0216-25 NY Times Crossword 16 Feb 25, Sunday

Bill’s time: 19m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14: ___ Lakshmi, host of TV’s “Taste the Nation”: PADMA

Padma Lakshmi is a model from India. She is very much into cooking and has published an award-winning cookbook. Lakshmi is now the host of the American TV show “Top Chef”.

20: The masses: HOI POLLOI

“Hoi polloi” is a Greek term that translates literally as “the majority, the many”. In English, “hoi polloi” has come to mean “the masses” and is often used in a derogatory sense. Oddly, the term has also come to describe “the elite”.

28: Smart-alecky: WISE

Apparently, the original “smart Alec” (sometimes “Aleck”) was one Alec Hoag, a pimp, thief and confidence trickster who plied his trade in New York City in the 1840s.

29: FaceTime alternative: SKYPE

The main feature of the Skype application, when introduced, was that it allows voice communication to take place over the Internet (aka VoIP). Skype has other features such as video conferencing and instant messaging, but the application made its name from voice communication. The app was created by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs and the software necessary was developed by a team of engineers in Estonia. The development project was originally called “Sky peer-to-peer” so the first commercial name for the application was “Skyper”. This had to be shortened to “Skype” because the skyper.com domain name was already in use.

32: Instruments with large bells: TUBAS

The tuba is the lowest-pitched of all brass instruments, and one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra (usually there is just one tuba included in an orchestral line-up). “Tuba” is the Latin word for “trumpet, horn”. Oom-pah-pah …

35: Great Lakes mnemonic: HOMES

A well-known mnemonic for remembering the names of the Great Lakes is HOMES, an acronym standing for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Another mnemonic serving the same purpose is “super heroes must eat oats”.

38: Org. whose employees wear badges: FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was set up in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), with the name changing in 1935. The Bureau was set up at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was largely moved to do so after the 1901 assassination of President McKinley, as there was a perception that anarchists were threatening law and order. The FBI’s motto uses the organization’s initialism, and is “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity”.

40: Atlantis and others: SHUTTLES

NASA’s Space Shuttle program was the agency’s fourth human spaceflight program, following Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Five fully functional shuttles were built and deployed into space:

1. Columbia made its first flight in 1981, but was destroyed during a tragic reentry disaster in 2003.
2. Challenger made its first flight in 1983, but was destroyed in an accident just after launch in 1986.
3. Discovery made its first flight in 1984, and was retired to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum annex at Washington Dulles Airport
4. Atlantis made its first flight in 1985, and was retired to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
5. Endeavour made its first flight in 1992, and was retired to the California Science Center in Los Angeles

45: Tempest in a teapot?: GREAT SQUALL OF CHINA (from “Great Wall of China”)

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that was built and rebuilt over the centuries to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. Most of the existing wall was reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty. This Ming wall is about 5,000 miles long. There is an urban myth that the Great Wall is visible from the Moon, or from space. NASA has shown that the Great Wall can only be discerned from low Earth orbit (about 100 miles), and that is no more or less visible than any other man-made structure.

Here in North America, we use the expression “tempest in a teapot” to describe a small event that has been blown out of proportion. On the other side of the Atlantic, such an event is more likely to be referred to as a “storm in a teacup”.

51: Oniony vegetables: LEEKS

The leek is a vegetable closely related to the onion and the garlic. It is also a national emblem of Wales (along with the daffodil), although I don’t think we know for sure how this came to be. One story is that the Welsh were ordered to wear leeks in their helmets to identify themselves in a battle against the Saxons. Apparently, the battle took place in a field of leeks.

52: Body of water that was once the world’s fourth-largest lake: ARAL SEA

The Aral Sea is a great example of how humankind can have a devastating effect on the environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

56: Challah bread feature: BRAID

Challah is a special braided bread that is eaten by Ashkenazi Jews on the Sabbath. The bread is served to commemorate the manna that fell from the heavens as the Israelites wandered around the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.

60: Souvenir from the Sea of Tranquillity, say: MOON ROCK

The use of the spelling “Tranquillity” seems odd to me, as it is the British English spelling. We usually use “Tranquility”.

The Moon’s Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin for “Sea of Tranquility”) was named in 1651 by astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli. Famously, the first manned landing on the Moon was in the Sea of Tranquility, when the Apollo 11 Lunar Module named Eagle touched down there in 1969. However, the first man-made vehicle to reach the Sea of Tranquility arrived four years earlier. The Ranger 8 spacecraft was deliberately crashed there in 1965, sending thousands of photographs back to Earth in the last 23 minutes of its mission.

66: Kanga’s kiddo: ROO

Kanga is a friend of A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”, and is a kangaroo. She is the mother of Roo, who appears more frequently in the storyline.

67: Whimsically imaginative, as writing: SEUSSIAN

“Dr. Seuss” was the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Geisel first used the pen name while studying at Dartmouth College and at the University of Oxford. Back then, he pronounced “Seuss” as it would be in German, i.e. rhyming with “voice”. After his books found success in the US, he went with the pronunciation being used widely by the public, quite happy to have a name that rhymes with “Mother Goose”.

70: Sound from some freshly cleaned floors?: PLEDGE SQUEAK (from “pledge week”)

Pledge is a brand of cleaning products that was introduced in 1958 by SC Johnson & Son. Pledge products are sold under different names around the world, e.g. Pliz (France) and Blem (Argentina).

A pledge is a first-year student who pledges to join a fraternity or sorority.

77: Yo-yo-like toy with a devilish-sounding name: DIABOLO

A diabolo is a toy that is somewhat like a yo-yo. The main difference with the yo-yo is that the object is spun with a string that isn’t attached. The object has the shape of an egg timer, and the string has sticks at the ends that are held in the hand. Diabolos are often used in juggling acts.

80: Michael Jordan’s nickname, with “His”: … AIRNESS

Michael Jordan is considered by some to be the greatest basketball player of all time. Not only is he a talented sportsman, but he is also very successful in the business world. He became the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets NBA team in 2010. Fans refer to Jordan as “His Airness”.

88: Meyer who directed 1965’s “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”: RUSS

Film producer and director Russ Meyer was a controversial character. Many of the movies that he wrote and produced fall into the genre of “sexploitation”. Meyers died in 2004 and his grave is located in Stockton, California. Written on his gravestone are the words “King of the Nudies” and “I was Glad to Do It”.

89: Cialis alternative: VIAGRA

Cialis and Viagra are not just brands competing against each other, they also have differing active ingredients. Viagra is a trade name for Sildenafil citrate, and Cialis is tadalafil. Both drugs are used to treat erectile dysfunction, and more recently to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension.

94: Pasta often cut at an angle: PENNE

The pasta known as penne comes in two main types, i.e. penne lisce (which is smooth) and penne rigate (which is furrowed).

95: Hazard cleanup, in brief: DECON

Decontamination (decon)

98: Weapon whose name is an acronym: TASER

Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon partly named its product as a homage to the novel. The acronym “TASER” stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”.

103: Legendary 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.

105: Number of jurors who originally vote “Not guilty” in “12 Angry Men”: ONE

The powerful 1957 movie “12 Angry Men” was directed by Sidney Lumet, and has a stellar cast of “jury members” including Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman and Ed Begley. If ever there is a movie that clearly was based on a play, it’s this one. Practically the whole film takes place on one set, the jury room.

106: Mean little suckers?: TICKS

Ticks are external parasites that feed on blood, blood mainly harvested from mammals and birds. Animals that feed on blood are known as hematophages.

112: “Gesundheit!” prompter: ACHOO!

“Gesundheit” is the German word for “health”, and is used in response to a sneeze in Germany, as indeed it is quite often here in the US.

113: “Diet” for the defeated: HUMBLE PIE

The phrase “humble pie” derives from a medieval meat dish called “umble pie”. The filling in umble pie usually contained the offal (heart, liver, lungs and kidneys) of deer. The name “umble” came from the French “nomble” meaning “deer’s innards”.

117: “Downton Abbey” network: PBS

Fans of the wonderful TV drama “Downton Abbey” will be very familiar with the exterior appearance of Highclere Castle in Hampshire. Highclere is used as the location for exterior and many interior shots of the fictitious Grantham residence called Downton Abbey. The exterior of Highclere is very reminiscent of the Houses of Parliament building in London. That similarity exists because the house was largely rebuilt from 1839 to 1842 by architect Sir Charles Barry soon after he finished work on the refurbished Houses of Parliament.

Down

6: Count seen in the breakfast aisle: CHOCULA

General Mills introduced us to a whole series of monster-themed breakfast cereals, starting in 1971 with Count Chocula and Franken Berry. Then came Boo Berry, Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy.

8: Animated file type: GIF

The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) is an image format developed in the 1980s by CompuServe (remember CompuServe?). GIF images are compressed, reducing the file size, but without losing information. So, the original image can be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed GIF version. But, and it’s a big but, GIF images use only 256 individual colors. This means that GIF is a relatively poor choice of compression for color photographs, while it is usually fine for logos with large blocks of single colors.

9: Actress Singer of “Footloose”: LORI

Lori Singer is an actress, and also a cellist. Singer’s most famous acting role was the daughter of the Reverend Shaw Moore (played by John Lithgow) in “Footloose”.

The 1984 musical drama “Footloose” tells the story of a Chicago teen (played by Kevin Bacon) who moves to a small town in which dancing and rock music has been banned. The storyline is loosely based on real events in the Oklahoma City of Elmore. Dancing was banned in Elmore for almost 100 years, with the ban eventually being lifted in 1980.

15: Nautical greeting: AHOY!

“Ahoy!” is a nautical term used to signal a vessel. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, he suggested that “ahoy” be used as a standard greeting when answering a call. However, Thomas Edison came up with “hello”, and we’ve been using that ever since.

29: Feudal worker: SERF

A serf was a member of the lowest feudal class, someone attached to land owned by a lord. “Serf” comes from the Latin “servus”, meaning “slave”.

36: Mice hunters: OWLS

Much of an owl’s diet consists of small mammals. As a result, humans have used owls for centuries to control rodent populations, usually by placing a nest box for owls on a property. Despite the fact that owls and humans live together in relative harmony, owls have been known to attack humans from time to time. Celebrated English bird photographer Eric Hosking lost an eye when attacked by a tawny owl that he was trying to photograph. Hosking wrote a 1970 autobiography with the wry title “An Eye for a Bird”.

37: Great Leap Forward leader: MAO

The Great Leap Forward was a government-led campaign to transition China from an agrarian society to a modern communist society in the late fifties and early sixties. Started by Mao Zedong in 1958, the movement was an economic and social disaster. Mao replaced the Great Leap Forward with the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

48: Writing cliché: TROPE

A trope is a figure of speech. The term “trope” comes from the Greek word “tropos” that has the same meaning. The term has evolved in meaning to also describe a common or overused device or theme.

“Cliché” is a word that comes from the world of printing. In the days when type was added as individual letters into a printing plate, for efficiency some oft-used phrases and words were created as one single slug of metal. The word “cliché” was used for such a grouping of letters. It’s easy to see how the same word would become a term to describe any overused phrase. Supposedly, “cliché” comes from French, from the verb “clicher” meaning “to click”. The idea is that when a matrix of letters was dropped in molten metal to make a cliché, it made a clicking sound.

49: Style sported by Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain: WALRUS MUSTACHE

A walrus mustache is one that is very full, and long enough to cover both the top and bottom lips. The name comes from its similarity to the mustache on a walrus. A lazy walrus style needs less care, as the hair is allowed to grow well below the lower lip, but it is parted with the hair swept left and right so the mouth is not covered.

57: Hollywood’s Portia de ___: ROSSI

Portia de Rossi is an actress from Australia who played Nelle Porter on “Ally McBeal” and Lindsay Bluth/Fünke on “Arrested Development”. Off the screen, de Rossi is famous as the wife of Ellen DeGeneres, whom she married in 2008.

59: “Raggedy” doll: ANN

Raggedy Ann is a rag doll that was created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 for his daughter, Marcella. He decided to name the doll by combining the titles of two poems by James Whitcomb Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan Annie”. Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann in a series of books three years later. Sadly, Marcella died at 13 years of age with her father blaming a smallpox vaccination she was given at school. Gruelle became very active in the movement against mass vaccination, for which Raggedy Ann became a symbol.

60: Make faces for a camera: MUG

The verb “to mug” means “to make an exaggerated facial expression”. The term comes from mugs used to drink beer (called Toby mugs) that are made in the shape of heads with grotesque expressions. “Mug” can also be a noun meaning “face”.

62: Gorilla who famously learned sign language: KOKO

Koko was a female lowland gorilla that lives in Woodside, California. Researcher Penny Patterson taught Koko to speak a modified form of American Sign Language (ASL) that she called Gorilla Sign Language. Koko could apparently use over a thousand signs.

71: Loma ___, Calif.: LINDA

Loma Linda is a city in California located not far from Los Angeles. The name Loma Linda translates from Spanish as “Beautiful Hill”.

73: Host of the 2022 World Cup: QATAR

The 2022 FIFA World Cup tournament was held in Qatar, making it the first World Cup held in an Arab nation. As host nation, Qatar automatically qualified, marking the first time the Qatari national team had participated in the tournament. Argentina emerged victorious, beating France on penalties.

76: Boat equipment for removing water on board: BILGE PUMP

The bilge is the lowest internal part of a ship. The water that collects in there is called bilge water. The term “bilge” is also used as slang for nonsense talk.

78: Car sticker no.: MSRP

Manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP)

79: Parasailing, water polo, etc.: AQUATICS

Parasailing is hanging below a tethered parachute that is towed by a boat.

The sport of water polo is thought to have originated in Scotland, where it was a feature of fairs and festivals. Men’s water polo was introduced into the Olympic Games in 1900, making it one of the oldest team sports in the Games.

80: “Watchmen” writer Moore: ALAN

Alan Moore is an English writer of “graphic novels”, a term that Moore himself introduced in order to differentiate his work from “comic books”.

81: What many freelancers work on: SPEC

The term “free lance” was coined by Sir Walter Scott in his 1820 novel “Ivanhoe”, when he used it to describe a medieval mercenary warrior. Forty years later, a “freelancer” was a journalist who did work for more than one publication without a long-term commitment.

85: “Ich bin ___ Berliner”: EIN

Ich is the German for “I”, as in “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner), the famous words of support uttered by President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in 1963 in a speech in West Berlin. The supposed translation of “Ich bin ein Berliner” as “I am a jelly doughnut” … that’s just an urban myth. President Kennedy’s use of German was perhaps clumsy (he should have said “Ich bin Berliner”), but I am sure he was understood.

86: They make sounds when they’re tickled: IVORIES

The traditional materials used for the manufacture of piano keys were ebony (black) and ivory (white). Ebony is still used, but now for both white and black keys. The white keys are made by covering ebony with white plastic.

87: Wood joint piece: TENON

One simple type of joint used in carpentry is a mortise and tenon. It is basically a projection carved at the end of one piece of wood that fits into a hole cut into the end of another. In the related dovetail joint, the projecting tenon is not rectangular but is cut at a bias, so that when the dovetails are joined they resist being pulled apart. You’ll see dovetail joints in drawers around the house.

91: Beethoven’s Third: EROICA

Beethoven originally dedicated his “Symphony No. 3” to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution and as such respected Bonaparte who was “born” out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution so he changed the name of his new symphony from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica”, meaning “heroic, valiant”.

92: What Sidney Poitier’s character famously came to, in a 1967 film: DINNER

Hollywood actor Sidney Poitier was born in Miami, but grew up in the Bahamas. Poitiers breakthrough role in movies came with 1955’s “Blackboard Jungle”, in which he played an incorrigible high school student. I find it interesting that one of Poitier’s most respected performances found him playing a teacher of a rough set of students in 1967’s “To Sir, with Love”. Off the screen, Poitier entered the diplomatic service for the Bahamas, serving as the nation’s non-resident ambassador to Japan from 1997 until 2007.

95: Van ___ (beard type): DYKE

The style of facial hair known as a Van Dyke is made up of a mustache and a goatee, with the cheeks fully shaven. The style takes its name from the 17th century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck who wore such a beard, as did many of the men whose portrait he painted.

99: Toffee candy bar: SKOR

The candy bar named “Skor” is produced by Hershey’s. “Skor” is Swedish for “shoes”, and the candy bar’s wrapping features a crown that is identical to that found in the Swedish national emblem. What shoes have to do with candy, I don’t know …

101: Broccoli ___: RABE

Broccoli rabe is perhaps better known as “rapini”, and is a vegetable often used in Mediterranean cuisines. It is quite delicious sauteed with garlic …

106: Greek letter that’s the symbol for torque: TAU

Torque can be thought of as a turning force, say the force needed to tighten a bolt or a nut. In physics, torque is represented by the Greek letter tau.

108: Status follower: .. QUO

“Status quo” translates from Latin as “state in which”, and in English is used to mean the existing condition or state of affairs.

109: Slack or Zoom: APP

Slack is a messaging app aimed at businesses. At its core, Slack is an instant messaging system. Slack also provides tools designed to increase collaboration within teams.

Zoom is a videoconferencing app that became remarkably popular in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The market deemed Zoom to be the easiest to use of the free videoconferencing apps. I’ve been using it, but really prefer Google’s Meet offering …

111: Language mutually intelligible with Thai: LAO

Lao is the official language of Laos. It is also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, but there the language is known as Isan.