0802-26 NY Times Crossword 2 Aug 26, Sunday

Bill’s time: 18m 03s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Pen name : BIC

Société Bic is a company based in Clichy in France. The first product the company produced, more than fifty years ago, was the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen that is still produced today. Bic also makes other disposable products such as lighters and razors.

4A Garment whose name is a homophone for a board game : SARI

The item of clothing called a “sari” (also “saree”) is a strip of cloth, as one might imagine, unusual perhaps in that it is unstitched along the whole of its length. The strip of cloth can range from four to nine meters long (that’s a lot of material!). The sari is usually wrapped around the waist, then draped over the shoulder leaving the midriff bare. I must say, it can be a beautiful item of clothing.

Sorry! is a board game that dates back at least to 1934 when it was introduced in the UK market by Waddingtons. The game itself is based on the ancient game of pachisi, and involves players racing against each other to move their playing pieces around the board as quickly as possible. Players can cause opponents to return to the start, hopefully while saying “Sorry!” in the process.

12A Bellyaches : CARPS

The word “carp” used to mean simply “talk” back in the 13th century, with its roots in the Old Norwegian “karpa” meaning “to brag”. A century later, the Latin word “carpere” meaning “to slander” influenced the use of “to carp” so that it came to mean “to find fault with”.

25A Massachusetts city named for a colonial patriot : REVERE

Paul Revere is famous for having alerted the Colonial militia when the British military arrived in the build up to the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revere earned his living as a silversmith. After the war, Revere returned to his trade and diversified into other metalwork. Revere was the first American to develop a process to roll copper into sheets so that the metal could be used to sheathe the hulls of naval vessels.

30A Rightmost word on the front of a penny : TRUST

“In God we trust” was adopted as the official motto of the US in 1956. The phrase apparently originated in the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the words of which were written during the War of 1812. The actual wording in the anthem is “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust’”. Over time, this lyric evolved to “In God we trust”.

35A “Physics is like ___: Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it” (quote attributed to Richard Feynman) : SEX

Richard Feynman was a theoretical physicist from New York City who was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. During WWII, Feynman worked on the development of the atomic bomb. He also served on the commission that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

36A Ankle part : TARSUS

The collection of seven bones in the foot just below the ankle are known collectively as the tarsus. One of those bones is the talus (plural “tali”), more commonly called “ankle bone”. The talus is the lower part of the ankle joint and articulates with the lower ends of the tibia and fibula in the lower leg.

51A Emulates Cicero : ORATES

Cicero was a very influential senator in ancient Rome, in part due to his renowned ability to deliver a persuasive speech. His full name was Marcus Tullius Cicero.

54A Cover with a black rectangle, say : REDACT

Our word “redact”, meaning to revise or edit, comes from the past participle of the Latin “redigere” meaning “to reduce”.

65A Country with the all-time greatest number of medals at the Winter Olympics: Abbr. : NOR

Norway has been ranked as one of the countries in the world with the highest standard of living every year since 2001. It is rich in natural resources and has a relatively low population. The people benefit from a comprehensive social security system, subsidized higher education for all citizens and universal health care. And Norway is famous for her success at the Winter Olympic Games, having won more gold medals than any other nation in the world.

66A Quickbeam and Leaflock, in fantasy : ENTS

Ents are tree-like creatures that live in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth in his series of books “The Lord of the Rings”. “Ent” is an Old English word for “giant”.

71A Mideast language : FARSI

Farsi (also known as Persian) is a language spoken by about 62 million people as a first language, and another 50 million or more as a second language. It is the official language of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

74A Achilles, e.g. : TENDON

The Achilles tendon is located at the back of the leg, above the heel. The name is a reference to Achilles, the hero of Greek myth who was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel.

88A Big name in plastic : VISA

VISA doesn’t actually issue any credit or debit cards. The company just sells the electronic systems and infrastructure to banks which then put the VISA logo on their own cards. Seeing the logo, both customer and merchant know to use the VISA system when making a transaction.

90A Rudimentary seeds : OVULES

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.

94A Calling card, for short? : SIM

Most cell phones used to have SIM cards. SIM cards hold the personal information of the subscriber, with the acronym being short for “Subscriber Identity Module”. Phone companies have migrated towards the use of eSIMs (embedded SIMs), which don’t require a removable physical card.

97A Safari destinations? : URLS

Safari is Apple’s flagship Internet browser, one that is used on its Mac line of computers. A mobile version of Safari is included with all iPhones.

100A Yemeni neighbor : OMANI

The Oman-Yemen border runs in NW-SE directions for just over 180 miles. One end of the border is the tripoint with Saudi Arabia, and the other end is at the Arabian Sea coast.

103A End of “Our Town” or “A Doll’s House” : ACT THREE

“Our Town” is a play by Thornton Wilder that was first performed in 1938, and for which Wilder won a Pulitzer. “Our Town” was actually banned by the Soviet authorities in East Berlin in 1946. Their reasoning was that “the drama was too depressing and could inspire a German suicide wave”.

“A Doll’s House” is probably the most famous play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play deals with the feminist awakening of the lead character, Nora Helmer. “A Doll’s House” is sometimes referred to as the “first true feminist play”.

105A Spectacular flops : DEBACLES

“Debacle” means “disaster”, and is a French word with the same meaning as in English. In French, the term originally was used for the breaking up of ice on the surface of a river.

112A Capital of Zimbabwe : HARARE

Harare is the capital of Zimbabwe, and the African nation’s largest city. It was founded by the British in 1890 as Fort Salisbury (later just “Salisbury”). The outpost was named after Lord Salisbury, who was Prime Minister of the UK at the time. Salisbury was renamed to Harare in 1982, on the second anniversary of the independence of Zimbabwe. The name “Harare” applied to the area in which Fort Salisbury had been erected. “Harare” is a local word meaning “It doesn’t sleep”, a word applied to locations with constant noise.

113A Pupil’s surroundings : IRIS

The iris is the colored part of the eye. It has an aperture in the center that can open or close depending on the level of light hitting the eye.

116A U-Haul alternative : RYDER

The Ryder company was founded in 1933 in Miami, Florida by James Ryder. It started out as a concrete hauling company, but changed its focus a few years later to the leasing of trucks.

117A Legend who occasionally used his head to achieve greatness : PELE

“Pelé” was the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a soccer player who used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. For my money, Pelé was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He was the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and was a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pelé’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

118A SoCal sch. : SDSU

San Diego State University (SDSU) was founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School. Back then, the main purpose of the school was to educate women who wanted to be elementary school teachers. It changed its name to San Diego State Teachers College in 1923. The curriculum expanded beyond teacher education in 1935, and became San Diego State College. In 1960, the college joined what is now known as the California State University.

119A Pink part of a Mr. Potato Head set : EAR

Mr. Potato Head (now just “Potato Head”) is an enduring and popular toy that has been around since its invention by George Lerner in 1949. In its original form, the toy was a collection of eyes, ears, and other facial features that were designed to be stuck into a real potato. Mr. Potato Head also has the distinction of being the first toy ever to be advertised on television.

Down

3D Dumbbell exercises : CURLS

A dumbbell is a short bar with weights on either end that is used for strength-training. There is a theory that such an apparatus was used to train church bell ringers. As there isn’t any bell, it was referred to as a dumbbell. Um, I’m not sure …

5D ___-de-camp : AIDE

“Aide-de-camp” (ADC) is a French term that we have imported into English. The phrase translates to “field assistant” and usually applies to the most senior personal aide to a high-ranking military officer or head of state.

11D They might be on one’s radar : SPEEDERS

Radar speed guns were first used to monitor traffic by Connecticut State Police in the town of Glastonbury, way back in 1947!

13D Porters, for example : ALES

Porter is a dark beer that originated in London in the 1700s. It is named for the street and river porters with whom it was very popular. Porter is a well-hopped beer made using brown malt, which gives it the dark color.

15D Fifth-year student leader at Hogwarts : PREFECT

In J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” universe, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was founded by the four most brilliant witches and wizards of their time: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. Each of the founders lent their name to a House in the school, i.e. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

16D Barely runs? : STREAKS

People have been running around naked for an awfully long time, but the application of the word “streaking” to the phenomenon only dates back to the mid-seventies. A journalist was reporting on a mass nude run of 533 people at the University of Maryland in 1974, and used the words “they are streaking (i.e. moving quickly) past me right now. It’s an incredible sight!”. The Associated Press picked up the story the next day, and interpreted “streaking” as the term to describe “running naked”, and we’ve been using it that way ever since.

24D Over-the-top performers : HAMS

The word “ham”, describing a performer who overacts, is a shortened form of “hamfatter” and dates back to the late 1800s. “Hamfatter” comes from a song in old minstrel shows called “The Ham-Fat Man”. It seems that a poorly performing actor was deemed to have the “acting” qualities of a minstrel made up in blackface.

32D Mercedes alternative : AUDI

The Audi name has an interesting history. The original Horch company was founded by August Horch in 1899. Early in the life of his second company, founded in 1909, Horch was forced to stop using his own name as a brand after his old company sued him. A meeting was held at the apartment of a business associate, Franz Fikentscher, to choose something new. Fikentscher’s young son was studying Latin in the room where the meeting was taking place. He pointed out that “horch” was German for “hear” and he suggested “audi” as a replacement, the Latin for “listen”.

38D Blog feed letters : RSS

Many websites and blogs publish content in a format known as Rich Site Summary (RSS). The “feed” can be read using an RSS reader. The advantage of using an RSS reader is that the user doesn’t have to check the website for new content. That new material is fed to the RSS reader as soon as it is published.

48D God who aids the Trojan fleet in the first book of the “Aeneid” : NEPTUNE

Neptune was a Roman god, of both the sea and of freshwater. He was sometimes known as “Neptunus Equester” as he was also the god of horses and patron of horse-racing.

Aeneas was a Trojan hero of myth who traveled to Italy and became the ancestor of all Romans. Aeneas’s story is told in Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid”.

50D Long stories have them : ARCS

A story arc is a continuing storyline in say a television show that runs through a number of episodes. Story arcs are also found in comics, books, video games, and other forms of media.

56D Old yeller? : CODGER

“Geezer”, “codger” and “coot” are all not-so-nice terms meaning “old man”.

59D California’s Big ___ : SUR

Big Sur is a lovely part of the California Coast located south of Monterey and Carmel. The name “Big Sur” comes from the original Spanish description of the area as “el sur grande” meaning “the big south”.

63D Pioneering astronaut Jemison : MAE

Mae Jemison was a crew member on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a 1992 mission, and as such became the first African-American woman to travel in space. She is also a big fan of “Star Trek” and appeared on an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. That made Jemison the first real astronaut to appear on any of the “Star Trek” shows.

64D “The Good Wife” figure: Abbr. : ATT

“The Good Wife” is a legal drama show on CBS starring Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, a litigator who returns to practicing law after spending 13 years as a stay-at-home mom. I binge-watched the show some time back and found it to be well-written, with a great cast and great acting …

68D Fix a litter problem? : SPAY

Our verb “to spay”, meaning “to surgically remove the ovaries of” (an animal), comes from an old Anglo-French word “espeier” meaning “to cut with a sword”.

69D Show signs : NEONS

The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

71D Palm off (on) : FOIST

The word “foist”, meaning “to pass off fraudulently as genuine”, comes from the Dutch word meaning “take in hand”. The original concept came from playing dice, in which one die was held surreptitiously in one hand.

77D Isis Naija Gaston, ___ Ice Spice : AKA

“Ice Spice” is the stage name of Isis Naija Gaston, a rapper born and raised in the Bronx, New York City.

78D Madonna’s “La ___ Bonita” : ISLA

“La Isla Bonita” (Spanish for “The Beautiful Island”) is a song recorded by Madonna as a single in 1987. It had appeared as a track on her studio album “True Blue” the year before.

83D “Shark Tank” shark Greiner : LORI

On the TV show “Shark Tank”, Lori Greiner is one of the “sharks”, one of the investors who choose whether or not to back entrepreneurs making a pitch for their businesses. Greiner has been described as a “serial inventor” and made millions selling those inventions on QVC. Her success on the shopping channel earned her the nickname “the Queen of QVC”.

84D Horror franchise that includes 1992’s “Army of Darkness” : EVIL DEAD

“The Evil Dead” is a horror movie franchise that includes video games and comic books, all derived from a series of three films: “The Evil Dead” (1981), “Evil Dead II” (1987) and “Army of Darkness” (1992). I don’t “do” horror, so I can’t tell you anything about them …

86D “West Side Story” conflict : TURF WAR

Leonard Bernstein’s musical “West Side Story” is based on William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The musical is set in New York City and features two rival gangs: the Sharks from Puerto Rico and the Jets with working-class, Caucasian roots. Tony from the Jets (played by Richard Beymer) falls in love with Maria (played by Natalie Wood) from the Sharks. All this parallels Romeo from the House of Montague falling for Juliet from the House of Capulet in the Italian city of Verona. The stage musical was adapted into a very successful 1961 movie with the same title.

87D Edmund who wrote “View From the Summit” : HILLARY

Edmund Hillary was a mountaineer and explorer from New Zealand. Famously, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers to summit Mount Everest, doing so in 1953. Edmund’s son Peter Hillary also became a climber, and he reached the summit of Everest in 1990. Peter repeated the feat in 2002, climbing alongside Tenzing Norgay’s son Jamling.

94D What wets the appetite? : SALIVA

Ultimately, our contemporary term “saliva” is the Latin word for “spittle”.

99D Intrinsically : PER SE

“Per se” is a Latin phrase that translates as “by itself”. We use “per se” pretty literally, meaning “in itself, intrinsically”.

101D Jazz singer Carmen : MCRAE

Carmen McRae was a jazz singer from Harlem in New York City. McRae’s inspiration was singer Billie Holiday, whom McRae met when she was 17 years old.

104D The third one is dangerous : RAIL

The first commercial uses of a third rail to power trains were actually in Ireland, with the Giant’s Causeway Tramway in 1883, and the Bessbrook and Newry Tramway in 1885. We use the term “third rail” metaphorically to describe a topic that must be avoided at all costs. The metaphorical usage was popularized in the US in the early 1980s, often in reference to the political “untouchability” (if that’s a word!) of Social Security.

106D Once-common fish in the Thames : EELS

Jellied eels are a traditional British dish associated with the working class East End of London. Historically, the eels used were caught in the River Thames. The dish is prepared by boiling up eels that have been chopped into rounds in a seasoned stock and then allowing it to set. The eel contains a lot of gelatinous protein so the stock forms a jelly as it cools.

107D Veal cordon ___ : BLEU

A “cordon bleu” dish is a meat dish, one prepared by wrapping the meat around cheese, covering it with breading and then pan-frying. Specifically, veal cordon bleu is made using veal that is pounded thin and wrapped around slices of ham and cheese. The term “cordon bleu” translates from French as “blue ribbon”.

111D Inits. at sea : HMS

The prefix “HMS” is used by the warships of the Royal Navy, and stands for “Her/His Majesty’s Ship/Submarine”. The prefix “RMS” is used by ships of the merchant navy, and stands for “Royal Mail Ship/Steamer”.