And “scrimmage” has its roots in the word “skirmish”. If you get the chance, take a look at the Matt Damon-Morgan Freeman movie called “Invictus”, directed by Clint Eastwood. It’s all about rugby in South Africa after Nelson Mandela came to power. A powerful film …

55 Type of question not asked in 20 Questions : OPEN-ENDER

The parlor game called Twenty Questions originated in the US and really took off in the late forties as it became a weekly quiz show on the radio. Am I the only one who thinks that there aren’t enough quiz shows on the radio these days? Apart from a couple of great shows on NPR, I have to resort to listening to the BBC game shows over the Internet …

58 Graffitists’ signatures : TAGS

Graffiti is the plural of “graffito”, the Italian for “scribbling”. The word was first used to describe ancient inscriptions on the walls in the ruins of Pompeii.

Down

1 Bodybuilder’s pride, informally : PEC

“Pecs” is the familiar name for the chest muscle, which is more correctly known as the pectoralis major muscle. “Pectus” is the Latin word for “breast, chest”.

3 “Toy Story” antagonist : SID

In the 1995 Pixar hit “Toy Story”, the toys are owned by a boy named Andy Davis. Andy’s neighbor is a not-so-nice boy named Sid Phillips. Sid gets a big kick out of destroying and torturing his own toys, and those owned by others.

4 Sing Sing, e.g. : STATE PEN

Sing Sing is the nickname of the famous prison in Ossining, not far from New York City and “up the river” Hudson.

6 Mexican grilled corn dish : ELOTE

Corn in a cup (“elote en vaso”) is a Mexican street food. It is made with fresh corn kernels mixed with mayonnaise, cheese, lime and chile.

7 Literature Nobelist Mario Vargas ___ : LLOSA

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer of renown, and one of the most significant authors from Latin America by all accounts. Llosa is also very active politically, and in 1990 ran unsuccessfully for the Peruvian presidency.

9 English translation of a paradoxical line in a Magritte painting : THIS IS NOT A PIPE

“The Treachery of Images” is a painting by René Magritte. It is a very simple image of a pipe that one might smoke, with the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe). Magritte’s point was that the painting wasn’t a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe.

12 Sub stations? : DELIS

The word “delicatessen” (or “deli” for short) came into English from the German “Delikatessen”. The Germans borrowed the word from French, in which language “délicatesse” means “delicious things (to eat)”. The term’s ultimate root is “delicatus”, the Latin for “giving pleasure, delightful”.

13 Originator of Rocky Road ice cream : EDY’S

The flavor of ice cream known as rocky road is made using chocolate ice cream mixed with nuts and marshmallows. The exact origin of the flavor seems to be disputed, but one story is that William Dreyer invented it in 1929, chopping up walnuts and marshmallows with sewing scissors belonging to his wife.

20 Nondairy offering : OLEO

Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France announced a competition to develop a substitute for butter, a substitute that would be more accessible to the lower classes and more practical for the armed forces. A French chemist called Hippolyte Mege-Mouries came up with something he called oleomargarine in 1869, which was eventually manufactured under the trade name “margarine”. The name “oleomargarine” also gives us our generic term “oleo”.

21 Close combat : MELEE

Our term “melee” comes from the French “mêlée”, and in both languages the word means “confused fight”.

22 Image on the back side of the state seal of Texas : ALAMO

The San Antonio mission known as the Alamo may have been named for a grove of nearby cottonwood trees. “Álamo” is the Spanish name for the cottonwood.

23 Supermodels Upton and Moss : KATES

Kate Upton is a fashion model from St. Joseph, Michigan. Kate is a niece of US Representative Fred Upton of Michigan. Kate married professional baseball pitcher Justin Verlander in 2014.

Kate Moss is an English supermodel. Moss is reported to have earned $9 million for her work in 2007. In 2008, a gold statue valued at almost $3 million was made of Moss for an exhibition in the British Museum. It is thought that the work is the largest gold statue to have been produced since those made by the ancient Egyptians.

28 Like many immigrants to the U.S. beginning in 1845 : IRISH

A “blight” is a disease caused by some infective organism that results in the rapid browning of the plant due to the death of tissues such as leaves, branches and flowers. One of the most famous of such diseases is the potato blight caused by the fungus-like microorganism Phytophthora infestans. It was potato blight that caused the Great Famine in Ireland, which led to the death of about a million people and the mass emigration of about a million more between 1845 and 1852.

29 Hamilton bill : TEN

The obverse of the US ten-dollar bill features the image of Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury. As such, ten-dollar bills are sometimes called “Hamiltons”. By the way, the $10 bill is the only US currency in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left. The reverse of the ten-dollar bill features the US Treasury Building.

30 Collection of works : CANON

Back in the 15th century, the word “canon” was used to describe the whole collection of the books of the Bible accepted by the Christian church, the so-called “Scriptures”. In the 1930s, the term was adopted by fans of the “Sherlock Holmes” stories to describe all such works by Arthur Conan Doyle. Since then, the usage of “canon” has extended to cover an accepted body of related works by a particular author.

31 Some stripes on drapeaux français : BLEUS

The French flag (“le drapeau français” in French) is a tricolor of blue, white and red. The blue and red colors in the flag date back to the French Revolution, when the Paris militia that participated in the storming of the Bastille wore a cockade of blue and red. Subsequently, this blue and red was added to white to create a three-color national cockade that was sported by the national militia. The design of the national cockade was absorbed into the national flag that was adopted in 1794.

32 Drone bees, e.g. : CASTE

Although caste systems exist in several societies around the world, we tend to associate the concept with the social stratification that is still found in many parts of India. The term “caste” comes from the Portuguese word “casta” meaning “race, breed”. The Portuguese used the term to describe the hereditary social groups that they found in India when they arrived in the subcontinent in 1498.

Drone bees (and ants) are fertile males of the species, whose sole role in life seems to be to mate with a queen. Given that drone bees make no honey, we sometimes use the term “drone” figuratively, to describe a lazy worker, or someone who lives on the labors of others.

36 One paying half for quarters, say : COTENANT

A tenant is a person or entity “holding” property by virtue of title or lease. The term “tenant” comes from the Latin “tenere” meaning “to hold”.

We use the term “quarters” for a place of abode, especially housing for military personnel. Back in the late 16th century, quarters were a portion (quarter) of a town reserved for a military force.

40 Seafarer’s device : SEXTANT

The navigation tool known as a sextant is used to measure the angle between two visible objects, with one of those objects usually being the horizon. The primary role of a sextant is to determine latitude. The term “sextant” is said to have been coined by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe around the year 1600. The name comes from the fact that a sextant is constructed around a graduated arc of 60 degrees, one sixth part of a full circle.

41 Best-selling American car of the 1990s : TAURUS

The Taurus is an incredibly successful car that was introduced by Ford in 1985. The Taurus was the successor to the Ford LTD, and is still in production today. The Taurus was the best-selling automobile in the US between 1992 and 1996, before being knocked off its pedestal by Japanese imports.

44 When many resoluciones de año nuevo are broken : ENERO

In Spanish, in “enero” (January), one wishes someone “un prospero año nuevo” (a happy new year).

46 Art accessory rarely used by Jackson Pollock : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

Jackson Pollock was an abstract expressionist painter who famously used a “drip painting” style. Pollock was married to Lee Krasner, herself an influential abstract expressionist.

50 Mug, say : ROB

The verb “to mug” meaning “to attack, to rob” dates back to the mid-1800s. The earlier usage described a striking of the face (the “mug”), especially in the context of boxing.

51 Nutritional inits. : RDA

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Go by : PASS
5 Mobile : CELL
9 Work on Wall Street : TRADE
14 Fall forecasting aids : EXIT POLLS
16 Chopped : HEWED
17 Material used by many deck builders : CEDARWOOD
18 One of three countries straddled by Mont Dolent : ITALY
19 Much Consumer Reports work : TESTS
20 Green-skinned god of the afterlife : OSIRIS
21 Is big in the news : MAKES HEADLINES
25 Go by : ELAPSE
26 “Give it a ___!” : REST
27 Newspaper version with updates from the morning : LATE EDITION
30 Media outlet with a Francophone counterpart : CBC
33 Revise : EMEND
34 Make some calls? : REF
35 Florida city with the U.S.’s largest equestrian center : OCALA
37 Greek goddess sleeping near the river Oceanus : EOS
38 TV family you “meet” in the show’s theme song : FLINTSTONES
41 Temperature gauges, sometimes : TOES
42 Eschew cooking, say : EAT OUT
43 Accept financial responsibility : BEAR THE EXPENSE
47 Rings in a bakery : DONUTS
48 ___ America : LATIN
49 Development sites? : UTERI
50 Activist who said “From the time I was a child, I tried to protest against disrespectful treatment” : ROSA PARKS
54 Rugby formation : SCRUM
55 Type of question not asked in 20 Questions : OPEN-ENDER
56 “___ Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines” (1965 film) : THOSE
57 Big swig : BELT
58 Graffitists’ signatures : TAGS

Down

1 Bodybuilder’s pride, informally : PEC
2 Dismiss : AXE
3 “Toy Story” antagonist : SID
4 Sing Sing, e.g. : STATE PEN
5 Dairy farm structure : COWSHED
6 Mexican grilled corn dish : ELOTE
7 Literature Nobelist Mario Vargas ___ : LLOSA
8 “The Psychedelic Reader” subj. : LSD
9 English translation of a paradoxical line in a Magritte painting : THIS IS NOT A PIPE
10 Change one’s tone again? : RE-TINT
11 On to things : AWARE
12 Sub stations? : DELIS
13 Originator of Rocky Road ice cream : EDY’S
15 Rushed : PRESSED FOR TIME
20 Nondairy offering : OLEO
21 Close combat : MELEE
22 Image on the back side of the state seal of Texas : ALAMO
23 Supermodels Upton and Moss : KATES
24 Meander : DRIFT
28 Like many immigrants to the U.S. beginning in 1845 : IRISH
29 Hamilton bill : TEN
30 Collection of works : CANON
31 Some stripes on drapeaux français : BLEUS
32 Drone bees, e.g. : CASTE
36 One paying half for quarters, say : COTENANT
39 “Sure, count me in” : LET’S
40 Seafarer’s device : SEXTANT
41 Best-selling American car of the 1990s : TAURUS
43 Mess up : BOTCH
44 When many resoluciones de año nuevo are broken : ENERO
45 Give a run for your honey? : ELOPE
46 Art accessory rarely used by Jackson Pollock : EASEL
47 Clean up, in a way : DUST
50 Mug, say : ROB
51 Nutritional inits. : RDA
52 Stock item in a brewery : KEG
53 Commencement attendees: Abbr. : SRS

5 thoughts on “0124-25 NY Times Crossword 24 Jan 25, Friday”

  1. 17:02, no errors. A fumble-fingered outing for me, so I double-checked everything before filling the final square: the “C” of “CBC” and “CASTE” (for which the clue “Drone bees” seems a bit odd), and, in the process, discovered that I still had “OPEN-ENDED” instead of “OPEN-ENDER”. So, for once, prudence before haste – I may yet become a fully-functional adult … 🙂.

  2. 18:49, no errors. I almost gave up in the lower right quadrant. Then I sussed out ROSAPARKS. 45D gave me a chuckle.

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