0608-26 NY Times Crossword 8 Jun 26, Monday

Bill’s time: 5m 32s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Deer sir? : STAG

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and the females called cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

9A Caspian or Mediterranean : SEA

The Caspian Sea is a landlocked body of water lying between Asia and Europe. By some definitions, the Caspian is the largest lake on the planet. The name “Caspian” comes from the Caspi people who lived to the southwest of the sea in the South Caucasus.

The Mediterranean Sea is almost completely enclosed by land, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. The sea takes its name from the Latin “mediterraneus”, which means “in the middle of land”.

12A Designer ___ Boss : HUGO

Hugo Boss started a clothing company in a small town just south of Stuttgart in Germany in 1924. He joined the Nazi party before the war, and made a lot of money as an official supplier of uniforms to the likes of the SS and Hitler Youth. He paid the price of collaboration after the war (a fine), but his business survived. Boss (the boss) died in 1948, but the Hugo Boss company is still going strong today.

13A Typographical embellishment : SERIF

Serifs are details on the ends of characters in some typefaces. Typefaces without serifs are known as sans-serif, using the French word “sans” meaning “without” and “serif” from the Dutch “schreef” meaning “line”. Some people say that serif fonts are easier to read on paper, whereas sans-serif fonts work better on a computer screen. I’m not so sure though …

18A Popular board game adapted from India [1] : PARCHEESI

Pachisi is an ancient Indian game that has been commercialized in the West as Ludo, Sorry! and Parcheesi. The name “pachisi” derives from the Hindi “pachis” meaning “twenty-five”, which is the largest score that can be thrown in one move in the original game.

31A Actor Stonestreet of “Modern Family” : ERIC

Actor Eric Stonestreet is best-known for playing Cameron Tucker on the hit comedy show “Modern Family”. Stonestreet is openly straight, but plays the gay partner of the character Mitchell Pritchett. Pritchett is played by openly gay actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Ferguson jokingly describes Stonestreet as being “gay for pay”.

32A Apt zodiac sign for Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion : LEO

The Cowardly Lion in L. Frank Baum’s “Land of Oz” books was portrayed by Bert Lahr in the celebrated 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”. The costume that Lahr wore in the film was made from real lion fur, and weighed a whopping 60 pounds.

34A Scoundrel’s deeds : KNAVERY

We’ve been using “knave” to mean “cad” since about 1200, and as an alternative name for the jack in a deck of cards since the mid-1500s. “Knave” comes from the Old English word “cnafa”, a “boy, male servant”.

38A Card game whose name is something players cry : UNO

A standard game of Mattel’s UNO can be used to play several variations of the game, such as Elimination UNO, Speed UNO and Pirate UNO. There is also a spin-off game called “DOS” that is published by Mattel.

40A Anthropologist Margaret : MEAD

“Coming of Age in Samoa” sounds like a fascinating book. It was written by American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead and published in 1928. In the book, Mead examines the behavior of youths in Samoa, making some comparisons with youths in America. One major observation she made was the smooth transition from childhood to adulthood of Samoan girls, compared to what she described as a more troublesome transition in the US. Mead followed up “Coming of Age in Samoa” with a similar work in 1930 titled “Growing Up in New Guinea”, which documented her observations of the people of the Manus Province of Papua New Guinea.

46A “___ the night before Christmas …” : ‘TWAS

The poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published anonymously in 1823, and is better known today by its first line “‘Twas the night before Christmas”. Most scholars believe that the poem was written by Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian from New York City. Others say that it was written by Henry Livingston, Jr., a poet from Upstate New York.

47A Word repeated in “___ ye, ___ ye!” : HEAR

Town criers make public announcements on the streets, usually shouting “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” to attract attention. The term “oyez” derives from the Anglo-Norman word for “listen” and is used in this instance to mean “Hear ye!”

48A Cube maker Erno : RUBIK

What was originally called the “Magic Cube” became better known as “Rubik’s Cube”, and was named for its inventor Ernő Rubik. Rubik’s Cube is the world’s biggest selling puzzle game, with over 350 million sold in just over 30 years.

55A World’s largest country with a four-letter name : IRAN

Before 1935, the country we know today as Iran was referred to as Persia by the Western world. The official name of the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.

57A Home of Columbus : OHIO

The city of Columbus, Ohio is a “purpose-built” state capital. The state legislature selected the location for Ohio’s new capital in 1812, choosing dense forest land with no significant settlement, largely due to its strategic location in the center of the state. The name was chosen in honor of the explorer Christopher Columbus.

62A Test the weight of : HEFT

The heft of something is its weight, its heaviness. The term “heft” is derivative of the verb “to heave” meaning “to lift, raise”.

Down

2D Oom-pah instrument : TUBA

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 …

3D Follower of New or teen : … AGER

The New Age Movement is a Western philosophy with roots that date back to the early 1800s. The movement focuses on achieving the highest human potential as an individual and embraces many traditionally Eastern spiritual practices, but eschews all religious doctrines. New Age music is composed with the intent of supporting this philosophy. It tends to be very minimalistic, very tonal and harmonic. It is often used as a backdrop for relaxation or meditation.

6D What Taylor Swift calls the stages of her career : ERAS

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is a journey through her musical career, with each stage of the show representing a different “era” or album. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Lover
2. Fearless
3. Evermore
4. Reputation
5. Speak Now
6. Red
7. Folklore
8. 1989
9. Midnights

9D Email winnower : SPAM FILTER

We use the verb “to winnow” in a figurative sense to describe the separation of something good from a collection of worthless things. The more literal meaning is the freeing of grain from the lighter chaff by blowing on the mixture, or by throwing it in the air.

11D Tiny hill builders : ANTS

Anthills are not the nests themselves, but rather the surface mounds created by ants as they excavate their underground nests.

23D Short-term kind of store : POP-UP

A pop-up store (or restaurant) is one that is temporary. The idea is that a pop-up store opens in empty retail space for a limited period of time, often to meet the needs of a particular season or holiday. Examples of the genre might be Halloween stores or Christmas stores.

26D Prime use for a crowbar : LEVER

A crowbar is a wonderful tool, one that can be used to pry open things, and to remove nails. The claw at one or both ends of the tool aids in that nail removal, and it is likely this iron claw was said to resemble the claw of a crow, giving us the name “crowbar”. Back in Elizabethan times, the same tool was called an “iron crow”. There’s a line in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” that reads “Get me an iron crow and bring it straight/Unto my cell.”

34D Watercraft for an Inuit : KAYAK

There is a type of boat used by Inuit people called a “kayak”. The term “kayak” means “man’s boat”, whereas “umiak” means “woman’s boat”.

36D Accessibility law inits. : ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

42D Strong string : TWINE

Our word “twine”, meaning “light string”, has the same root as our word “twin”. The original Old English “twin” was a double thread.

45D ___ Beesly, character who has the last line in the finale of “The Office” : PAM

In the excellent sitcom “The Office”, the character Pam Halpert (née Beesly) is played very ably by Jenna Fischer. If you’ve seen the original version of “The Office” from the UK, then you’d have met Pam’s equivalent character, whose name is Dawn Tinsley.

54D Follower of pointy or pigeon : … TOED

Pigeon toe is a condition in which a person walks with the toes pointing inwards.