0929-26 NY Times Crossword 29 Sep 26, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 6m 34s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9A British John : ELTON

“Elton John” is the stage name of English singer and pianist Reginald Dwight. John is an avid football (soccer) supporter, and is especially enthusiastic about Watford Football Club, which was his local team growing up. After he achieved financial success, John was able to purchase Watford FC, and owned the club from 1976 to 1987, and again from 1997 until 2002.

14A Nincompoop : DOPE

The word “nincompoop”, meaning “fool”, seems to have been around for quite a while. It has been used since the 1670s, but no one appears to know its origins.

16A Who “wants to be defeated” in “Beat It” : NO ONE

“Beat It” is a 1982 song by Michael Jackson that appeared on the “Thriller” studio album. Famously, the 4-minute song includes a 30-second guitar solo that Eddie Van Halen recorded as a favor to Jackson.

19A Language of the Vikings : NORSE

The Vikings were a Germanic people from northern Europe who were noted as great seafarers. Key to the success of the Vikings was the design of their famous “longships”. Made from wood, the longship was long and narrow with a shallow hull. It was also light, so that the crew would actually carry it small distances over land and around obstacles. Longships were designed to be propelled by both sail and oars.

20A Rich deposits of ore : LODES

A lode is a metal ore deposit that’s found between two layers of rock or in a fissure. The mother lode is the principal deposit in a mine, usually of gold or silver. “Mother lode” is probably a translation of “veta madre”, an expression used in mining in Mexico.

21A Home of the Buckeyes, for short : OSU

Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus was founded back in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The athletic teams of OSU are called the Buckeyes, named after the state tree of Ohio. In turn the buckeye tree gets its name from the appearance of its fruit, a dark nut with a light patch thought to resemble a “buck’s eye”. The school’s athletic mascot was introduced in 1965, and is an anthropomorphic buckeye nut named Brutus Buckeye.

23A Muslim holiday, informally : EID

The two main holidays celebrated in Islam are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

24A Scoped out with intent to rob : CASED

The phrase “to case the joint” is American slang meaning “to examine a location with the intent of robbing it”. The origins of the phrase are apparently unknown, although it dates back at least to 1915.

28A Battery fill : ACID

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

29A Capital of Yemen : SANAA

Sana (also “Sana’a” and “Sanaa”) is the capital city of Yemen. Sitting at an elevation of 7,380 feet, Sana is one of the highest capital cities in the world. Within the bounds of today’s metropolis is the old fortified city of Sana, where people have lived for over 2,500 years. The Old City is now a World Heritage Site. According to legend, Sana was founded by Shem, the son of Noah.

33A “I ___ U” (candy heart message) : LUV

The forerunner to Sweethearts candy was introduced in 1866, with the famous sayings written on the candy tailored for use at weddings. One of the original expressions was, “Married in pink, he will take a drink”. The original candy was a lot bigger, to fit all those words! The smaller, heart-shaped candy hit the shelves in 1901. We’ve been able to buy Sweethearts with the words “Text me” since 2010.

42A Work unit : ERG

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, with one joule comprising 10 million ergs. It has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

44A Chief god of Valhalla : ODIN

In Norse mythology, Valhalla (“hall of the slain”) is a gigantic hall in the world of Asgard. Asgard and Valhalla are ruled by the god Odin, the chief Norse god.

47A European viper : ADDER

The adder, a snake in the viper family, is the only venomous snake found on the island of Great Britain. Adders are also found in Norway and Sweden, north of the Arctic Circle.

49A Greek goddess of the earth : GAEA

The Greek goddess personifying the Earth was Gaea (also “Gaia”, and meaning “land” or “earth” in Greek). The Roman equivalent goddess was Terra Mater, “Mother Earth”.

50A Position of Rickey Henderson in M.L.B. : LEFT FIELD (Left hand + Field hand)

Rickey Henderson is a former professional baseball player believed by many to have been the sport’s greatest baserunner. Henderson holds the major league record for career stolen bases, at 1,406. This compares with the second highest number of career stolen bases of “only” 938, by Lou Brock.

53A Dad on “Black-ish” : DRE

“Black-ish” is a sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross that premiered in 2014. The lead actors play Dre and Rainbow Johnson, a married couple leading an upper-middle class black family. The show is noted for tackling tough issues such as racism, police brutality, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the 2016 US presidential election.

54A Pablo Neruda’s “___ to My Socks” : ODE

“Odes to Common Things” is a collection of poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Included in the list of 25 odes are “Ode to the Table”, “Ode to the Dog”, “Ode to the Artichoke”, “Ode to French Fries” and “Ode to Things”.

55A Indie rock singer ___ O : KAREN

Karen O is the stage name of singer and musician Karen Orzolek. Karen O is the singer and pianist of the New York-based indie band Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

56A Couch : DIVAN

Divans are essentially couches without backs or arms. The design originated in the Middle East, where the couches were commonly found lining the walls of an office that was known as a “divan” or “diwan” meaning “government office”.

64A Tour de France entry : TEAM

Back in the late 1800s, long-distance cycle races were used as promotional events, traditionally to help boost sales of newspapers. These races usually took place around tracks, but in 1902 the backers of the struggling sports publication “L’Auto” decided to stage a race that would take the competitors all around France. That first Tour de France took place in 1903, starting in Paris and passing through Lyon, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes and then back to Paris.

65A “Cooties” : GERMS

“Cooties” is WWI British slang for “body lice”. Ugh …

66A Hitch up on a farm : YOKE

A yoke is a wooden beam used between a pair of animals so that they are forced to work together.

Down

7D Middle-earth foe : ORC

According to Tolkien, Orcs are small humanoids that live in his fantasy world of Middle-earth. They are very ugly and dirty, and are fond of eating human flesh.

8D ___ Territory, 1861-89 : DAKOTA

The Dakota Territory was formed in 1861 and ceased to exist with the admission to the Union of the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. The territory was split into two states in 1889 largely due to lobbying by the Republican Party, which enjoyed a lot of support in the Dakota Territory. The admission of two states added to the political power of the party in the US Senate, by adding four safe Republican seats.

9D Ho-hum feeling : ENNUI

“Ennui” is the French word for “boredom”, and is a term that we now use in English. It’s one of the few French words we’ve imported and haven’t anglicized, and actually pronounce “correctly”.

10D British john : LOO

The use of “john” as a slang term for a toilet is peculiar to North America. “John” probably comes from the older slang term of “jack” or “jakes” that had been around since the 16th century. In Ireland, in less polite moments, we still refer to a toilet as “the jacks”.

26D Just between us : ON THE DL

Something described as on the down low is secret. The phrase “on the down low” is often shortened to “on the DL”. The same abbreviated expression can also mean “on the disabled list” in sports.

27D Blue race in “Avatar” : NA’VI

In James Cameron’s epic “Avatar”, the “blue people” are the Na’vi, the indigenous species that lives on the lush moon called Pandora. The main Na’vi character featured in the film is the female Neytiri. According to Cameron, Neytiri was inspired by the character played by Raquel Welch in the movie “Fantastic Voyage” and the comic book character Vampirella.

29D Raisin brand whose containers feature a girl in a red bonnet : SUN-MAID

The Sun-Maid brand of raisins belongs to a cooperative of raisin growers in California. The cooperative was founded in 1912, and the famous Sun-Maid girl shown on each container of raisins was actually a seeder and packer called Lorraine Collett who worked for one of the members of the cooperative.

34D Scanned lines, for short : UPC

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

39D Band with the 6x platinum album “American Idiot” : GREEN DAY

Green Day is a punk rock band from Berkeley, California. The band’s name was chosen by the band members to reflect their fondness for marijuana. “Green day” is a slang term used to describe a day spent smoking the drug.

48D Spinner of tunes : DEEJAY

The world’s first radio disc jockey (DJ) was one Ray Newby of Stockton, California who made his debut broadcast in 1909, would you believe? When he was 16 years old and a student, Newby started to play his records on a primitive radio located in the Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose. The records played back then were mostly recordings of Enrico Caruso.

49D Move like Shakira in her “Hips Don’t Lie” video : GYRATE

Shakira’s 2006 song “Hips Don’t Lie” broke a record soon after it was released. It became the most-played pop song in a single week in the history of American radio.

51D Courier and Century Gothic, for two : FONTS

We tend to use the terms typeface and font interchangeably. Technically, a typeface and font are not the same thing. A complete set of characters with a common design is referred to as a typeface (common examples being Helvetica and Arial). That typeface consists of a whole collection of fonts, all varying in weight and size. One set of Helvetica fonts, for example, might be Helvetica 14 point or Helvetica 16 point, i.e. a specific size. Another set might be Helvetica bold, or Helvetica italic. The difference between fonts and typefaces mattered a great deal when printers had collections of individual letters to make up blocks of text. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that these days.

59D Kitchen brand that could be an unsuccessful tic-tac-toe line : OXO

Entrepreneur Sam Farber founded OXO in 1990 after watching his wife struggle to use a vegetable peeler because of her arthritis. He pioneered the “Universal Design” philosophy, creating products like push-button POP containers that are easy for everyone to handle, regardless of hand strength.

61D Texting format, for short : SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is the name for the text messaging service that many of us still use on our cell phones to contact friends and family.