LA Times Crossword 21 Dec 19, Saturday

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Constructed by: Brian E. Paquin
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 12m 13s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

8 Elite list : WHO’S WHO

Several publications use the phrase “Who’s Who” in the title. The oldest and best known is the British reference “Who’s Who” that has been listing prominent British people since 1849. There is a sister publication called “Who Was Who” that lists prominent people who have died since 1897.

15 Tent event : REVIVAL

A revival meeting is a service in the Christian tradition that is held to provide inspiration to church members, or to gain converts.

18 Its namesake, a former Surveyor General of India, objected to having it named for him : EVEREST

Mount Everest was named by the Royal Geographical Society in 1865. The peak is named for Welsh surveyor George Everest, who had served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 through 1843. Everest actually objected initially to the use of his name, given that he had nothing to do with the peak’s discovery, and given that he believed “Everest” was difficult to write and to pronounce in Hindi.

19 Hip-hop subgenre : GANGSTA

Gangsta rap is a type of hip hop music with lyrics that reflect the violent lifestyle experienced by some inner-city youth.

20 ’20s tennis star Lacoste : RENE

René Lacoste was a French tennis player who went into the clothing business, and came up with a more comfortable shirt that players could use. This became known as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted for use in the sport of polo, the shirts also became known as “polo shirts”. The “golf shirt” is basically the same thing.

22 De bene __: literally, of well-being : ESSE

“De bene esse” is a legal term used to mean “conditionally, provisionally”. The literal translation from Latin is “of well being”.

28 Old Messina money : LIRA

Messina is a port, and the third largest city, on the Italian island of Sicily. The city’s natural harbor has a curved shape like that of a scythe. When founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, the settlements first name was “Zancle”, from the Greek word for “scythe”. The port gives its name the Strait of Messina, the narrow passage between the island of Sicily and the Italian mainland.

31 __ operandi : MODI

“Modus operandi” (plural “modi operandi”) is the Latin for “mode of operating”, a term we’ve been using since the mid-1600s. It’s often used by the police when referring to the methods typically employed by a particular perpetrator of a crime, and is usually abbreviated to “M.O.”

33 Aromatic 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.

38 Charles, until he’s in charge : HEIR TO THE THRONE

The British laws of royal succession changed in 2013. The centuries old law dictated that males in a family were ranked higher than all females, regardless of age. The current line of succession is:

  1. Prince Charles (Elizabeth’s eldest son)
  2. Prince William (Charles’ eldest son)
  3. Prince George (William’s eldest child)
  4. Princess Charlotte (William’s second-oldest child)
  5. Prince Harry (Charles’ second-oldest son)

Under the old system, should Prince William have another son, then that male would have bumped Princess Charlotte down one rung of the ladder. Under the new system, Princess Charlotte gets to “hold her ground”.

42 Area of interest : BAG

The word “bag” can be used to describe something one does regularly, one’s area of interest. Crosswords, for example, have always been my bag.

43 Cold War leader Andropov : YURI

Yuri Andropov was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1982 until he passed away just 15 months after taking office. Andropov had also served as head of the KGB from 1967 to 1982, making him the longest-serving KGB chairman in its history.

The term “Cold War” was coined by the novelist George Orwell in a 1945 essay about the atomic bomb. Orwell described a world under threat of nuclear war as having a “peace that is no peace”, in a permanent state of “cold war”. The specific use of “cold war” to describe the tension between the Eastern bloc and the Western allies is attributed to a 1947 speech by Bernard Baruch, adviser to Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

44 Longbow wood sources : YEWS

Yew is the wood of choice for the longbow, a valued weapon in the history of England. The longbow is constructed with a core of yew heartwood (as the heartwood resists compression) that has a sheath of yew sapwood (as the sapwood resists stretching). The yew was in such demand for longbows that for centuries yew trees were in short supply in Britain and the wood had to be imported from all over Europe.

52 Like aspirin, briefly : OTC

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs don’t need a prescription (Rx).

“Aspirin” used to be a brand name for the drug acetylsalicylic acid. Aspirin was introduced by the German drug company Bayer AG in the late 1800s. As part of the war reparations paid by Germany after WWI, Bayer AG lost the use of the trademark “Aspirin” (as well as the trademark Heroin!) and it became a generic term.

54 Sermon ender? : -ETTE

A sermonette is a short sermon.

56 Spot for a bowler : HAT TREE

I think that a bowler hat is usually called a derby here in the US. The bowler was first produced in 1849 in London by hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler, hence the name. The alternative name of “derby” comes from the tradition of wearing bowler hats at the Derby horse race (a major race held annually in England).

59 Kerosene cousin : COAL OIL

The terms “coal oil” and “kerosene” are sometimes used interchangeably. Even though coal oil and kerosene have similar uses, they are two distinctly different substances. Coal oil is extracted from a soft, oily coal known as cannel coal. Kerosene is refined from crude oil.

62 Like some light, fruity wines : UNOAKED

Oak barrels are sometimes used to store wine during fermentation and aging. The oak wood has a profound effect, usually changing the wine’s color, flavor and texture. If the wine is stored in stainless steel barrels, then a similar effect can be achieved by adding oak chips toe the liquid.

63 Annual February race site : DAYTONA

The coastal city of Daytona Beach in Florida is known for hard-packed sand on the beach. This makes a good surface for driving motorized vehicles, and resulted in Daytona Beach becoming a center for motorsports. The Daytona 500 is the event with the largest purse on the NASCAR calendar.

64 Croc or cobra : REPTILE

Reptiles are tetrapod (four-legged) vertebrates. That said, snakes are reptiles, and they have no legs at all. But, snakes are still categorized as reptiles because they descended from tetrapod ancestors.

Crocodiles and alligators do indeed bear a resemblance to each other, although they belong to distinct biological families. One of the main ways used to distinguish them is by their teeth and jaws. Both the upper and lower sets of teeth of a crocodile are visible when its mouth is closed, whereas only the upper teeth of an alligator are visible with the mouth shut.

“Cobra” is the name given to a group of snakes, some of which are in different families. The term is reserved for those snakes that can expand their neck ribs to create a hood. The name “cobra” is an abbreviated form of “cobra de capello” which translates from Portuguese as “snake with hood”.

Down

1 Crows : BRAGS

The verb “to crow” meaning “to exult in triumph” is imitative of the sound made by a crow, perhaps as it settles over some dead animal that it has found …

4 “Pulp Fiction” actor Rhames : VING

Ving Rhames is a Hollywood actor from New York City. I first noted him in the 1994 film “Pulp Fiction”, in which he played gangster Marsellus Wallace. Rhames also appears alongside Tom Cruise in the “Mission Impossible” series of films. In fact, only Cruise and Rhames appear in all of the “Mission Impossible” movies.

I’m not a big fan of director Quentin Tarantino. His movies are too violent for me, and the size of his ego just turns me right off. Having said that, I think “Pulp Fiction” is a remarkable film. If you can look past the violence, it’s really well written. And what a legacy it has. John Travolta’s career was on the rocks and he did the film for practically no money, and it turned out to be a re-launch for him. Uma Thurman became a top celebrity overnight from her role. Even Bruce Willis got some good out of it, putting an end to a string of poorly-received performances.

6 Boccaccio added “Divina” to the title of his masterpiece : DANTE

Dante Alighieri (usually just “Dante”) was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is widely considered to be the greatest literary work ever written in the Italian language. Dante actually gave his masterpiece the title “Comedy” (“Commedia” in Italian). Written in the early 1300s, none of Dante’s original “Comedy” manuscripts survive. Three copies made by author and poet Giovanni Boccaccio in the 1360s do survive. Boccaccio changed the title to “Divine Comedy” (“Divina Commedia”), and that title persists to this day.

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet. Boccaccio’s most famous works are probably a collection of novellas called “The Decameron”, and a collection of biographies called “On Famous Women”.

7 Ancient : OLD AS METHUSELAH

Methuselah was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah, and the man in the Bible who is reported to have lived the longest. Methuselah passed away seven days before the onset of the Great Flood, and tradition holds that he was 969 years old when he died.

9 __ to: halted, nautically : HOVE

A sailing vessel that is “hove to” is pointed into the wind, with the foresail “backed” so that it tries to push the bow away from the wind. At the same time, the mainsail works to push the bow into the wind. The end result is that the vessel remains relatively stationary. Another technique used to stop a sailboat is to “lie to”. A vessel “lying to” is usually pointed about 45-degrees off the wind, with the sails let loose, just flapping.

13 Part of HMS, at times : HIS

The ship prefix “HMS” is used by the warships of the Royal Navy, and stands for “Her/His Majesty’s Ship/Submarine”. The prefix “RMS” is used by ships of the merchant navy, and stands for “Royal Mail Ship/Steamer”.

14 Giants legend : OTT

Baseball legend Mel Ott played his whole career with the New York Giants, and even managed the team for the past few years of his playing career. At 5′ 9″, he weighed just 170 lb (I don’t think he took steroids!) and yet he was the first National League player to hit over 500 home runs. Sadly, Ott died in a car accident in New Orleans in 1958 when he was only 49 years old. And, according to Wikipedia, “Ott’s name frequently appears in crossword puzzles, on account of its letter combination and brevity.” True that …

25 Glee club voice : ALTO

A glee club is a choir group, usually of males, that sings short songs known as “glees”. A glee is a song scored for three or more voices that is performed unaccompanied.

26 Rounded tool part : PEEN

The peen of a hammer is on the head, and is the side of the head that is opposite the striking surface. Often the peen is in the shape of a hemisphere (as in a ball-peen hammer), but usually it is shaped like a claw (mainly for removing nails).

27 Trig function : SINE

The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent (abbreviated to “sin, cos and tan”). Each of these is a ratio: a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are cosecant, secant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent. These inverted ratios should not be confused with the “inverse” trigonometric functions e.g. arcsine, arccosine and arctangent. These inverse functions are the reverse of the sine, cosine and tangent.

29 Rival of Tiger : RORY

Rory McIlroy is a very successful golfer from Northern Ireland. McIlroy is a relatively young man and a former world number one on the circuit, so folks can’t help but compare him to Tiger Woods. He was the first European to win three different majors. Along with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, McIlroy is one of only three people to win three majors before the age of 25.

Golfer Tiger Woods’ real name is Eldrick Tont Woods. “Tont” is a traditional Thai name. Tiger’s father Earl Woods met his second wife Kultida Punsawad in 1966, while on a tour of duty with the US Army in Thailand.

30 Giants in the 1954 horror film “Them!” : ANTS

“Them!” is a 1954 science fiction movie about giant ants attacking humans after receiving a dose of nuclear radiation in the New Mexico desert. “Them!” was the first of a whole host of “giant bug” films, of which I think I’ve seen … none …

32 Smidgen : IOTA

Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet, and one that gave rise to our letters I and J. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.

Our word “smidgen” (sometimes shortened to “smidge”) is used to describe a small amount. The term might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

35 Owner of Clairol and CoverGirl : COTY

Coty is a producer of beauty products that was founded in 1904 in Paris.

Clairol had been around since 1931 selling hair coloring products to salons, and then hit the big time with the introduction of a one-step hair coloring product for use at home. As famous as the product was the “does she … or doesn’t she” advertising campaign. Six years after the launch of the campaign, 70% of women in the US were coloring their hair.

CoverGirl is an American cosmetics company that was founded in 1961. CoverGirl’s primary marketing technique is to provide cosmetics to “cover girls”, celebrities who regularly appear on the front cover of magazines.

38 London-based financial corp. founded in Hong Kong : HSBC

HSBC is a UK-based financial services company that was the largest bank in Europe in 2018. It can trace its history back to 1865, when it was founded in British Hong Kong as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. The initialism “HSBC” stood for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

39 Short space saver : ET AL

“Et alii” (et al.) is the equivalent of “et cetera” (etc.), with “et cetera” being used in place of a list of objects, and “et alii” used for a list of names. In fact, “et al.” can stand for “et alii” (a group of males, or males and females), “et aliae” (a group of women) and “et alia” (a group of neuter nouns, or a group of people where the intent is to retain gender-neutrality).

40 “It is the green-eyed monster … ” speaker : IAGO

Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. He is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. Iago hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife.

William Shakespeare was one of the first to associate the color green with envy. He called jealousy the “green-eyed monster” in his play “Othello”.

46 Brosnan role in ’80s TV : STEELE

The eighties detective show “Remington Steele” stars Stephanie Zimbalist as a private detective Laura Holt, and Pierce Brosnan as the handsome bad boy Remington Steele, who’s really a good boy. The show successfully melds the detective genre with elements of romantic comedy.

Pierce Brosnan is an Irish actor from Drogheda, a town north of Dublin. Brosnan’s big break in the US came when he was given the title role in the eighties television show “Remington Steele”. Famously, he also played James Bond on the big screen. Brosnan’s first appearance as Bond was in 1995’s “Golden Eye”. He was asked to take the role much earlier, in 1987, but Brosnan couldn’t get out of his contract for “Remington Steele”. Brosnan was the fifth actor to play Bond, after Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.

48 Yazoo region : DELTA

A river delta is a triangular landform at the mouth of a river created by the deposition of sediment. The Nile Delta in Northern Egypt is one of the world’s largest river deltas, and covers 150 miles of coastline on the Mediterranean. The most famous “delta” in the United States isn’t actually a delta at all. The Mississippi Delta is an alluvial plain that lies 300 miles north of the river’s actual delta, yet it is known as the “Mississippi River Delta”. Very confusing …

The Yazoo River in the state of Mississippi was named by the French explorer La Salle after the Yazoo Native American tribe who lived near the river’s mouth. It was in the Yazoo River that a naval mine was used for the first time to sink a ship, in 1862. The Confederates successfully used a mine to sink the Union’s ironclad USS Cairo during the Civil War.

57 Drink copiously : TOPE

To tope is to drink alcohol excessively and habitually.

58 “Ciao!” : TA-TA!

“Ciao” is Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

59 Streaming alternatives : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Swagger : BRAVADO
8 Elite list : WHO’S WHO
15 Tent event : REVIVAL
16 “Get going!” : HOP TO IT!
17 No longer happening : AT AN END
18 Its namesake, a former Surveyor General of India, objected to having it named for him : EVEREST
19 Hip-hop subgenre : GANGSTA
20 ’20s tennis star Lacoste : RENE
21 Convene : SIT
22 De bene __: literally, of well-being : ESSE
24 Exchanges : SWAPS
28 Old Messina money : LIRA
31 __ operandi : MODI
33 Aromatic garland : LEI
34 More than is tolerable : ONCE TOO OFTEN
38 Charles, until he’s in charge : HEIR TO THE THRONE
41 Doesn’t evolve : STAYS THE SAME
42 Area of interest : BAG
43 Cold War leader Andropov : YURI
44 Longbow wood sources : YEWS
47 Lumps : CLODS
50 Places where shooting occurs : SETS
52 Like aspirin, briefly : OTC
54 Sermon ender? : -ETTE
56 Spot for a bowler : HAT TREE
59 Kerosene cousin : COAL OIL
62 Like some light, fruity wines : UNOAKED
63 Annual February race site : DAYTONA
64 Croc or cobra : REPTILE
65 Cat’s asset : STEALTH
66 Like some lumber : TREATED

Down

1 Crows : BRAGS
2 Sell at the mall, say : RETAIL
3 Italian “forward” : AVANTI
4 “Pulp Fiction” actor Rhames : VING
5 City rtes. : AVES
6 Boccaccio added “Divina” to the title of his masterpiece : DANTE
7 Ancient : OLD AS METHUSELAH
8 Response to a wince : WHERE DOES IT HURT?
9 __ to: halted, nautically : HOVE
10 Debuts : OPENS
11 Scatter : STREW
12 Anguish : WOE
13 Part of HMS, at times : HIS
14 Giants legend : OTT
23 “Told you!” : SO THERE!
25 Glee club voice : ALTO
26 Rounded tool part : PEEN
27 Trig function : SINE
29 Rival of Tiger : RORY
30 Giants in the 1954 horror film “Them!” : ANTS
32 Smidgen : IOTA
35 Owner of Clairol and CoverGirl : COTY
36 “Goodness!” : OH MY!
37 Let out : FREE
38 London-based financial corp. founded in Hong Kong : HSBC
39 Short space saver : ET AL
40 “It is the green-eyed monster … ” speaker : IAGO
45 Exercise prompt : WORK IT
46 Brosnan role in ’80s TV : STEELE
48 Yazoo region : DELTA
49 One without arms : STOOL
51 More lucid : SANER
53 Turned over : CEDED
55 Decorator’s subtlety : TINT
57 Drink copiously : TOPE
58 “Ciao!” : TA-TA!
59 Streaming alternatives : CDS
60 Meal starter? : OAT-
61 Word of obedience : AYE

19 thoughts on “LA Times Crossword 21 Dec 19, Saturday”

    1. @Z (yesterday)
      I shouldn’t get into this, but…think of 32D yesterday in this way:

      That girl loves me. I love that girl.

      So if I want to replace “that girl” with pronouns…

      She loves me. I love her.

      Either “she” or “her” is accurate for the clue at hand. Notably as with many late week puzzles, the clue was written in an inexact way. Hence crosses are required to work out which one it is.

    2. Hi Glenn. There was one in the WSJ print version (which I just this minute completed without any final errors).

      1. I eventually found out – there evidently wasn’t one posted online in the usual place. I have checked now (Saturday almost Sunday) and the online version is now present.

  1. All went smoothly for me with the exception of the bottom righthand corner. Bronsan’s role as Steele & hattree didn’t come to mind.

    Eddie

  2. Mixed bag – to verify ‘area of interest’ which I didn’t get. But long answers 38 & 41 across came pretty easily…and opened up more clues. But having lived in Hong Kong way back when, with HSBC bank accounts I should have seen that one but ‘bag’ as area of interest threw me off.

    CDS didn’t register at all since STREAMING is technically a “technology used to deliver content over the internet in a continuous stream in real time instead of downloading it first. I guess anything else is an alternative but who would use anything as an alternative to something totally unrelated.

    Then hat tree is British for hat rack… and I didn’t realize that ‘unoaked’ was even a word.

    Otherwise a step above ‘meh’ today.

  3. 11 minutes flat. I went flying through most of this for some reason, maybe it’s because I slept well and also have coffee. But wow, did I get bogged down in the southwest. I got hung up that the “February race” must somehow refer to the Iditarod (which is actually in March now that I look) so DAYTONA just never showed up for me. And then once I put JET FUEL in for kerosene cousin, I was well and truly stuck for quite a long time.

    Oh look, here’s TOPE again.

    And I wouldn’t have been able to immediately dash in EVEREST if I had not just watched a really great little bit of history on the survey of India. It’s on the YouTube channel of “The History Guy” who makes a lot of interesting and quality videos… check it out.

  4. To pile on to Bill’s translation in TATA, “arrivederci” can be broken down into “veder(e)” see, “riveder” see again, “arriveder” to see again, and “arrivederci” where “ci” means each other. A variation is “arrivederla” which is more formal where “la” means singular you.

  5. No errors. Easiest Saturday puzzle in a long time…either that or my
    mind works in the same way as the setter.

  6. I used to wonder “Does she, or doesn’t she?” about my grandmother, but when she finally went salt and pepper, I knew she hadn’t been.
    Now, some might wonder that about my 80 yr old mother, but she doesn’t either.

  7. I couldn’t get out of the SW today. Totally stuck like Charley mentioned above. The rest was doable however.

    Glenn: Thanks for the info. I’m thinking he’s English, at least that’s what I thought while doing the Fri. puzzle.

  8. 19:29. 1 error because I don’t know how to spell METHUSuLAH nor do I know ETTu (thought somehow was a Caesar reference). Would have been a really tough one for me except the long answers helped a lot.

    I also wanted to put “jet fuel” before COAL OIL, but the “J” was a dead giveaway that it wouldn’t work. Had OAKey before OAKED because it made as much sense as anything there.

    HSBC owned the ATM at the Westin in Puerto Vallarta where I stayed a couple of weeks ago. They charged so many different parts of that transaction that taking out 5000 pesos (about $270) cost me about $10 U.S. just for the withdrawal. Grr. Ladrones!

    Best –

  9. Agree with many others: Today’s LAT was rather easy for Saturday. Yesterday’s was much tougher.

  10. Mostly tough Saturday for me. Got everything but the SW corner, except a dumb error up top gING/BRAgADO. All I had in the SW was ETTE and the misspelled ending of METHUSELla. I also guessed Tone instead of TINT…so 21 errors.

    Other than the SW though, most came together fairly quickly. The SE took a while and then I got bogged down in the SW completely. Never would have gotten Coal Oil or Daytona.

  11. Aloha!!🦆

    DNF. I was kinda short on time today…had to cheat here and there. Jeff, I also thought there was another U in METHUSELAH, tho I got the E here– maybe it can be spelled either way and that’s why we thought of it.

    Charley, thanks also for the tip about The History Guy. Never seen his channel but I have found some good history vids on YouTube. I’ll check him out!😊

    Be well ~~🍷

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