0518-21 NY Times Crossword 18 May 21, Tuesday

Constructed by: Margaret Seikel
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer Sausage Link

Themed answers each end with kind of SAUSAGE:

  • 55A Breakfast side order … or a hint to the last words of 18-, 23-, 34- and 49-Across : SAUSAGE LINK
  • 18A Rotten kid : SPOILED BRAT
  • 23A Heavy metal fan : HEADBANGER
  • 34A Brand of school supplies known for its dazzling rainbow designs : LISA FRANK
  • 49A Certain emotional support animal : THERAPY DOG

Bill’s time: 6m 42s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Hospital scan, for short : MRI

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine uses powerful magnetic fields to generate images that can be used by medical professionals to diagnose injury and disease.

14 ___ Lingus : AER

“Aer” is the Irish word for “air” as in “Aer Lingus”, which is the name of the Irish national airline.

15 Fish tank buildup : ALGAE

Algae are similar to terrestrial plants in that they use photosynthesis to create sugars from light and carbon dioxide, but they differ in that they have simpler anatomies, and for example lack roots.

16 It clutches arrows and an olive branch on the Great Seal : EAGLE

The Great Seal of the United States is a device used to authenticate some US federal documents. The obverse (front) of the Great Seal is used as the coat of arms of the US, and is a design that can be seen on all American passports.

18 Rotten kid : SPOILED BRAT

A bratwurst (sometimes “brat” in the US) is a German sausage. The name comes from “brät-” meaning “finely chopped meat”, and “Wurst” meaning “sausage”.

23 Heavy metal fan : HEADBANGER

Headbanging is a practice engaged in by many players and followers of hard rock and heavy metal music. It involves shaking and nodding of the head energetically in time to the music. It’s a dangerous practice. Terry Balsamo is a guitarist with the band Evanescence and in 2005 he suffered a stroke, apparently from a blood clot that formed in his neck due to headbanging during performances.

Sausages are often referred to as bangers on the other side of the pond. The term “banger” is a reference to the tendency of the sausage to burst open with a bang while cooking. The rather tasty dish called bangers and mash is traditional British fare and comprises sausages with mashed potatoes, and smothered in brown gravy. Yum …

28 New England catch : COD

In Britain and Ireland, the most common fish that is used in traditional “fish and chips” is Atlantic cod. Cod has been overfished all over the world, and is now considered to be an endangered species by many international bodies. Confrontations over fishing rights in the North Atlantic led to conflicts called “the Cod Wars” between Iceland and the UK in the 1950s and the 1970s, with fishing fleets being protected by naval vessels and even shots being fired.

The geographical region of New England comprises the six northeastern states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The name “New England” was given to the region by English explorer John Smith in 1616.

29 Poet’s cadence : METER

The meter of a poem is its rhythmic structure.

31 Trippy drug : LSD

LSD (known colloquially as “acid”) is lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …

32 Khan who founded Khan Academy : SAL

“Khan Academy” is a not-for-profit organization that aims to provide a “free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere”. Founded by educator Sal Khan in 2006, the academy mainly teaches mathematics and science through the medium of YouTube videos. Check out some of the videos. They are really excellent …

33 What the letters of “Roy G. Biv” stand for : COLORS

“Roy G. Biv” can be used as a mnemonic for the colors in a rainbow:

  • Red
  • Orange
  • Yellow
  • Green
  • Blue
  • Indigo
  • Violet

40 Highest point value for a Scrabble tile : TEN

The game of Scrabble has been produced in many international versions, and each of these editions has its own tile distribution to suit the local language. For example, in English we have two tiles worth ten points: one “Q” and one “Z”. If you play the game in French then there are five tiles worth ten points: one “K”, one “W”, one “X”, one “Y” and one “Z”.

44 Old battle clubs : MACES

A mace is a relatively simple weapon in essence. It is a heavy weight on the end of a handle that is used to deliver powerful blows on an opponent’s body.

45 Sleep preventer, in a fairy tale : PEA

“The Princess and the Pea” is a fairy tale from the pen of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The essence of the story is that a prince’s mother tests the royal blood of an apparent princess by placing a pea under a pile of mattresses on which the young girl sleeps. The girl complains of a restless night, demonstrating a physical sensitivity that can only be attributed to a princess. And they all lived happily ever after …

46 Seasonal delivery driver? : SANTA

Saint Nicholas of Myra is the inspiration for Santa Claus. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra (now in modern-day Turkey) during the 4th century AD, and was known for being generous to the poor. Centuries after he died, his remains were desecrated by Italian sailors and moved to Bari in Italy. One legend has it that the relics were moved again centuries later and reburied in the grounds of Jerpoint Abbey in Co. Kilkenny in Ireland, where you can visit the grave today. I choose to believe that Santa Claus’s relics are indeed buried in Ireland …

48 Loop in on the DL : BCC

A blind carbon copy (bcc) is a copy of a document or message that is sent to someone without other recipients of the message knowing about that extra copy.

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

49 Certain emotional support animal : THERAPY DOG

A hot dog is a sausage served in a split roll. The term “hot dog” dates back to the 19th-century and is thought to reflect a commonly-held opinion that the sausages contained dog meat.

51 2016 film starring Amy Adams as a linguist who communicates with aliens : ARRIVAL

2016’s “Arrival” is a very entertaining sci-fi film that is based on a short story by Ted Chiang called “Story of Your Life”. Amy Adams plays a linguist who is called upon to communicate with aliens who have arrived on Earth.

Amy Adams is an American actress, although she was actually born in Vicenza, Italy while her father was a US serviceman stationed on an Italian base. My favorite Amy Adams film so far is the outstanding “Julie & Julia” in which she acted alongside Meryl Streep. I highly recommend this truly delightful movie.

54 Yellow henchman in “Despicable Me” : MINION

A minion is a servile follower, a yes-man. The term “minion” comes from the French word “mignon” meaning “favorite, darling”.

“Despicable Me” is a 2010 animated comedy film. The main voice actor in the movie is the very funny Steve Carell. “Despicable Me” is a Universal Pictures production, although all of the animation was done in France. The 2010 film was followed by a sequel “Despicable Me 2” released in 2013, with a prequel/spin-off film called “Minions” released in 2015.

55 Breakfast side order … or a hint to the last words of 18-, 23-, 34- and 49-Across : SAUSAGE LINK

Link sausages are so called as they can come in chains, with each sausage being a link in that chain.

58 What tree rings indicate : AGE

Growth rings can be seen in a horizontal cross section of a tree trunk. These rings are caused by a change in the rate of growth of a tree that comes with the seasons, so the rings are more easily discerned in trees that grow in regions with marked seasonal changes.

59 Process, as ore : SMELT

Metals are found in ore in the form of oxides. In order to get pure metal from the ore, the ore is heated and the metal oxides within are reduced (i.e. the oxygen is removed) in the chemical process known as smelting. The oxygen is extracted by adding a source of carbon or carbon monoxide which uses up the excess oxygen atoms to make carbon dioxide, a waste product of smelting (and, a greenhouse gas).

60 Spirit in a bottle : GENIE

The “genie” in the bottle takes his or her name from “djinn”. “Djinns” were various spirits considered lesser than angels, with people exhibiting unsavory characteristics said to be possessed by djinn. When the book “The Thousand and One Nights” was translated into French, the word “djinn” was transformed into the existing word “génie”, because of the similarity in sound and the related spiritual meaning. This “génie” from the Arabian tale became confused with the Latin-derived “genius”, a guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth. Purely as a result of that mistranslation the word genie has come to mean the “djinn” that pops out of the bottle. A little hard to follow, I know, but still quite interesting …

61 “Nothing but ___!” : NET

“Nothing but net” is a phrase used in basketball to describe a “clean basket”. A clean basket is a score in which the ball doesn’t touch the backboard or even the rim, and touches only the net.

63 Mythical king of Crete : MINOS

Minos was the King of Crete in Greek mythology, and the son of Zeus and Europa. Minos had an elaborate labyrinth built under the island that was designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus (who famously died trying to escape from the island by “flying” away). In the labyrinth, King Minos kept the Minotaur, a dreadful creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man.

Down

3 Where the band U2 hails from : IRELAND

The band known today as U2 was originally called Feedback, and then The Hype. The band members searched for yet another name and chose U2 from a list of six names suggested by a friend. They picked U2 because it was the name they disliked least …

6 Doctors Without Borders, e.g., for short : NGO

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) is an international aid organization that was founded in France in 1971. The organization is usually referred to as Doctors Without Borders here in North America, but goes by the initialism MSF in much of the world.

7 ___ chi (martial art) : TAI

More correctly called “t‘ai chi ch‘uan”, tai chi is a martial art that is mostly practiced to improve overall health and increase longevity.

8 Left a restaurant review, in a modern way : YELPED

yelp.com is a website that provides a local business directory and reviews of services. The site is sort of like Yellow Pages on steroids, and the term “yelp” is derived from “yel-low p-ages”.

10 Workplaces where white coats are worn : LABS

Our term “laboratory”, often shortened to “lab”, comes from the Medieval Latin word “laboratorium” meaning “place for labor, work”. This in turn comes from the Latin verb “laborare” meaning “to work”.

13 Some volleyball players : SETTERS
46 Hard volleyball shots : SPIKES

In volleyball, each team can only touch the ball a maximum of three times before it returns to the other side of the net. The three contacts are often a “bump” (a preliminary pass) and a “set” (setting up the attacking shot) followed by a “spike” (a shot into the opposing court).

24 Org. for the Big East and Pac-12 : NCAA

The Big East collegiate athletic conference was founded in 1979. The conference went through a major realignment between 2010 and 2013 with 14 schools departing, and 15 schools joining the lineup.

“Pac-12” is an abbreviation for the Pacific-12 Conference, a college athletic conference in the western US. The Pac-12 has won more NCAA National Team Championships than any other conference. The Pac-12 was founded in 1915 as the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC). Over time as it grew, the conference went by the names Big Five, Big Six, Pacific-8, Pacific-10 and became the Pacific-12 in 2011.

29 M.L.K. Day, e.g.: Abbr. : MON

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a US Federal holiday taking place on the third Monday of each year. It celebrates the birthday of Dr. King, and was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983, and first observed in 1986. However, some states resisted naming the holiday MLK Day, and gave it alternative names (like “Civil Rights Day”). It was officially celebrated as MLK Day in all 50 states from the year 2000 onwards.

30 Cousin of a caribou : ELK

The elk (also “wapiti”) is one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were familiar with the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and incorrectly gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct name for the beast is “wapiti”, which means “white rump” in Shawnee. It’s all very confusing …

“Caribou” is the North American name for “reindeer”.

32 Radiator noise : SSS!

A radiator in a car is a heat exchanger used to transfer thermal energy from the engine block to the atmosphere. Such a radiator is poorly named, as the bulk of the heat is transferred by convection, and not radiation.

35 French pronoun : ILS

“Ils” is the French for “they”, if not referring to feminine nouns (when “they” translates as “elles”).

36 Tush : REAR

“Tush”, a word meaning “backside”, is an abbreviation of “tochus” that comes from the Yiddish “tokhes”.

37 ___ Row, part of Washington, D.C. : EMBASSY

Most of the embassies and diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. are located in a section of Massachusetts Avenue. As a result, that section of the thoroughfare earned the nickname “Embassy Row”. Some embassies and diplomatic buildings occupy buildings in nearby streets, and so the term “Embassy Row” can be extended to include a whole neighborhood.

38 Craft with knotted cords : MACRAME

Macramé is a way to make cloth that uses a knotting technique rather than weaving or knitting. Macramé was popularised at sea, where sailors would decorate the likes of knife handles, bottles and even parts of the ship.

41 The Hoosier State : INDIANA

The exact origin of the word “hoosier” is unknown, but has been around since at least 1830. The term had no direct linkage with Indiana until John Finley of Richmond, Indiana wrote a poem called “The Hoosier’s Nest” in 1833. A few years later, by 1840, “hoosier” was generally accepted as a term for Indiana residents.

42 Iggy Pop’s band, with “the” : STOOGES

Iggy Pop is a punk rock performer from Muskegon, Michigan. When he was in high school, he was a drummer for a local band called the Iguanas, and so was given the nickname “Iggy”. He was the vocalist for a band called the Stooges, and is often referred to as the Godfather of Punk.

43 Aids for affixing messages on refrigerators : MAGNETS

Refrigerator magnets … I can’t stand them! But, there is something interesting about their structure. If we place two fridge magnets back to back, and slide them slowly against each other, then we can feel an alternating attraction and repulsion. This is because they are manufactured with alternating north and south poles on the back side, and do not have two distinct poles. Who knew …?!

47 Writer Rand : AYN

Author Ayn Rand espoused what she called “rational egoism”, her view that it is irrational and immoral to act against one’s self-interest. Rand laid out the concept in depth in her 1964 collection of essays and papers titled “The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism”.

50 Prenatal test, for short : AMNIO

Amniocentesis (“amnio” for short) is the prenatal test which involves the removal of a small amount of the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus using a hypodermic needle. The fluid naturally contains some fetal cells, the DNA of which can then be tested to determine the sex of the child and to check for the presence of genetic abnormalities.

53 Fixtures in a chocolate factory : VATS

Chocolate is made from the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree. The seeds are very bitter and the traditional drink made with the seed was called “xocolatl” by the Aztecs, meaning “bitter water”. Our word “chocolate” comes from “xocolatl”.

56 Hawaiian garland : LEI

“Lei” is a Hawaiian word meaning “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a lei is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Hospital scan, for short : MRI
4 Word before line or hose : PANTY-
9 Joins a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” say : CLAPS
14 ___ Lingus : AER
15 Fish tank buildup : ALGAE
16 It clutches arrows and an olive branch on the Great Seal : EAGLE
17 Fish eggs : ROE
18 Rotten kid : SPOILED BRAT
20 Reason for an Olympic diving demerit : SPLASH
22 Birthday staple : PRESENT
23 Heavy metal fan : HEADBANGER
26 Opposite of WSW : ENE
27 Bother : ANNOY
28 New England catch : COD
29 Poet’s cadence : METER
31 Trippy drug : LSD
32 Khan who founded Khan Academy : SAL
33 What the letters of “Roy G. Biv” stand for : COLORS
34 Brand of school supplies known for its dazzling rainbow designs : LISA FRANK
37 What a lot of office work is spent on nowadays : EMAILS
40 Highest point value for a Scrabble tile : TEN
41 Ideology suffix : -ISM
44 Old battle clubs : MACES
45 Sleep preventer, in a fairy tale : PEA
46 Seasonal delivery driver? : SANTA
48 Loop in on the DL : BCC
49 Certain emotional support animal : THERAPY DOG
51 2016 film starring Amy Adams as a linguist who communicates with aliens : ARRIVAL
54 Yellow henchman in “Despicable Me” : MINION
55 Breakfast side order … or a hint to the last words of 18-, 23-, 34- and 49-Across : SAUSAGE LINK
58 What tree rings indicate : AGE
59 Process, as ore : SMELT
60 Spirit in a bottle : GENIE
61 “Nothing but ___!” : NET
62 Affirmatives : YESES
63 Mythical king of Crete : MINOS
64 Braying animal : ASS

Down

1 Chief of a fire department : MARSHAL
2 Gets back in business : REOPENS
3 Where the band U2 hails from : IRELAND
4 Elapse : PASS BY
5 Pack leader : ALPHA
6 Doctors Without Borders, e.g., for short : NGO
7 ___ chi (martial art) : TAI
8 Left a restaurant review, in a modern way : YELPED
9 Hand over : CEDE
10 Workplaces where white coats are worn : LABS
11 Shake on, say : AGREE TO
12 Datebook : PLANNER
13 Some volleyball players : SETTERS
19 Blunder : ERR
21 Fuss : ADO
24 Org. for the Big East and Pac-12 : NCAA
25 Driver’s prop : GOLF TEE
29 M.L.K. Day, e.g.: Abbr. : MON
30 Cousin of a caribou : ELK
32 Radiator noise : SSS!
33 Soup container : CAN
34 Tell a whopper : LIE
35 French pronoun : ILS
36 Tush : REAR
37 ___ Row, part of Washington, D.C. : EMBASSY
38 Craft with knotted cords : MACRAME
39 Builds up, as interest : ACCRUES
41 The Hoosier State : INDIANA
42 Iggy Pop’s band, with “the” : STOOGES
43 Aids for affixing messages on refrigerators : MAGNETS
45 Cough it up! : PHLEGM
46 Hard volleyball shots : SPIKES
47 Writer Rand : AYN
49 Underwear irritant, at times : TAG
50 Prenatal test, for short : AMNIO
52 Dot in the ocean : ISLE
53 Fixtures in a chocolate factory : VATS
56 Hawaiian garland : LEI
57 Overnight stop on a road trip : INN