LA Times Crossword 13 Feb 26, Friday

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Constructed by: Barbara Lin

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Adding

Themed answers are all common phrases, but with -ING added at the end:

• 19A Reservation with impeccable timing? : THE GOOD BOOKING (The good book + ING)
• 27A Task for a pet store with too many cats? : KITTY HAWKING (Kitty Hawk + ING)
• 45A Sport that combines football and sparring? : TACKLE BOXING (tackle box + ING)
• 54A Night when one leaves the closet? : COME OUT EVENING (come out even + ING)

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

Bill’s time: 8m 40s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Elevator choice : FLOOR

Elevators (simple hoists) have been around for a long time. What Elisha Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”, a design that he showcased at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. At the Fair, Otis would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this demonstration, the orders came rolling in.

6A Tech giant headquartered in Armonk, N.Y. : IBM

Tech giant IBM was founded as the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. The company changed its name to the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) in 1911 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1916. The name “International Business Machines” (IBM) was given first to the company’s Canadian subsidiary, and then to its South American subsidiary. In 1924, it was decided to adopt the International Business Machines name for the whole company. Good choice …

13A Future family member : FIANCE

The word “fiancé” comes from the Old French verb “fiancer”, which means “to promise” or “to betroth.”

14A Cal. neighbor : ARI

The natural boundary between Arizona and California was originally defined by the middle of the Colorado River, but the river’s tendency to meander and shift course created a legal nightmare for decades. Because the state line moved whenever the water did, it was eventually “fixed” in 1963 via an interstate compact that established permanent coordinates regardless of where the river flows.

15A Sniffed item in some tastings : CORK

Upon opening a bottle of wine in a restaurant, a server might present the cork for inspection.
We might instinctively sniff the cork, to judge the wine’s quality, but that’s not actually the point. The ritual is primarily meant to check for “cork taint”: a chemical compound called TCA that makes wine smell like damp cardboard or a musty basement, causing the wine to be “corked”.

22A Med. nation : SYR

The modern state that we know as Syria was established after WWI as a French mandate. Syria was granted independence from France in 1946.

23A WNBA player : PRO

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) was founded in 1996. The league consists of 13 teams, with plans to increase the number to 18 by 2030.

24A Forensic drama franchise : CSI

Something described as forensic is connected with a court of law, or with public discussion or debate. The term comes from the Latin “forensis” meaning “of a forum, of a place of assembly”. We mainly use the word today to mean “pertaining to legal trials” as in “forensic medicine” and “forensic science”.

25A “Christopher Robin” hopper : ROO

“Christopher Robin” is a 2018 movie inspired by A. A. Milne’s series of “Winnie-the-Pooh” children’s books. The title character is Milne’s son, who features in the stories. In the film, Christopher Robin has grown up, and lost touch with his sense of imagination, but is ultimately reunited with the characters created by his father. Christopher Robin is portrayed by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor.

27A Task for a pet store with too many cats? : KITTY HAWKING (Kitty Hawk + ING)

The verb “to hawk” has a Germanic origin, and comes from the Low German word “hoken” meaning “to peddle”. A hawker is actually slightly different from a peddler by definition, as a hawker is a peddler that uses a horse and cart, or a van nowadays perhaps, to sell their wares.

Kitty Hawk is a town in North Carolina. The Wright brothers made the first powered airplane flight four miles south of Kitty Hawk, at the Kill Devil Hills.

30A “Frozen” character with antlers : SVEN

Sven is Kristoff’s loyal reindeer companion and best friend in Disney’s “Frozen” movies. Though he doesn’t speak, Sven is often seen acting as Kristoff’s conscience, guiding him with gentle nudges and reminding him to be kind and selfless. He’s also incredibly helpful, pulling Kristoff’s sled and assisting Anna and Elsa on their adventures.

34A One metal in bimetallism : SILVER

Bimetallism is a monetary system where a country’s currency is backed by two metals, usually gold and silver, at a fixed ratio.

35A Peninsula between the Gulf of Thailand and the Strait of Malacca : MALAY

The Malay Peninsula is a long, thin land mass that forms the southernmost part of the Asian mainland. On the peninsula are the countries of Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore (an island nation off the southern tip of the peninsula). People of the Malay ethnic group are mainly found on the Malay peninsula.

39A Prolonged battle : SIEGE

Our word “siege” comes from a 13th-century word for a “seat”. The military usage derives from the concept of a besieging force “sitting down” outside a fortress until it falls.

40A Polar mass : ICE CAP

The polar ice cap at the north of our planet is floating pack ice in the Arctic Ocean. The southern polar ice cap is an ice sheet that covers the landmass known as Antarctica. About 70% of all the freshwater on Earth is held in the southern polar ice cap.

44A Indoor rowers : ERGS

An indoor rowing machine is often referred to as an ergometer (or simply “erg”). However, the term “ergometer” really applies to a device that measures the amount of work performed.

48A Sinus specialist, briefly : ENT

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

In anatomical terms, a sinus is a cavity in tissue. Sinuses are found all over the body, in the kidney and heart for example, but we most commonly think of the paranasal sinuses that surround the nose.

51A Soccer great Hamm : MIA

Soccer star Mia Hamm is one of only two women to have their jersey retired by the US Women’s National Team. The other is Abby Wambach.

54A Night when one leaves the closet? : COME OUT EVENING (come out even + ING)

Back in the 1950s, to come “out of the closet” was to admit to being an alcoholic. By the seventies, the phrase mainly referred to gay people shrugging off secrecy about their sexual orientation.

59A Ironman competition, for short : TRI

An Ironman Triathlon is a race involving a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon run of just over 26 miles. The idea for the race came out of a debate between some runners in the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay. They were questioning whether runners, swimmers or bikers were the most fit athletes. The debaters decided to combine three local events to determine the answer, inviting athletes from all three disciplines. The events that were mimicked in the first triathlon were the Waikiki Roughwater swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). The idea was that whoever finishes first would be called “the Iron Man”. The first triathlon was run in 1978, with fifteen starters and only twelve finishers. The race format is used all over the world now, but the Hawaiian Ironman is the event that everyone wants to win.

65A Bill addressing climate change? : NYE

“Bill Nye’s Climate Lab” is a former exhibition at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California. The aim of the exhibit was to make people aware of the effects of climate change on the planet.

66A Flower part : SEPAL

In a flower, the sepals are the green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

Down

4D Army creatures? : OCTOPI

The term “octopus” comes from the Greek for “eight-footed”. The most common plural used is “octopuses”, although the Greek plural form “octopodes” is also quite correct. The plural “octopi” isn’t really correct as the inference is that “octopus” is like a second-declension Latin noun, which it isn’t. That said, dictionaries are now citing “octopi” as an acceptable plural. Language does evolve, and that drives me crazy …

6D Foot that’s part of a meter : IAMB

An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The lines in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” use five sequential iambs, e.g. “Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum- / -mer’s day?” With that sequence of five iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic pentameter.

7D Jewelry box item : BROOCH

A brooch is an ornamental accessory held by a pin or clasp, and worn near the neck. The term “brooch” comes from the Old French “broche” meaning “long needle”.

8D Brunch cocktails : MIMOSAS

Where I come from, the cocktail known in North America as a mimosa is called a buck’s fizz, with the latter named for Buck’s Club in London where it was introduced in 1921. The mimosa came along a few years later, apparently first being served in the Paris Ritz. If you want to make a mimosa, it’s a 50-50 mix of champagne and orange juice, and it is very tasty …

11D Unhatched prize in Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” series : DRAGON EGG

Naomi Novik is a fiction writer who is perhaps best known for her “Temeraire” series of novels. Those novels provide an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars, a history in which an air force of dragons participate in the battles. Yowza …

13D Jazz legend Waller : FATS

Fats Waller was the son of a clergyman in New York City. Fats started playing the piano when he was six, and his father’s church organ when he was ten. Waller took up the piano professionally when only fifteen years old, working in theaters and cabarets. Waller co-wrote such classics as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose”.

21D Auckland residents, informally : KIWIS

Unlike many nicknames for people of a particular country, the name “Kiwi” for a New Zealander isn’t offensive at all. The term comes from the flightless bird called the kiwi, which is endemic to New Zealand and is the country’s national symbol. “Kiwi” is a Maori word, and the plural (when referring to the bird) is simply “kiwi”. However, when you have two or more New Zealanders with you, they are Kiwis (note the “s”, and indeed the capital “K”!).

Auckland is the most populous city in New Zealand, and is located on the nation’s North Island. The metropolis is named for former Governor-General of India George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland.

28D “__ Come”: BTS hit song : YET TO

“Yet to Come (The Most Beautiful Moment)” is a 2022 song released by the South Korean boy band BTS. The original song was recorded in Korean, but there is an English-language version that was commissioned by South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai as part of a marketing campaign for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

29D Big name in bright lights : KLIEG

A klieg light is an intensely bright spotlight used to illuminate film sets and theater stages. Such lights use tungsten-halogen filaments, and were invented by brothers John and Anton Kliegl.

30D Dispatch, biblically : SMITE

To smite is to strike with a firm blow. The term “smite” can also mean “strike down and slay”.

32D __ college : ELECTORAL

The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1804, and redefines procedures used by the Electoral College during a presidential election. Prior to the amendment, each member of the Electoral College cast two electoral votes, after which the candidate with the most votes was elected president, and the candidate with the second-most votes was elected vice president. As a result of the amendment, each member of the Electoral College casts one vote for president, and one vote for vice president. So, the Twelfth Amendment makes it unlikely that we end up with a vice president who is not supportive of the president, as the victorious pair probably campaigned together on the same ticket, and had not been rivals in the election.

36D New Haven undergrad : YALIE

The city of New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1638 by Puritan immigrants from England. Famously, it is home to Yale University. The city also initiated the first public tree planting program in the country. The large elms included in the program led to New Haven being called “the Elm City”.

38D Short cut : PIXIE

The pixie cut is a hairstyle that is relatively short at the back and sides compared to the top. Famous examples of women wearing the cut are Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday”, Twiggy for much of the 1960s, Goldie Hawn on the TV show “Laugh-In” and Halle Berry in the Bond film “Die Another Day”.

41D Pack of cyclists in a race : PELOTON

In military terms, a platoon is a subdivision of a company-sized unit, and is usually divided into squads or sections. The term “platoon” arose in the 1630s from the French “peloton”. “Peloton” translates literally as “little ball”, and is used to this day to mean “agglomeration”. “Peloton” gives rise to our word “pellet”. Also, we use the Modern French “peloton” in English now to refer to the main body (agglomeration) of riders in a bicycle race.

46D DVD alternative : BLU-RAY

A CD player reads the information on the disc using a laser beam. The beam is produced by what’s called a laser diode, a device similar to a light-emitting diode (LED) except that a laser beam is emitted. That laser beam is usually red in CD and DVD players. Blu-ray players are so called as they use blue lasers.

51D Mazda roadster : MIATA

The Mazda MX-5 is sold as the Miata in North America, and as the Roadster in Japan. I’ve always liked the looks of the Mazda Miata, probably because it reminds me so much of old British sports cars. The Miata is built in Hiroshima, Japan. The name “Miata” comes from an Old High German word meaning “reward”.

57D Semimonthly tide : NEAP

Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans. At neap tide, the smaller gravitational effect of the sun cancels out some of the moon’s effect. At spring tide, the sun and the moon’s gravitational forces act in concert causing more extreme movement of the oceans.