LA Times Crossword 20 Aug 20, Thursday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Roland Huget
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Oh, Drop It!

Themed answers are each common phrases ending in a word with -OO- in the middle. But, one of those letters O has been dropped:

  • 17A Run-of-the-mill deity? : COMMON GOD (from “common good”)
  • 23A Officer who helps keep public statues clean? : PIGEON COP (from “pigeon coop”)
  • 35A Junior faculty member? : CHILD PROF (from “childproof”)
  • 50A One who campaigns on traffic congestion issues? : BUMPER POL (from “bumper pool”)
  • 58A Mechanical bull rider? : COWBOY BOT (from “cowboy boot”)

Bill’s time: 8m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Mexican bar tender : PESO

The peso is used in many Spanish-speaking countries around the world. The coin originated in Spain where the word “peso” means “weight”. The original peso was what we know in English as a “piece of eight”, a silver coin of a specific weight that had a nominal value of eight “reales”.

5 Final notice? : OBIT

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

9 Queen Amidala’s home planet : NABOO

In the “Star Wars” universe, Padmé Amidala is the Queen of the planet Naboo. Played very ably by Natalie Portman, Padmé becomes the secret wife of Anakin Skywalker, later revealed to be Darth Vader. As such, Padmé is also the mother of Luke Skywalker and his sister, Princess Leia Organa.

14 Petri dish gelatin : AGAR

Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts as a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

15 Small parasite : MITE

Mites are tiny arthropods in the arachnid (spider) class. Mites are (annoyingly!) very successful creatures that have adapted to all sorts of habitats. And being so small, they generally pass unnoticed. Ick …

Our word “parasite” comes from the Greek “parasitos”, which describes a person who eats at the table of another, i.e. one who lives at another’s expense. “Parasitos” comes from “para-” (beside) and “sitos” (bread, food). I guess the idea is that a parasite is feeding right beside one.

16 Enmity : ODIUM

Odium is a strong dislike or aversion. The term is Latin in origin and relates to the Latin word “odi” meaning “I hate”.

17 Run-of-the-mill deity? : COMMON GOD (from “common good”)

Something described as run-of-the-mill is unspectacular, quite normal. The idea is that the regular production from say a sawmill isn’t perfect, but does the job. Imperfections in the wood can be expected, but the milled wood should get the job done. Going back a few years, similar expressions were quite common, such as “run-of-the-kiln” and “run-of-the-mine”.

20 Muse of comedy : THALIA

In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

  • Calliope (epic poetry)
  • Clio (history)
  • Erato (lyric poetry)
  • Euterpe (music)
  • Melpomene (tragedy)
  • Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
  • Terpsichore (dance)
  • Thalia (comedy)
  • Urania (astronomy)

Before the adoption of the nine muses of Greek mythology, there were originally three muses, the three Boeotian Muses. These were:

  • Mneme (memory)
  • Melete (meditation)
  • Aoede (song)

21 Billionaire financier George : SOROS

Hungarian businessman George Soros was born György Schwartz in Hungary in 1930. Famously, Soros made a short sale of $10 billion worth of UK pounds during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis, making him a profit of over $1 billion. The move led to him being dubbed “the man who broke the Bank of England”.

31 1984 mermaid romcom : SPLASH

“Splash” is a 1984 comedy movie directed by Ron Howard, and starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Hanks plays a guy who falls for a mysterious woman (Hannah), who turns out to be a mermaid. One thing notable about “Splash” is that it was the first film to be released under Walt Disney’s “Touchstone Pictures” label.

33 Reggie Jackson’s alma mater, briefly : ASU

Arizona State University (ASU) has a long history, and was founded as the Tempe Normal School for the Arizona Territory in 1885. The athletic teams of ASU used to be known as the Normals, then the Bulldogs, and since 1946 they’ve been called the Sun Devils.

Former baseball player Reggie Jackson is known as “Mr. October”, because of his memorable postseason performances.

34 Auto pioneer : OLDS

Ransom Eli Olds was a pioneer in the automotive industry, and the founder of the Oldsmobile and REO brands. Olds introduced the first modern “stationary” assembly line (Henry Ford’s famous innovation was the “moving” assembly line). As a result, it can be argued that the Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the first mass-produced, low-priced automobile, rather than the Ford’s Model T.

46 Head of Britain? : LOO

It has been suggested that the British term “loo”, meaning “toilet”, comes from “Waterloo” (water closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo”, in which the pot was called the loo!

47 Cohort : COMRADE

“Cohort” can be used as a collective noun, meaning “group, company”. The term can also apply to an individual supporter or companion, although usually in a derogatory sense. “Cohort” comes from the Latin “cohors”, which was an infantry company in the Roman army, one tenth of a legion.

49 Santana’s “__ Como Va” : OYE

“Oye Como Va” is a song written by Tito Puente in 1963. The best-known recording is the cover version by Santana released in 1970.

Santana is a Latin rock band formed by guitarist Carlos Santana in San Francisco in 1967. Santana’s big break came with a well-received performance at Woodstock in 1969, before which the band was completely unknown.

50 One who campaigns on traffic congestion issues? : BUMPER POL (from “bumper pool”)

Bumper pool is a variant of pocket billiards that is played on a special pool table that includes cushioned obstacles (called “bumpers”) on the surface. Several of the bumpers guard the pockets, which are actually circular holes in the playing surface.

54 Sussex set : TELLY

“Telly” is a term commonly used in Britain and Ireland that is short for “television”.

Sussex is a county in the southeast of England that lies right on the English Channel. The county of Sussex has about the same boundaries as the ancient Kingdom of Sussex, a Saxon colony that existed for about five hundred years until the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Hastings, a town on the Sussex coast, was the site of the first battle of the Norman Conquest of England.

61 “24K Magic” singer Mars : BRUNO

Bruno Mars is a singer-songwriter from Honolulu who has been active in the music business since 2006. “Bruno Mars” is a stage name, as Mars was born “Peter Hernandez”.

62 Double Delight cookie : OREO

Double Delight Oreo cookies were introduced in 1987. They differ from regular Oreos in that they have two fillings, such peanut butter and chocolate, or coffee and cream.

65 Coiffure site : TETE

In French, the “tête” (head) is the top of “le corps” (the body).

“Coiffure” is a French word that we’ve imported into English meaning “hairstyle”. The term comes from the Old French word “coife”, which was used for the inner part of a helmet.

Down

1 Lobbying gp. : PAC

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

3 Quaint euphemism for “hell” : SAM HILL

“Sam Hill” is a euphemism for “Hell”, as in “What in the Sam Hill is going on in this crossword”. The exact etymology of “Sam Hill” is unclear, although we do know that it dates back to the late 1830s.

4 “The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom” author : ORMAN

Suze Orman is a financial advisor who has gotten her message out on television, in books and on the speaking circuit. She often appears on PBS, and indeed is the most successful fundraiser public television has ever had.

5 Luxury hotel chain : OMNI

Omni Hotels & Resorts is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and has properties in the US, Canada and Mexico.

6 Galoot : BIG APE

“Galoot” is an insulting term describing an awkward or boorish man, an ape. “Galoot” comes from the nautical world, where it was originally what a sailor might call a soldier or marine.

7 Olympic skater Midori : ITO

Midori Ito is a Japanese figure skater. Ito was the first woman to land a triple/triple jump and a triple axel in competition. In fact, she landed her first triple jump in training when she was only 8 years old. Ito won Olympic silver in 1992, and was chosen as the person to light the Olympic cauldron at the commencement of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

8 British poet Hughes who was married to Sylvia Plath : TED

Ted Hughes was an English poet and children’s writer who served as the UK’s Poet Laureate from 1984 until 1998. Hughes’ first wife was American poet Sylvia Plath. The stormy and perhaps abusive relationship between Hughes and his wife has been cited as a contributing factor to Plath’s suicide in 1963.

Sylvia Plath was a poet from Boston, Massachusetts who lived much of her life in the UK where she married fellow poet Ted Hughes. The couple had a tumultuous relationship, and Plath had a long battle with depression. Plath wrote just one novel, called “The Bell Jar”, which is semi-autobiographical. It describes the main character’s descent into mental illness. Plath herself lost her battle with depression in 1963, committing suicide at the age of 30 years, and just one month after “The Bell Jar” was published.

12 Peddled faster than : OUTSOLD

In its purest sense, a peddler is someone who sells his or her wares on the street or from door to door. The term probably comes from the Latin “pedarius” meaning “one who goes on foot”.

13 Meditation sounds : OMS

“Om” is a sacred mystic word from the Hindu tradition. “Om” is sometimes used as a mantra, a focus for the mind in meditation.

18 Somewhat passé : OLDISH

“Passé” is a French word, meaning “past, faded”. We’ve imported the term into English, and use it in the same sense.

22 Beetle juice? : GAS

“VW” stands for “Volkswagen”, which translates from German into “people’s car”. The original Volkswagen design was the Beetle and was built under a directive from Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap car built that ordinary people could afford to purchase. Hitler awarded the contract to engineer Ferdinand Porsche, whose name (paradoxically) would forever be associated with high performance, expensive cars. The Beetle was the official name of the VW model released in North America, but it was usually referred to as a “Bug” here in the US, and a “Beetle” elsewhere in the world.

24 High-end tablet : IPAD PRO

The iPad Pro tablet computer, when it was released in November 2015, featured a larger screen than all prior iPad models. The iPad Pro also came with some interesting accessories, including an attachable keyboard and the Apple Pencil.

26 Faux __ : PAS

The term “faux pas” is French in origin, and translates literally as “false step” (or “false steps”, as the plural has the same spelling in French).

29 Coffee-flavoring root : CHICORY

Chicory root, when ground and roasted, tastes much like coffee. It is sometimes used as a caffeine-free substitute for coffee, or as a beverage in its own right.

38 Priestly garb : ALB

An alb is a white, neck-to-toe vestment worn by priests, usually with a rope cord around the waist. The term alb comes from “albus”, the Latin word for “white”.

39 Fashionista’s field : COUTURE

“Haute couture”, literally “high dressmaking” in French, is a name given to the creation of exclusive fashions. A couturier is someone who creates or sells such fashions.

The Spanish suffix “-ista” indicates a supporter or follower. Examples would be “fashionista” (a follower of fashion) and “Sandinista” (member of a Nicaraguan political party named for revolutionary Augusto César Sandino).

43 Chocolate-coated ice cream treat : DOVE BAR

The Dove Bar is an ice cream bar that was distributed locally in Chicago from 1956 until 1985, when Mars purchased the brand and made it available nationally.

45 Part of a PC reboot sequence : DEL

Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a keyboard command on IBM PC compatible systems used for a soft reboot, or more recently to bring up the task manager in the Windows operating system. Bill Gates tells us that the command was originally just a device to be used during development and was never meant to “go live”. He once said that “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” was a mistake, and that he would have preferred a dedicated key on the keyboard that carried out the same function.

The verb “to boot”, as used in the world of computers, comes from the phrase “pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps”. The idea is that the software that has to be loaded before a computer can do anything useful is called a “bootstrap load”.

47 Cumbersome instruments : CELLOS

The word “cello” (plural “celli” or “cellos”) is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation “‘cello” was often used. Nowadays we just drop the apostrophe.

53 “Death on the Nile” setting : EGYPT

Agatha Christie wrote a very successful crime novel called “Death on the Nile” that was first published in 1937. That novel had started off life as a play that was never performed, one that Christie called “Moon on the Nile”. Christie then adapted the novel back into a play again calling it “Murder on the Nile”, which opened in London in 1946.

56 Easy-to-carry instrument : OBOE

The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”.

57 “The Good Doctor” network : ABC

“The Good Doctor” is a medical-drama TV series that first aired in 2017. The title character, played by English actor Freddie Highmore, is an autistic savant surgeon working at a hospital in San Jose, California. Actor Daniel Dae Kim produces the show, which is a remake of a very successful South Korean series of the same name.

58 Camp bed : COT

Our word “cot”, meaning “small bed”, comes from the Hindi “khat”, meaning “couch, hammock”.

59 Resource in The Settlers of Catan board game : ORE

The Settlers of Catan is a board game that was introduced in 1995, in Germany as “Die Siedler von Catan”. The game is very popular in the US and was called “the board game of our time” by the “Washington Post”. My son plays it a lot, and as a lover of board games, I am going to have to check it out …

60 Spot to drive from : TEE

That would be golf.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Mexican bar tender : PESO
5 Final notice? : OBIT
9 Queen Amidala’s home planet : NABOO
14 Petri dish gelatin : AGAR
15 Small parasite : MITE
16 Enmity : ODIUM
17 Run-of-the-mill deity? : COMMON GOD (from “common good”)
19 Many converted apartments : LOFTS
20 Muse of comedy : THALIA
21 Billionaire financier George : SOROS
22 Tedious routine : GRIND
23 Officer who helps keep public statues clean? : PIGEON COP (from “pigeon coop”)
27 Feel poorly : AIL
28 Sprain application : ICE PACK
30 Taking after : A LA
31 1984 mermaid romcom : SPLASH
33 Reggie Jackson’s alma mater, briefly : ASU
34 Auto pioneer : OLDS
35 Junior faculty member? : CHILD PROF (from “childproof”)
38 Tummy trouble : ACHE
41 Gear with a bill : CAP
42 Got around : EVADED
46 Head of Britain? : LOO
47 Cohort : COMRADE
49 Santana’s “__ Como Va” : OYE
50 One who campaigns on traffic congestion issues? : BUMPER POL (from “bumper pool”)
52 Party hearty : REVEL
54 Sussex set : TELLY
55 Fraternal meeting places : LODGES
57 Hearing-related : AURAL
58 Mechanical bull rider? : COWBOY BOT (from “cowboy boot”)
61 “24K Magic” singer Mars : BRUNO
62 Double Delight cookie : OREO
63 Peel : PARE
64 Small change : CENTS
65 Coiffure site : TETE
66 Genealogy chart : TREE

Down

1 Lobbying gp. : PAC
2 Voyage taken alone? : EGO TRIP
3 Quaint euphemism for “hell” : SAM HILL
4 “The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom” author : ORMAN
5 Luxury hotel chain : OMNI
6 Galoot : BIG APE
7 Olympic skater Midori : ITO
8 British poet Hughes who was married to Sylvia Plath : TED
9 Like some basketball passes : NO-LOOK
10 Festoon : ADORN
11 Two-part lens : BIFOCAL
12 Peddled faster than : OUTSOLD
13 Meditation sounds : OMS
18 Somewhat passé : OLDISH
21 Tied down : SECURED
22 Beetle juice? : GAS
24 High-end tablet : IPAD PRO
25 [She actually said that?!] : [GASP!]
26 Faux __ : PAS
29 Coffee-flavoring root : CHICORY
32 Top player : ACE
34 Birds-feather connection : … OF A …
36 Tanning device : LAMP
37 Engage in to excess : OVERDO
38 Priestly garb : ALB
39 Fashionista’s field : COUTURE
40 It may be inside the park : HOME RUN
43 Chocolate-coated ice cream treat : DOVE BAR
44 Urban renewal target : EYESORE
45 Part of a PC reboot sequence : DEL
47 Cumbersome instruments : CELLOS
48 Utterly wrong : ALL WET
51 Undercover agent : PLANT
53 “Death on the Nile” setting : EGYPT
56 Easy-to-carry instrument : OBOE
57 “The Good Doctor” network : ABC
58 Camp bed : COT
59 Resource in The Settlers of Catan board game : ORE
60 Spot to drive from : TEE