LA Times Crossword 1 May 20, Friday

Bill’s time: 9m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

17 Relevant : APROPOS

“Apropos”, meaning “relevant, opportune”, comes into English directly from French, in which language “à propos” means “to the purpose”. Note that we use the term as one word (apropos), whereas the original French is two words (à propos).

18 Escargot gatherer’s bounty? : SLIMY PICKINGS (from “slim pickings”)

“Escargot” is the French word for “snail”. In order to eat snails, apparently they have to be “purged” before killing them. That means starving them or feeding them on something “wholesome” for several days before cooking them up. Ugh …

20 Quebec neighbor : MAINE

Québec is the largest province in Canada, and the only one with French as its sole official language. The name “Québec” comes from an Algonquin word “kebec” meaning “where the river narrows”. This refers to the area around Quebec City where the St. Lawrence River narrows as it flows through a gap lined by steep cliffs. The province has voted twice in referenda asking whether or not Quebec should become an independent country, once in 1980, and again in 1995. The 1995 result was 49% in favor of sovereignty, up from 40% in 1980.

There seems to be some uncertainty how the US state of Maine got its name. However, the state legislature has adopted the theory that it comes from the former French province of Maine. The legislature included language to that effect when adopting a resolution in 2001 to establish Franco-American Day.

21 Harvest worker needing a bath? : THE GRIMY REAPER (from “the Grim Reaper”)

The Grim Reaper is one of the personifications of death, along with the Hooded One and the Angel of Death. Death has been depicted since the 1400s as a skeleton in a hooded, black cloak and carrying a scythe. The name “Grim Reaper” only dates back to the mid-1800s.

30 Chewbacca trait : HAIRINESS

Wookiees are a biped race featured in “Star Wars”. The most notable Wookiee is Chewbacca (aka “Chewie”), the loyal friend and associate of Han Solo who serves as co-pilot on the Millennium Falcon spaceship.

33 Frisée is its curly variety : ENDIVE

Endive is a leaf vegetable belonging to the chicory genus, and so is in the daisy family. Endive is also known as “escarole”.

44 Successful gem seeker’s cry? : THERE’S THE RUBY (from “there’s the rub”)

The phrase “To sleep — perchance to dream” comes from Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy:

To die — to sleep.
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!

A rub is a difficulty or obstruction. The usage of the term “rub” predates Shakespeare, and comes from the game of lawn bowls in which a rub is a fault in the bowling surface.

54 Horn of Africa country : SOMALIA

The Horn of Africa is that horn-shaped peninsula at the easternmost tip of the continent, containing the countries Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia as well as Somalia. The Horn of Africa is also known as the Somali Peninsula.

55 Little Debbie competitor : HOSTESS

The Little Debbie brand of dessert snacks was introduced in the 1960s by O.D. and Ruth McKee. The couple named their product after their 4-year-old grandchild Debbie.

Down

2 Sloop feature : SAIL

Sloops and cutters are sailboats, and each has just one mast. One major difference between the two types of vessel is that the mast on a cutter is set much further aft than the mast on a sloop.

3 __ Valley, Calif. : SIMI

Simi Valley, California is perhaps best known as home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The library is a great place to visit, and there you can tour one of the retired Air Force One planes.

8 Natural light refractor : CORNEA

The cornea is the transparent part of the eye in the front, and the part that covers the iris and the pupil. Even though the cornea is not part of the eye’s lens, it acts as a lens. In fact, the cornea does most of the work focusing light coming in through the eye. It is in effect a fixed-focus lens passing on light to the variable-focus lens that is inside the eye.

9 Sophisticated rock genre, briefly : PROG

Progressive rock (prog rock)

11 It offered soldiers Hope: Abbr. : USO

The United Service Organization (USO) was founded in 1941 at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt “to handle the on-leave recreation of the men in the armed forces”. A USO tour is undertaken by a troupe of entertainers, many of whom are big-name celebrities. A USO tour usually includes troop locations in combat zones.

I remember my first non-business visit to Los Angeles. I was a typical tourist and bought a map showing the homes of the stars and drove around Beverly Hills absorbing all the glitz. At one point I drove past a Rolls Royce that was stopped in oncoming traffic, waiting to make a left turn. The window was down, and the driver was puffing away on a big cigar. It was none other than Bob Hope. Seeing him there right beside me; that was a big thrill …

12 Some hot rods : GTS

The initialism “GTO” was used on several touring cars (including a famous Pontiac) and stands for “Gran Turismo Omologato”. Italian car manufacturers started the tradition of calling their luxury performance cars “Gran Turismo”, and calling those cars they approved for racing “Gran Turismo Omologato”. The phrase “gran turismo omologato” translates as “grand touring homologated”, “homologated” being a technical term signifying official approval.

A hot rod is an American car that has been modified for speed by installing a larger than normal engine. A street rod is generally a more comfortable type of hot rod, with the emphasis less on the engine and more on custom paint jobs and interiors. By definition, a street rod must be based on an automobile design that originated prior to 1949.

14 Muslim ascetics : FAKIRS

A fakir (also “faqir”) is an ascetic in the Muslim tradition. The term “fakir” is derived from “faqr”, an Arabic word for “poverty”.

19 Low isles : CAYS

A key (also “cay”) is a low offshore island, as in the Florida “Keys”. Our term in English comes from the Spanish “cayo” meaning “shoal, reef”.

22 Big name in animation : HANNA

William Hanna was an animator who is best known for his collaborations with Joseph Barbera. After creating “Tom and Jerry” for MGM, the partners founded the Hanna Barbera studio that produced such classics as “The Flintstones”, “The Huckleberry Hound Show”, “The Jetsons”, “Scooby-Doo”, “The Smurfs” and “Yogi Bear”.

23 Down for a pillow : EIDER

Eiders are large sea ducks. Their down feathers are used to fill pillows and quilts, giving the name to the quilt called an “eiderdown”.

24 Mill fill : GRIST

When grain has been separated from its chaff, to prepare it for grinding, it is called “grist”. Indeed, the word “grist” is derived from the word “grind”. Grist can be ground into a relatively coarse meal, or into a fine flour. The names can be confusing though. For example, the grist from maize when ground to a coarse consistency is called “grits”, and when ground to a fine consistency is called “corn meal”. There is an idiomatic phrase “grist for one’s mill”, meaning something used to one’s advantage. The grinding mechanism, or the building that holds the mechanism, is known as a “gristmill”.

25 Snake or Gila: Abbr. : RIV

The Snake River in the US northwest is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. The Snake River carved out the magnificent Hells Canyon, which is North America’s deepest river gorge.

The Gila River is a tributary of the Colorado that flows through New Mexico and Arizona. From 1848 to 1853, the Gila marked part of the border between the US and Mexico.

27 Rice dish : PILAF

“Pilaf” is a Persian word, one that we use to describe rice that is browned in oil and then cooked in a seasoned broth.

28 Verdi baritone aria : ERI TU

Every crossword constructor’s favorite aria “Eri tu” is from Verdi’s opera “Un ballo in maschera” (“A Masked Ball”). The opera tells the story of the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden during a masked ball.

29 Relative of Fido : ROVER

“Fido”, the name for many a dog, is Latin for “I trust”.

32 “You ain’t gwyne to drink a drop–__ single drop”: Twain : NARY

“You ain’t gwyne to drink a drop–nary single drop” is a line from Mark Twain’s 1894 novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson”.

Mark Twain’s 1894 novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson” is about two boys who look alike. One has 1/32 black ancestry, and the other is white. The pair of boys are switched at birth, and live very different lives, with one born into slavery and the other destined to be master of the house.

34 Word with lion or horse : SEA …

There are three families of seals. The first is the walrus family, the second the eared seals (like sea lions), and thirdly the earless seals (like elephant seals).

Seahorses belong to the genus Hippocampus. The genus name comes from the Greek “hippo” meaning “horse” and “kampos” meaning “sea monster”. It’s the male seahorse who carries the fertilized eggs, and not the females. The region of the brain known as the hippocampus, is so called because it resembles a seahorse in shape.

37 Gallon’s 3.785 : LITERS

The name of our fluid measure called a “gallon” ultimately comes from the Medieval Latin term “galleta” meaning “bucket, pail”.

42 It may have many ashes : FOREST

The wood of the ash tree is a hardwood, although it is relatively elastic. Famously, ash is the wood of choice for baseball bats. It is also the wood of choice for hurleys, the wooden sticks used in the Irish sport of hurling.

46 ICU or ER site : HOSP

Many a hospital (hosp.) includes an intensive care unit (ICU) and an emergency room (ER).

47 Expressionist painter Nolde : EMIL

Emil Nolde was a German expressionist painter. He was actually born Emil Hansen, near the village of Nolde in the Prussian Duchy of Schleswig in 1867. Hansen officially changed his name to Nolde on the occasion of his marriage in 1902.

49 Radius neighbor : ULNA

The radius and ulna are bones in the forearm. If you hold the palm of your hand up in front of you, the radius is the bone on the “thumb-side” of the arm, and the ulna is the bone on the “pinky-side”.

51 School since 1701 : YALE

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1701, making it the third-oldest university in the US. Originally called the Collegiate School, it was renamed to Yale University in honor of retired merchant Elihu Yale, who made generous contributions to the institution. Yale University’s nickname is “Old Eli”, in a nod to the benefactor.

52 X as in Xerxes : CHI

The Greek letter chi is the one that looks like our letter X.

Xerxes was the eldest son of Darius I of Persia. He succeeded to the throne in 486 BC as Xerxes I, and was later to be known as Xerxes the Great. It was Xerxes who fought against the Spartans in the famous Battle of Thermopylae.

53 Chaney of film : LON

Lon Chaney, Sr. played a lot of crazed-looking characters in the days of silent movies. He did much of his own make-up work, developing the grotesque appearances that became his trademark, and earning himself the nickname “the man of a thousand faces”. Most famous were his portrayals of the title characters in the films “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925).