LAXCrossword.com

Advertisement

Constructed by: Catherine Cetta
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Broken Bones

Themed answers each start with BO- and end with -NE:

• 61A *Orthopedist’s concerns … and what you’ll find in two parts in the answers to the starred clues : BROKEN BONES

• 18A *Where a strike usually isn’t lucky : BOWLING LANE
• 29A *Dinner guest’s gift : BOTTLE OF WINE
• 48A *Fencing may mark it : BOUNDARY LINE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 23s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 URL ending for MoMA : ORG

The .org domain was one of the six original generic top-level domains specified. The complete original list is:

• .com (commercial enterprise)
• .net (entity involved in network infrastructure e.g. an ISP)
• .mil (US military)
• .org (not-for-profit organization)
• .gov (US federal government entity)
• .edu (college-level educational institution)

An Internet address (like NYXCrossword.com and LAXCrossword.com) is more correctly called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.

4 Early film legend Greta : GARBO

Famously, Greta Garbo lived a life of seclusion in New York City after she retired from the entertainment business. Commentators often associated her need for privacy with a line she uttered in the great 1932 movie “Grand Hotel”. Her character Grusinskaya the Russian ballerina said, “I want to be alone (…) I just want to be alone”.

9 Pie crust fat : LARD

Fat, when extracted from the carcass of an animal, is called suet. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

15 Off to the side, at sea : ABEAM

The beam is the widest part of a nautical vessel. Something pointed out as lying “abeam” is something that is 90 degrees from a line through the bow and the stern, in other words directly off to the right or the left.

17 Dye type : AZO

Azo compounds have very vivid colors and so are used to make dyes, especially dyes with the colors red, orange and yellow. The term “azo” comes from the French word “azote” meaning “nitrogen”. French chemist Lavoisier coined the term “azote” from the Greek word “azotos” meaning “lifeless”. He used this name as in pure nitrogen/azote animals die and flames are snuffed out (due to a lack of oxygen).

18 *Where a strike usually isn’t lucky : BOWLING LANE

In bowling, a spare is recorded on a score sheet with a forward slash mark. A strike is recorded with a large letter X.

20 “Madam Secretary” star Téa : LEONI

Téa Leoni is an American actress. One of Leoni’s early parts was in the great film “A League of Their Own” (a minor role: Racine at first base). She also played the fiancée of Sam Malone from “Cheers” on the spin-off sitcom “Frasier”. A leading role on the big screen was opposite Adam Sandler in “Spanglish”. My favorite of her more prominent movie roles was as Jane in “Fun with Dick and Jane”. Leoni started playing the title role in the drama series “Madam Secretary” in 2014, and that’s a show I quite enjoy …

“Madam Secretary” is A TV show that first aired in 2014. It is about an ex-CIA analyst who is appointed as US Secretary of State. Téa Leoni plays the title role, ably supported by a favorite actress of mine, Bebe Neuwirth. I like this show …

23 Sales rep’s customer: Abbr. : ACCT

Account (acct.)

24 1,760-yard runner : MILER

The distance around a newer running track is 400 meters, as measured in the inside lane. Tracks used to be 440 yards around, so that four laps added up to an even mile (1,760 yards). As race distances changed to meters, the mile race was dropped in favor of the “metric mile”, 1600 meters, which is equivalent to 1,750 yards or 0.994 miles.

27 Eggy cakes : TORTES

A torte is a type of cake made primarily with eggs, sugar and ground nuts (but no flour).

34 Feature of higher-numbered pool balls : STRIPE

One side (player) in a game of pool uses the “solid” balls, the other the “stripes”.

38 Tim who played pro football and pro baseball : TEBOW

Tim Tebow is a former quarterback who played mainly for the Denver Broncos and New York Jets. His relatively short professional career followed a very successful college career during which he became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. Tebow often gets down on one knee on the field to make a short prayer, a practice that has been dubbed “tebowing”.

40 2,000 pounds : TON

Here in the US, a ton is equivalent to 2,000 pounds. Over in the UK, a ton is 2,240 pounds. The UK unit is sometimes referred to as an Imperial ton, long ton or gross ton. Folks over there refer to the US ton then as a short ton. To further complicate matters, there is also a metric ton or tonne, which is equivalent to 2,204 pounds. Personally, I wish we’d just stick to kilograms …

44 Danish birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen : ODENSE

Odense is a city in Denmark named after the Norse god Odin. One of the most famous sons of Odense was Hans Christian Andersen, the celebrated author of children’s stories.

The wonderful storyteller Hans Christian Andersen became very successful in his own lifetime. In 1847 he visited England for the summer and made a triumphal tour of English society’s most fashionable drawing rooms. There Andersen met with the equally successful Charles Dickens, and the two seemed to hit it off. Ten years later Andersen returned to England and stayed for five weeks in Dickens’ home as his guest. Dickens published “David Copperfield” soon after, and supposedly the less than lovable character Uriah Heep was based on Dickens’ house guest Hans Christian Andersen. That wasn’t very nice!

50 Whac-A-Mole setting : ARCADE

The Whac-A-Mole arcade game was invented in 1976. Players use a mallet to force five plastic moles back into their holes. Whacking the moles can be so frustrating that we sometimes use the term “whac-a-mole” to describe a repetitive and futile task.

55 Bond creator Fleming : IAN

Ian Fleming’s spy first introduced himself with the words “Bond, James Bond” in the 1953 novel “Casino Royale”. Sean Connery first uttered the words on the silver screen in the first Bond movie, “Dr. No”.

58 Sky-supporting Titan : ATLAS

The famous Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator published his first collection of maps in 1578. Mercator’s collection contained a frontispiece with an image of Atlas the Titan from Greek mythology holding up the world on his shoulders. That image gave us our term “atlas” that is used for a book of maps.

The Titans were a group of twelve older deities in Greek mythology, the twelve children of the primordial Gaia and Uranus, Mother Earth and Father Sky. In the celebrated Battle of the Titans, they were overthrown by the Olympians, who were twelve younger gods. We use the term “titan” figuratively to describe a powerful person, someone with great influence.

61 *Orthopedist’s concerns … and what you’ll find in two parts in the answers to the starred clues : BROKEN BONES

Orthopedics (orth.) is the branch of surgery that deals with the musculoskeletal system. The term “orthopedics” was coined in 1741 by French physician Nicolas Andry. Actually, Andry used the French term “Orthopédie” for the title of a book. The term comes from the Greek “orthos” meaning “straight” and “paidon” meaning “child”.

67 100-meter freestyle, e.g. : EVENT

The front crawl swimming stroke is also known as the Australian crawl or American crawl. It is the fastest of the front strokes, and is invariably used for freestyle competition, in which competitors can choose any stroke.As such, the front crawl is often referred to as “freestyle”.

68 Black or Caspian : … SEA

The Black Sea is in southeastern Europe just south of Ukraine. In the north of the Black Sea is the Crimean Peninsula.

The Caspian Sea is a landlocked body of water lying between Asia and Europe. By some definitions, the Caspian is the largest lake on the planet. The name “Caspian” comes from the Caspi people who lived to the southwest of the sea in the South Caucasus.

69 Blacks’ foes in checkers : REDS

“Checkers” is yet another word that I had to learn moving across the Atlantic. In Ireland, the game is called “draughts”.

71 H.S. challenge : SAT

Today, the standardized test for admission to colleges is known as the SAT Reasoning Test, but it used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test, which led to the abbreviation “SAT”.

Down

1 Down Under gem : OPAL

97% of the world’s opals come from Australia, so it’s no surprise perhaps that the opal is the national gemstone of the country. The state of South Australia provides the bulk of the world’s production, i.e. about 80%.

2 Demolish : RAZE

To raze (“rase”, in UK English) is to level to the ground. I’ve always thought it a little quirky that “raise”, a homophone of “raze”, means “build up”.

4 1944 law for returning vets : GI BILL

What we commonly refer to as the GI Bill is more correctly called the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944.

6 DVR button : REW

Digital Video Recorder (DVR)

8 Mishmash : OLIO

“Olio” is a term meaning “hodgepodge, mixture” that comes from the mixed stew of the same name. The stew in turn takes its name from the Spanish “olla”, the clay pot used for cooking.

9 Transmission delay : LAG

In Internet terms, lag is a delay in response caused by network latency. We might notice lag when streaming a video, for example.

12 Hula or hora : DANCE

The hula is a native dance of Hawaii that uses arm movements to relate a story. The hula can be performed while sitting (a noho dance) or while standing (a luna dance).

The hora is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional, Israeli folk songs. The hora (also “horah”) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings. Sometimes the honoree at an event is raised on a chair during the hora.

16 Yanks’ crosstown rivals : METS

The New York Mets baseball team was founded in 1962 as a replacement for two teams that the city had lost, namely the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. For several years the Mets played very poorly, finishing no better than second-to-last in their division. Then along came the “Miracle Mets” (aka “Amazin’ Mets”) who beat the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 to claim the World Series in a huge upset.

21 TNT component : -NITRO-

“TNT” is an abbreviation for “trinitrotoluene”. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.

28 Small bills : ONES

Conspiracy theorists love to point out “suspicious” symbols on the one-dollar bill. The pyramid on the bill is unfinished, with 13 steps. The number 13 has been associated with the occult, but it is also the number of original colonies that declared independence from Britain forming the United States. Not so suspicious after all …

29 Spammers, often : BOTS

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.

31 Fern leaf : FROND

Ferns are unlike mosses in that they have xylem and phloem, making them vascular plants. They also have stems, leaves and roots, but they do not have seeds and flowers, and reproduce using spores. Spores differ from seeds in that they have very little stored food.

36 George Orwell’s alma mater : ETON

“George Orwell” was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, the famous British author of the classics “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm”.

42 Panache : ECLAT

“Éclat” can describe a brilliant show of success, as well as the applause or accolade that one receives for that success. The word “éclat” derives from the French “éclater” meaning “to splinter, burst out”.

Someone exhibiting panache is showing dash and verve, and perhaps has a swagger. “Panache” is a French word used for a plume of feathers, especially one in a hat.

48 Lolled on a beach : BASKED

Our verb “to bask”, meaning “to expose one to pleasant warmth”, is derived from the gruesome, 14th-century term “basken”, meaning “to wallow in blood”. The contemporary usage apparently originated with Shakespeare, who employed “bask” with reference to sunshine in “As You Like It”.

49 Like bread dough : YEASTY

Yeasts are unicellular microorganisms in the kingdom Fungi. The species of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used for centuries in the making of wine and beer, and in breadmaking. Saccharomyces cerevisiae converts carbohydrates into carbon dioxide and alcohol in the process of fermentation. When making beer and wine, the carbon dioxide and alcohol may be captured by the liquid. When making bread, the carbon dioxide and alcohol is driven off by heat.

50 PD alerts : APBS

An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

52 Garlic unit : CLOVE

Our word “garlic” evolved via Old English from “gar” (spear) and “leac” (leek). The use of “spear” is apparently a reference to the shape of a clove.

56 Stand lookout for, as a heist : ABET

The word “abet” comes into English from the Old French “abeter” meaning “to bait” or “to harass with dogs” (literally “to make bite”). This sense of encouraging something bad to happen morphed into our modern usage of “abet” meaning to aid or encourage someone in a crime.

57 Flaring star : NOVA

A nova (plural “novae”) is basically a star that suddenly gets much brighter, gradually returning to its original state weeks or even years later. The increased brightness of a nova is due to increased nuclear activity causing the star to pick up extra hydrogen from a neighboring celestial body. A supernova is very different from a nova. A supernova is a very bright burst of light and energy created when most of the material in a star explodes. The bright burst of a supernova is very short-lived compared to the sustained brightness of a nova.

59 __ code : AREA

Area codes were introduced in the 1940s. Back then, the “clicks” one heard when dialling a number led to mechanical wear on various pieces of equipment. In order to minimize overall mechanical wear, areas with high call volumes were given the most efficient area codes (lowest number of clicks). That led to New York getting the area code 212, Los Angeles 213 and Chicago 313.

60 Pants part : SEAT

The term “pants”, meaning “trousers”, is an abbreviated form of “pantaloons” and first appeared in the 1840s. Pantaloons were a kind of tights named for a silly old male character in Italian comedy named “Pantaloun” who always wore tight trousers over skinny legs.

62 Busy hosp. areas : ERS

Emergency room (ER)

63 Tennis court essential : NET

Our modern sport of tennis evolved from the much older racquet sport known as “real tennis”. Originally just called “tennis”, the older game was labeled “real tennis” when the modern version began to hold sway. Real tennis is played in a closed court, with the ball frequently bounced off the walls.

64 Tolkien creature : ENT

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”.