0709-19 NY Times Crossword 9 Jul 19, Tuesday

Constructed by: Bruce Haight
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Redundantly

Themed answers are common, redundant phrases:

  • 17A Experience, redundantly : PAST HISTORY
  • 25A Snitch, redundantly : RAT FINK
  • 38A Moolah, redundantly : CASH MONEY
  • 54A Hack, redundantly : TAXICAB
  • 64A Cottontail, redundantly : BUNNY RABBIT

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 6m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Jazz style : BEBOP

The jazz term “bebop” probably came from “Arriba! Arriba!”, which were words of encouragement uttered by Latin American bandleaders to their musicians.

11 Not an exact amount: Abbr. : EST

Estimate (est.)

15 Plains tribe : OTOES

The Otoe (also “Oto”) Native American tribe originated in the Great Lakes region as part of the Winnebago or Siouan tribes. The group that would become the Otoe broke away from the Winnebago and migrated southwestward, ending up in the Great Plains. In the plains the Otoe adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle dependent on the horse, with the American bison becoming central to their diet.

19 Opus ___ : DEI

Opus Dei is a Roman Catholic institution that was founded in Spain in 1928, and officially approved by the church in 1950. In 2010, Opus Dei had over 90,000 members, mostly lay people. The institution’s mission is to promote certain aspects of the Roman Catholic doctrine. Opus Dei was portrayed as a sinister organization by Dan Brown in his novel “The Da Vinci Code”.

25 Snitch, redundantly : RAT FINK

A fink is an informer, someone who rats out his or her cohorts.

28 Novelist Morrison : TONI

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

29 Dark force, in Chinese philosophy : YIN

The yin and the yang can be illustrated using many different metaphors. In one, as the sun shines on a mountain, the side in the shade is the yin and the side in the light is the yang. The yin is also regarded as the feminine side, and the yang the masculine. The yin can also be associated with the moon, while the yang is associated with the sun.

32 Hoi polloi, with “the” : MASSES

“Hoi polloi” is a Greek term, literally meaning “the majority, the many”. In English, “hoi polloi” has come to mean “the masses” and is often used in a derogatory sense.

33 Smidgen : SKOSH

“Skosh” is a slang term meaning “a little bit”, and was originally military slang that came out of the Korean War. “Skosh” derives from the Japanese word “sukoshi” which translates as “few, little, some”.

35 “The Highwayman” poet : NOYES

Alfred Noyes was an English poet best known for his narrative poem “The Highwayman” that was published in 1906. The highwayman in the poem is in love with an innkeeper’s daughter named Bess. Bess dies trying to warn her lover about an ambush, and then the highwayman dies when trying to exact revenge for her death. The highwayman and Bess meet up as ghosts on winter nights.

41 Automated producer of spam : BOT

A bot is a computer program that is designed to imitate human behavior. It might crawl around the Web doing searches for example, or it might participate in discussions in chat rooms by giving pre-programmed responses. It might also act as a competitor in a computer game.

44 5/8/1945 : VE DAY

World War II started in 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) was celebrated on 8 May 1945, when the German military surrendered in Berlin. V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day) was celebrated on 2 September 1945 when the Japanese signed the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

45 Popeye’s creator E. C. ___ : SEGAR

Elzie Segar was a cartoonist who went by the name E. C. Segar. Segar was the man who created the strip “Thimble Theater”, home of the character Popeye.

53 Singer India.___ : ARIE

India.Arie is an American soul and R&B singer who was born India Arie Simpson in Denver, Colorado.

54 Hack, redundantly : TAXICAB

Hackney is a location in London, and it probably gave its name to a “hackney”, an ordinary type of horse around 1300. By 1700 a “hackney” was a person hired to do routine work, and “hackneyed” meant “kept for hire”, and then “stale, uninteresting”. This morphed into a hackney carriage, a carriage or car for hire, and into “hack”, a slang term for a taxi driver or cab.

59 Folgers alternative : YUBAN

Yuban is a brand of light-tasting coffee owned by Kraft Foods.

62 A/C meas. : BTU

In the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), the power of a heating or cooling unit can be measured using the British Thermal Units (BTU). This dated unit is the amount of energy required to heat a pound of water so that the water’s temperature increases by one degree Fahrenheit.

63 Word in brackets after a mistake : SIC

[Sic] indicates that a quotation is written as originally found, perhaps including a typo. “Sic” is Latin for “thus, like this”. The term is more completely written as “sic erat scriptum”, which translates as “thus was it written”.

69 One of 10 in bowling : FRAME

Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

70 Pro ___ : TEM

“Pro tempore” can be abbreviated to “pro tem” or “p.t.” “Pro tempore” is a Latin phrase that best translates as “for the time being”. It is used to describe a person who is acting for another, usually a superior. The President pro tempore of the US Senate is the person who presides over the Senate in the absence of the Vice President of the US. It has been tradition since 1890 that the president pro tem is the most senior senator in the majority party. The president pro tem ranks highly in the line of succession to the presidency, falling third in line after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House.

Down

4 911 responder, for short : EMT

Emergency medical technician (EMT)

The first use of a national emergency phone number was in 1937 in the UK, where the number 999 was introduced to call emergency services. If you need emergency services in the UK or Ireland to this day, you have to dial 999. It’s not really clear why 911 became the emergency number in the US. The most credible suggestion (to me) is that when it was introduced by the FCC in 1967, it was a number that “fit” with the numbers already used by AT&T for free services (211-long distance; 411-information; 611-repair service).

6 Head honcho : BOSS

“Honcho” is a slang term meaning “leader”. The word comes to us from Japanese military, in which language a “hancho” is a “squad” (han) “leader” (cho).

7 Question to a backstabber : ET TU?

It was Shakespeare who popularized the words “Et tu, Brute?” (meaning “And you, Brutus?”). They appear in his play “Julius Caesar”, although the phrase had been around long before he penned his drama. It’s not known what Julius Caesar actually said in real life (if anything at all) as he was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Rome.

8 Rude person in the bleachers : BOOER

At a sports event one might sit in the bleachers. “Bleachers” is a particularly American term used to describe the tiered stands that provide seating for spectators. These seats were originally wooden planks, and as they were uncovered they would be bleached by the sun, giving them the name we use today. Sometimes the fans using the bleachers might be referred to as “bleacherites”.

9 Contraction sung twice in the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” : O’ER

Here are the words (and punctuation) of the poem “The Star-Spangled Banner” penned by Francis Scott Key in 1814:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

10 College subj. that covers Freud : PSY

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist, and founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry. One of Freud’s tenets was that our dreams are a necessary part of sleep as they prevent the dreamer from awakening due to desire for unfulfilled wishes. The dream’s content represents those unfulfilled wishes and satisfies the desire.

12 Feminist Gloria : STEINEM

Gloria Steinem is a journalist whose name is very much associated with the feminist movement of the late sixties and early seventies. Steinem co-founded “Ms.” magazine with fellow-feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes.

18 ___ 500 : INDY

The Indianapolis 500 race is held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana. The race is run around a 2.5 mile oval, hence requiring 200 laps for completion. The first Indy 500 race was held on Memorial Day in 1911. The winner that day was one Ray Harroun. Harroun had seen someone using a rear view mirror on a horse-drawn vehicle, and decided to fit one on his Marmon “Wasp” motor car. Supposedly, that was the first ever use of a rear view mirror on a motor vehicle.

24 The “D” of D.J. : DISC

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.

27 Shocks, in a way : TASES

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”.

34 Pandemonium : HAVOC

Havoc is a great damage or destruction. The term “havoc” comes from the Anglo-French phrase “crier havok”, which was an order given in the late 1500s to soldiers, instructing them to seize plunder.

The word “pandemonium” was coined in 1667 by John Milton in his epic poem “Paradise Lost”. It is the name he invented for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”.

39 Video game giant : SEGA

Sega is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Tokyo. Sega actually started out 1940 in the US as Standard Games and was located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The owners moved the operation to Tokyo in 1951 and renamed the company to Service Games. The name “Sega” is a combination of the first two letters of the words “Se-rvice” and “Ga-mes”.

41 Goes for, as when bobbing for apples : BITES AT

Bobbing for apples is a game played on Halloween. Participants must hold their hands behind their backs and grab apples floating in a large basin of water, using only their mouths.

46 Potpourri : GRAB BAG

The French term “pot pourri” literally translates literally to “rotten pot”, but in France it used to mean “stew”. Over time, the term “potpourri” evolved in English usage to mean a “medley”, and eventually a mixture of dried flowers and spices.

57 Problem that has ballooned : SNAFU

SNAFU is an acronym standing for “situation normal: all fouled up” (well, that’s the polite version!). As one might perhaps imagine, the term developed in the US Army, during WWII.

60 E pluribus ___ : UNUM

From 1776, “E pluribus unum” was the unofficial motto of the United States. The phrase translates from Latin as “Out of many, one”. It was pushed aside in 1956 when an Act of Congress designated “In God We Trust” as the country’s official motto. “In God We Trust” had appeared on US coins since 1864, but was only introduced on paper currency in 1957.

61 Memory unit : BYTE

In the world of computing, a bit is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of “bits” (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The prefix mega- stands for 10 to the power of 6, so a megabyte (meg) is 1,000,000 bytes. The prefix giga- means 10 to the power of 9, and so a gigabyte (gig) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Well, those are the SI definitions of megabyte and gigabyte. The purists still use 2 to the power of 20 for a megabyte (i.e. 1,048,576), and 2 to the power of 30 for a gigabyte.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 So far : AS YET
6 Jazz style : BEBOP
11 Not an exact amount: Abbr. : EST
14 Note from a 6-Down that might give you jitters : SEE ME
15 Plains tribe : OTOES
16 To the ___ degree : NTH
17 Experience, redundantly : PAST HISTORY
19 Opus ___ : DEI
20 Prefix with tourism : ECO-
21 Come after : ENSUE
22 “Victory is mine!” : I WIN!
23 Like some telephones and tires : CORDED
25 Snitch, redundantly : RAT FINK
28 Novelist Morrison : TONI
29 Dark force, in Chinese philosophy : YIN
32 Hoi polloi, with “the” : MASSES
33 Smidgen : SKOSH
35 “The Highwayman” poet : NOYES
37 Angsty music genre : EMO
38 Moolah, redundantly : CASH MONEY
41 Automated producer of spam : BOT
44 5/8/1945 : VE DAY
45 Popeye’s creator E. C. ___ : SEGAR
49 Spaced out mentally : IN A FOG
51 Track relentlessly : DOG
53 Singer India.___ : ARIE
54 Hack, redundantly : TAXICAB
56 F equivalent : E-SHARP
58 “Anybody ___?” : ELSE
59 Folgers alternative : YUBAN
62 A/C meas. : BTU
63 Word in brackets after a mistake : SIC
64 Cottontail, redundantly : BUNNY RABBIT
67 Get ___ on (ace) : AN A
68 Can’t be found at the office : IS OUT
69 One of 10 in bowling : FRAME
70 Pro ___ : TEM
71 Self-description after a major lifestyle change : NEW ME
72 Exhorted : URGED

Down

1 Different sides to observe : ASPECTS
2 Ship’s galley worker : SEA COOK
3 “Give me a simple answer!” : YES OR NO?!
4 911 responder, for short : EMT
5 Giggle : TE-HEE
6 Head honcho : BOSS
7 Question to a backstabber : ET TU?
8 Rude person in the bleachers : BOOER
9 Contraction sung twice in the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” : O’ER
10 College subj. that covers Freud : PSY
11 How train cars are linked : ENDWISE
12 Feminist Gloria : STEINEM
13 “Really?” : THINK SO?
18 ___ 500 : INDY
22 Hypotheticals : IFS
24 The “D” of D.J. : DISC
26 “You got that right!” : AMEN!
27 Shocks, in a way : TASES
30 How many TV shows are viewed nowadays : IN HD
31 Wanderer : NOMAD
34 Pandemonium : HAVOC
36 Quickly change one’s mind back and forth : YO-YO
39 Video game giant : SEGA
40 “You got that right!” : YEAH!
41 Goes for, as when bobbing for apples : BITES AT
42 Like laundry being dried outdoors : ON A LINE
43 Subject of an I.R.S. consumer warning : TAX SCAM
46 Potpourri : GRAB BAG
47 Broadcast slot : AIRTIME
48 Said (to be) : REPUTED
50 Shakespearean cry before “What, are you mad?” : FIE!
52 One of 10 in a ten-speed : GEAR
55 At this point : BY NOW
57 Problem that has ballooned : SNAFU
60 E pluribus ___ : UNUM
61 Memory unit : BYTE
64 Recycling container : BIN
65 Not let go to waste : USE
66 “I’m f-f-freezing!” : BRR!