1024-26 NY Times Crossword 24 Oct 26, Saturday

Bill’s time: 12m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Doves : PEACENIKS

The suffix “-nik” is of Slavic origin. It is somewhat like the suffix “-er” in English. By adding “-nik” to a noun, the new word describes a person related to what that noun describes. Examples of the use of “-nik” in mainstream English are “beatnik” and ”refusenik”. Examples of more casual “-nik” terms are “neatnik” and “peacenik”.

12A Dive : HOLE-IN-THE-WALL

We’ve been using the word “dive” in American English for a run-down bar since the latter half of the 19th century. The term comes from the fact that disreputable taverns were usually located in basements, so one had to figuratively dive into them. I’m a big fan …

14A Noted surname in punk rock : RAMONE

The Ramones were an American punk rock band. The group formed in Forest Hills, New York in the mid-seventies. The band members took on the stage names Dee Dee, Joey, and Johnny Ramone, even though they were not related. The “Ramone” name was imitative of the pseudonym used by Paul McCartney when he booked into hotels anonymously, namely “Paul Ramon”. Arguably, the Ramones were the first punk rock group, defining the genre. Something else that’s not my cup of tea …

22A Tip of Baja? : PESO

The Mexican peso is the most traded currency from Latin America. It is also the third most traded currency in the Americas (after the US dollar and the Canadian dollar).

Baja California is both the most northern and the most western of the Mexican states. The name translates from Spanish as “Lower California”.

23A Sourdough starter component : YEAST

The active ingredient used to make sourdough bread is found in a pre-ferment (also “starter”). This pre-ferment is a mixture of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment for some time (maybe days) to grow a colony of wild yeast and lactobacilli. The starter is added to the dough used to make the final bread, with the starter accounting for about 20% of the weight of the final mixture. During baking, the wild yeast causes the bread to rise and the lactobacilli produce lactic acid, which gives sourdough its characteristic sour taste.

25A Bunk : ROT

The word “bunk” is short for “bunkum”, the phonetic spelling of “Buncombe”, which is a county in North Carolina. Supposedly, a state representative made a dull and irrelevant speech that was directed to his home county of Buncombe, bringing the term “bunkum” into the language with the meaning of “nonsense”. The derivative word “debunk” first appeared in a novel by William Woodward in 1923, when he used it to describe “taking the bunk out of things”.

27A Basic logic gate : AND

Digital systems are made up from a series of logic gates, electronic circuits with one or more inputs but only one output. Logic gates are named for the relationship between the input and output, and can be AND gates, OR gates or perhaps NOT gates.

28A Tombstone setting : ARIZONA

The Arizona town of Tombstone built up around a mine that was owned by one Ed Schieffelin. Schieffelin had been told by US soldiers stationed in the area that the only stone (ore sample) he would find in the area was his tombstone. Regardless, he did file a claim, and it was centered on the grave site of one of his men who had been killed by Apaches. Schieffelin filed papers under the name “the Tombstone claim”.

31A Connection letters : DSL

The initialism “DSL” originally stood for Digital Subscriber Loop, but is now accepted to mean (Asymmetric) Digital Subscriber Line. It is a technology that allows Internet service to be delivered down the same telephone line as voice service, by separating the two into different frequency signals.

32A Display option, in brief : LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a specialized form of semiconductor that when switched on releases photons (light). LEDs have many applications, from status indicators in consumer electronics to high-efficiency display backlighting. They are also used as replacements for the much less-efficient tungsten light bulbs. I replaced all of my tungsten Xmas lights many years ago and saved a lot on my electricity bill.

38A Singer who had us at “Hello”? : ADELE

“Hello” is a 2015 song by English singer Adele that won her three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. It was the first song to sell over one million digital copies in a single week in the US.

40A Familia member : TIA

In Spanish, a “tía” (aunt) is a “miembro de la familia” (member of the family).

41A Ball game in which you call your shots : HORSE

H-O-R-S-E is a simple game played with a basketball and a hoop. The idea is that one player makes a basket using a certain move and technique, and then subsequent players have to make a basket the same way. Anyone failing to make a basket is assigned a letter in the word H-O-R-S-E, and after five letters, you’re out. A quicker game is called P-I-G.

44A International intelligence community? : MENSA

Mensa is a high-IQ society that was founded in Oxford, England in 1946. The founders were two lawyers: Australian Roland Berrill and Englishman Lancelot Ware. Apparently, the elitist founders were unhappy with the development of Mensa, given that most members came from the working and lower classes.

47A Ovid’s “our” : NOSTRA

The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso is known today simply as Ovid. Ovid is usually listed alongside the two other great Roman poets: Horace and Virgil. Although he was immensely popular during his own lifetime, Ovid spent the last ten years of his life in exile. He fell foul of Emperor Augustus and so was banished to Tomis, a city on the Black Sea. What led to this disfavor seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

51A Barrier to entry at a top-secret facility : RETINA SCANNER

An iris scan is a method of biometric identification. It relies on the fact that the complex patterns in the irises are unique to an individual. Note that an iris scan differs from a retinal scan. The latter uses technology that scans the unique pattern of blood vessels in an individual’s retina.

Down

3D Butter up? : ARIES

According to the ancient Greeks, the constellation Aries the Ram represents the mythological winged ram with the Golden Fleece. The Greeks “hijacked” the constellation though, because it also represented a ram in late Babylonian times, long before the Golden Fleece came along.

5D Opposite of 7-Down, humorously : EPT
7D Like Inspector Clouseau, despite all of his successes : INEPT

If one is capable, one might jokingly be described as “ept”, the ostensible opposite of “inept”.

6D Cousin of kabuki : NOH

Noh is a form of musical drama in Japan that has been around since the 14th century. Many of the Noh performers are masked, allowing all the roles to be played by men, including the female parts.

Kabuki is a Japanese form of theater involving dance and drama. In the original Kabuki theater, both male and female parts were played by women. In contrast, the Noh dramas have the male and female parts played by men.

7D Like Inspector Clouseau, despite all of his successes : INEPT

Apparently, some people think that the Inspector Clouseau character (played originally by Peter Sellers) is “The Pink Panther”. “Pink Panther” is actually the jewel that was stolen in the original movie. Would you believe there are eleven “Pink Panther” movies in the whole series?

8D Nickname for the New Zealand dollar : KIWI

The first European to sight the nation that we know today as New Zealand was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He labeled the land “Staten Landt”, believing it to be part of South America. Dutch cartographers changed the name to “Nova Zelandia”, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. That Latin name evolved into the Dutch “Nieuw Zeeland”, which Captain James Cook anglicized to “New Zealand”.

19D Low rank : PRIVATE

The lowest military rank of soldier is often private (pvt.). The term “private” comes from the Middle Ages when “private soldiers” were hired or conscripted by noblemen to form a “private army”. The more generic usage of “private” started in the 1700s.

21D Perfect places to be : UTOPIAS

The word “Utopia” was coined by Sir Thomas More in his book “Utopia” published in 1516 to describe an idyllic fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. More’s use of the name Utopia comes from the Greek “ou” meaning “not” and “topos” meaning “place”. By calling his perfect island “Not Place”, More was apparently making the point that he didn’t think that the ideal could actually exist.

29D Norma who gave Sally Field her first Oscar : RAE

“Norma Rae” is a 1979 movie starring Sally Field as Norma Rae Webster in a tale of union activities in a textile factory in Alabama. The film is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton told in a 1975 book called “Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance”.

30D Photographer Goldin : NAN

Nan Goldin is an American photographer who works out of New York, Berlin and Paris. She is known for her work featuring LGBT models, and for images highlighting the HIV crisis and the opioid epidemic.

39D Drawings of various states? : LOTTOS

Originally, lotto was a type of card game, with “lotto” being the Italian for “lot, destiny”. We’ve used “lotto” to mean a gambling game since the late 1700s.

44D ___ ray : MANTA

The manta ray is the largest species of ray, with the biggest one recorded at over 23 feet across and weighing 6,600 pounds. It is sometimes referred to as the sea devil.

50D Subjects of Pixar’s second movie : ANTS

“A Bug’s Life” is a 1998 animated feature film from Pixar. The storyline is based on the film “The Seven Samurai” and the fable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper”.

53D Cent : U.S. :: ___ : Japan : SEN

The sen was a monetary unit in Japan equal to 1/100th of a yen. Following World War II, Japan experienced a period of severe inflation that dramatically devalued the currency. The sen became so worthless that it was officially removed from circulation at the end of 1953.

54D West Coast univ. holding the record for most chemical elements discovered (16) : CAL

The University of California, Berkeley (Cal) is the most difficult public university to get into in the world. It opened in 1869, and is named for Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.