LA Times Crossword 29 Mar 19, Friday

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Constructed by: David Alfred Bywaters
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Insider Trading

Themed answers each comprise two 4-letter words. The pairs of words are the same, except for the TRADING of the place of the INSIDE two letters:

  • 40A With 42-Across, white-collar crime … and a hint to four Across answers : INSIDER …
  • 42A See 40-Across : … TRADING
  • 17A Frantic activity at a clothing sale? : GARB GRAB
  • 26A Wooden bird sculpture? : SAWN SWAN
  • 52A Cereal maker’s storage building? : BRAN BARN
  • 66A Dispassionate bivalve? : CALM CLAM

Bill’s time: 8m 30s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Result of littering, maybe : PUP

The word “litter” has existed in English since the 1300s, when it meant “bed” (the modern French word for bed is related, i.e. “lit”). In the late 1500s, “litter” also came to mean “offspring of a single birth” i.e. collection of offspring born in the one bed at the same time.

14 Airport info : ETA

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

15 Minorca, por ejemplo : ISLA

The island of Minorca in the Mediterranean takes its name from the larger neighboring island of Majorca. The names come from the Latin “Insula Minor” meaning “Minor Island” and “Insula Major” meaning “Major Island”. The island is known as “Minorca” in English, and “Menorca” in Spanish and Catalan.

21 Electric guitar effect : WA-WA

A wah-wah (also “wa-wa”) pedal connected to an electric guitar alters the tone of the signal created so that it mimics the human voice.

31 European relative of aloha : CIAO

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

The Hawaiian word “aloha” has many meanings in English: affection, love, peace, compassion and mercy. More recently, “aloha” has come to mean “hello” and “goodbye”, but only since the mid-1800s.

32 Financial claim : LIEN

A lien is the right that one has to retain or secure someone’s property until a debt is paid. When an individual takes out a car loan, for example, the lending bank is usually a lien holder. The bank releases the lien on the car when the loan is paid in full.

33 Heroic poetry : EPOS

“Epos” is a Greek word for a story or a poem. We have absorbed the term into English with the same meaning. We also use it in English to mean “epic”, i.e. a long narrative poetic work featuring heroic deeds and ventures.

35 Scheming wife of Augustus : LIVIA

Livia Drusilla (aka “Julia Augusta”) was the third wife of the Emperor Augustus, and a powerful woman in the Roman Empire. In the exceptional fictional work “I, Claudius” by Robert Graves, Livia doesn’t come across at all well, and is portrayed as quite the schemer, and very much the key individual who led to her grandson Claudius winning the imperial throne.

44 Mongol invader : TATAR

Tatars (sometimes “Tartars”) are an ethnic group of people who mainly reside in Russia (a population of about 5 1/2 million). One of the more famous people with a Tatar heritage was Hollywood actor Charles Bronson. Bronson’s real name was Charles Buchinsky.

45 “__ Tired”: Beatles “White Album” song : I’M SO

“I’m So Tired” is a sleepy little song from the Beatles’ “White Album”. It was written by John Lennon one night when he couldn’t sleep, while on a transcendental meditation retreat in India. There is some mumbling in the background of the song at the very end that some people say, when played backwards, are the words “Paul is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him.” Further evidence cited in the “Paul is dead” conspiracy …

48 Plant with therapeutic sap : ALOE

Aloe vera is a succulent plant that grows in relatively dry climates. The plants leaves are full of biologically-active compounds that have been studied extensively. Aloe vera has been used for centuries in herbal medicine, mainly for topical treatment of wounds.

50 Ball VIPs : BELLES

A beau (plural “beaux”) is the boyfriend of a belle, a young lady. “Beau” and “belle” are the masculine and feminine forms of the French word for “handsome, beautiful”.

56 Longtime NBC hit : SNL

“Saturday Night Live” (SNL)

58 Ivan IV, from 1547 to 1584 : TSAR

The Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan IV became known as “Ivan the Terrible”. The name “terrible” is a translation from Russian, and perhaps creates the wrong impression about the man. The Russian word is “Grozny”, which is more akin to “strict” and “powerful” rather than “cruel” or “abominable”.

64 Theater company : TROUPE

“Troupe” is a French word meaning “company, band”.

66 Dispassionate bivalve? : CALM CLAM

Bivalves are marine and freshwater molluscs that have bodies enclosed in a two-part hinged shell. Examples are clams, oysters, mussels and scallops. The taxonomic name “Bivalvia” comes from the Latin “bis” meaning “two” and “valvae” meaning “leaves of a door”.

68 Fairy tale sibling : HANSEL

“Hansel and Gretel” is a Germanic fairy tale found in the collection of the Brothers Grimm. It tells of two siblings, Hansel and Gretel, the children of a woodcutter. The youngsters are abandoned in a forest at the behest of an evil stepmother. Clever Hansel hears of the plan and leaves a trail of pebbles so that he and his sister can find their way home, which they do. But the children are abandoned again and this time leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Unfortunately, the crumbs are eaten by birds and so the children do indeed become lost. But eventually they do all live happily ever after …

69 Logician’s adverb : ERGO

“Ergo” is a Latin word meaning “hence, therefore”, and one that we’ve absorbed directly into English.

Down

2 Wasatch Front state : UTAH

“Wasatch Front” is the name given to a chain of cities and towns in Utah stretching from Nephi in the south to Brigham City in the north. The list of metropolitan areas includes Salt Lake City, Provo and Ogden, and is home to 80% of Utah’s population. The chain lies to the east of the Wasatch Mountains, hence the name.

3 Opposite of embiggen : PARE

To embiggen, is to make bigger. Really, it is …

4 Traffic stopper, perhaps : SIGNAL

The first traffic lights date back to 1868 when they were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London. They resembled the signals already in use for trains, with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for nighttime use. That first system was operated manually, by a policeman at the base. Sadly, one police officer was killed, just one year after the light’s installation, when the gas system exploded.

5 Leb. neighbor : ISR

Lebanon (Leb.) shares a border with Israel (Isr.).

7 Spicy sauce : TABASCO

Edward McIlhenny created the first Tabasco Sauce in 1868. He recycled old cologne bottles as a container for the sauce so that he could present it to friends, and when he went into business he ordered new cologne bottles for the commercial product. Even today, the Tabasco Sauce bottle bears a striking resemblance to the bottle used to distribute 4711 cologne.

8 Capital NNW of Albany : OTTAWA

Ottawa is the second-largest city in the Province of Ontario (after Toronto) and is the capital city of Canada. The name “Ottawa” comes from an Algonquin word “adawe”, which means “to trade”.

New York’s state capital of Albany was founded as a Dutch trading post called Fort Nassau in 1614. The English took over the settlement in 1664 and called it Albany, naming it after the future King of England James II, whose title at the time was the Duke of Albany. It became the capital of New York State in 1797.

12 Home of the Drillers of Class AA baseball : TULSA

The Tulsa Drillers are a minor league affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. The batting coach for the Tulsa Drillers was killed in 2007 when a line drive hit him in the neck, and rupturing an artery. Very sad …

27 Satchmo’s birthplace, briefly : NOLA

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans (NO), Louisiana (LA).

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1900. Armstrong had a poor upbringing, and only stayed in school till he was 11 years old. The exact origin of Louis’s nickname “Satchmo” seems to be a little unclear. One story is that he used to dance for pennies in New Orleans as a youngster and would hide those pennies in his mouth away from the other kids. For this he earned the nickname “satchel mouth”, which was shortened to “Satchmo”.

29 Turner with numbers : TINA

“Tina Turner” is the stage name used by Anna Mae Bullock, the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll”. Turner has always loved Europe and moved there in the eighties. She now splits her time between her homes in England, France and Switzerland.

37 Member of a Baroque consort : VIOL

The viola da gamba (also called simply “viol”) is a bass instrument in what is known as the viol family, with a tonal range that about matches that of the modern-day cello. It is the second largest of all the viols, so is played resting on the floor between the legs. In fact, “viola da gamba” is Italian translating into “viol for the leg”.

38 Memo heading : IN RE

The term “in re” is Latin, and is derived from “in” (in) and “res” (thing, matter). “In re” literally means “in the matter”, and is used to mean “in regard to” or “in the matter of”.

52 Spa features : BATHS

The word “spa” migrated into English from Belgium, as Spa is the name of a municipality in the east of the country that is famous for its healing hot springs. The name “Spa” comes from the Walloon word “espa” meaning “spring, fountain”.

53 Like much of Oregon : RURAL

The Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled a dispute between the US and the UK over sovereignty of the Oregon Country. “The Oregon Country” was the name given by the Americans to a large swathe of land west of the Rocky Mountains. That same disputed land was known as the Columbia Department by the British. Oregon became is a US state in 1859.

67 NY airport named for a mayor : LGA

Fiorello La Guardia was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945, racking up three full terms in office. The famous airport that bears La Guardia’s name was built at his urging, stemming from an incident that took place while he was in office. He was taking a TWA flight to “New York” and was outraged when the plane landed at Newark Airport, in the state of New Jersey. The Mayor demanded that the flight take off again and land at a small airport in Brooklyn. A gaggle of press reporters joined him on the short hop and he gave them a story, urging New Yorkers to support the construction of a new commercial airport within the city’s limits. The new airport, in Queens, opened in 1939 as New York Municipal, often called “LaGuardia” as a nickname. The airport was officially relabeled as “LaGuardia” (LGA) in 1947.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Result of littering, maybe : PUP
4 Recipe direction : SIFT
8 Round paths : ORBITS
14 Airport info : ETA
15 Minorca, por ejemplo : ISLA
16 Promote : TALK UP
17 Frantic activity at a clothing sale? : GARB GRAB
19 How some insults are veiled : THINLY
20 Luster : SHEEN
21 Electric guitar effect : WA-WA
23 Meh : SO-SO
24 Comedy bit : GAG
26 Wooden bird sculpture? : SAWN SWAN
28 Recreational walk : STROLL
31 European relative of aloha : CIAO
32 Financial claim : LIEN
33 Heroic poetry : EPOS
35 Scheming wife of Augustus : LIVIA
40 With 42-Across, white-collar crime … and a hint to four Across answers : INSIDER …
42 See 40-Across : … TRADING
44 Mongol invader : TATAR
45 “__ Tired”: Beatles “White Album” song : I’M SO
47 Long-gone time : YORE
48 Plant with therapeutic sap : ALOE
50 Ball VIPs : BELLES
52 Cereal maker’s storage building? : BRAN BARN
56 Longtime NBC hit : SNL
57 Drive-in need : AUTO
58 Ivan IV, from 1547 to 1584 : TSAR
60 Passageway : AISLE
64 Theater company : TROUPE
66 Dispassionate bivalve? : CALM CLAM
68 Fairy tale sibling : HANSEL
69 Logician’s adverb : ERGO
70 “Really? Me?” : AM I?
71 Tired : SLEEPY
72 Precious : DEAR
73 Favorite : PET

Down

1 Coat holders : PEGS
2 Wasatch Front state : UTAH
3 Opposite of embiggen : PARE
4 Traffic stopper, perhaps : SIGNAL
5 Leb. neighbor : ISR
6 Diamond concern : FLAW
7 Spicy sauce : TABASCO
8 Capital NNW of Albany : OTTAWA
9 Cheer syllable : RAH!
10 Euphoria : BLISS
11 “You don’t need to tell me” : I KNOW
12 Home of the Drillers of Class AA baseball : TULSA
13 Watch surreptitiously : SPY ON
18 Colorful tropical flower : BEGONIA
22 Middle management issues? : WAISTS
25 Cheer : GLEE
27 Satchmo’s birthplace, briefly : NOLA
28 Narrow opening : SLIT
29 Turner with numbers : TINA
30 Enjoy an easy chair : REST
34 Monastic leaders : PRIORS
36 Charmingly pastoral : IDYLLIC
37 Member of a Baroque consort : VIOL
38 Memo heading : IN RE
39 Survey range components : AGES
41 Meh : DRAB
43 Takes badly? : ROBS
46 Threatened : MENACED
49 These days : LATELY
51 Charm : ENAMOR
52 Spa features : BATHS
53 Like much of Oregon : RURAL
54 Make amends : ATONE
55 “I give up!” : NO USE!
59 Uncommon : RARE
61 Open-handed blow : SLAP
62 Unconvincing, as an excuse : LAME
63 Put out : EMIT
65 Energy : PEP
67 NY airport named for a mayor : LGA