LA Times Crossword 4 Oct 21, Monday

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Constructed by: Chris Gross
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Ends in a Tie

Each themed answer ENDS IN A type of TIE:

  • 59A Concludes with no clear winner … and what each answer to a starred clue does? : ENDS IN A TIE
  • 17A *Yellow tomato with red swirls : BIG RAINBOW (giving “bow tie”)
  • 27A *”Our group doesn’t agree” : WE THINK NOT (giving “knot tie”)
  • 44A *Phillie Phanatic, notably : TEAM MASCOT (giving “ascot tie”)

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

Bill’s time: 4m 54s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Card that loses to a trey : DEUCE

A two in a deck of playing cards might be called a “deuce”, from the Middle French “deus” (or Modern French “deux”) meaning “two”.

A trey is a three in a deck of cards. The term “trey” can also be used for a domino with three pips, and even for a three-point play in basketball.

6 Equine control : REIN

There are seven living species of mammals in the genus Equus, each of which is referred to as “equine”. The seven species include all horses, asses and zebras. All equine species can crossbreed. For example, a mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse, a zorse is a cross between a zebra and a horse, and a zedonk is a cross between a zebra and a donkey.

17 *Yellow tomato with red swirls : BIG RAINBOW (giving “bow tie”)

The big rainbow is an heirloom tomato that has a yellow skin with red swirls.

21 Anonymous Jane : DOE

Though the English court system does not use the term today, “John Doe” first appeared as the “name of a person unknown” in England in 1659, along with the similar “Richard Roe”. An unknown female is referred to as “Jane Doe ”, and the equivalent to Richard Roe is Jane Roe (as in Roe v. Wade, for example). Variants of “John Doe” used outside of the courts are “Joe Blow” and “John Q. Public”.

23 Mortarboard hanger : TASSEL

Tasseled mortarboards, or square academic caps, are associated with school graduations all over the world, although traditions do differ. For example in Ireland (where I come from), mortarboards are only worn by female graduates.

31 Heed, with “by” : ABIDE …

“To brook” and “to abide” both mean “to tolerate, to put up with”.

36 Currency for 19 states : EURO

The euro is the official currency of most of the states in the European Union, but not all. The list of EU states not using the euro includes Denmark and Sweden.

39 “Spider-Man” actress Kirsten : DUNST

Kirsten Dunst is a Hollywood actress from Point Pleasant, New Jersey. She is perhaps best known for playing the love interest and female lead in the “Spider-Man” series of movies opposite Tobey Maguire. Personally, my favorite Dunst films are “Wimbledon” and “Marie Antoinette”. Dunst is a dual citizen of the US and Germany, as her father is from Hamburg.

41 Fish that complains a lot? : CARP

Carp are freshwater fish that are used as food around the world, although they aren’t very popular in North American kitchens. The ornamental fish that we know as goldfish and koi are all types of carp.

43 Liability offset on a balance sheet : ASSET

The balance sheet of a company is a snapshot (single-point-in-time) view of a company’s financial position. The balance sheet lists all the company’s liabilities, all of its assets, and all of its ownership equity. The assets of a company, less its liabilities equals the ownership equity. The term “balance” is used because assets always balance out with the sum of liabilities and shareholder equity.

44 *Phillie Phanatic, notably : TEAM MASCOT (giving “ascot tie”)

The Phillie Phanatic is the mascot for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. The Phanatic replaced the older mascots Philadelphia Phil and Philadelphia Phillis in 1978.

An ascot is a wide tie that narrows at the neck, which these days is only really worn at weddings or part of a dress uniform. The tie takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race at which punters still turn up in formal wear at Ascot Racecourse in England.

48 Highway divider : MEDIAN

Here in the US, the area separating opposing lanes of traffic on a divided highway called the “median strip”. Over in Britain and Ireland, that median strip is known as the “central reservation”.

57 About, on a memo : 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”.

58 Inuit word for “house” : IGLU

The Inuit word for “house” is “iglu”, which we usually write as “igloo”. The Greenlandic (yes, that’s a language) word for “house” is very similar, namely “igdlo”. The walls of igloos are tremendous insulators, due to the air pockets in the blocks of snow.

62 Bosc or Anjou : PEAR

Bosc is a cultivar of the European pear that is grown mainly in the northwest of the United States. It is named for French horticulturist Louis Bosc. The cultivar originated in Belgium or France in the early 19th century. The Bosc is that pear with a skin the color of a potato, with a long neck.

The Anjou pear is a cultivar of the European Pear. The Anjou is thought to have originated in Belgium or France (Anjou is a province in the Loire Valley of western France).

63 Snail __: letter carrier’s burden : MAIL

Snail mail is regular mail delivered by the postal service. The term “snail mail” arose as email gained in popularity, and is a reference to the difference in speed between email and paper mail.

64 Golfer Sam : SNEAD

Sam Snead was probably the most successful golfer never to win a US Open title, as he won a record 82 PGA Tour events. Snead did win seven majors, but never the US Open. He was also quite the showman. He once hit the scoreboard at Wrigley Field stadium with a golf ball, by teeing off from home plate. Snead’s best-remembered nickname is “Slammin’ Sammy”.

66 “Do __ others … ” : UNTO

The Golden Rule is also known as the ethic of reciprocity, and is a basis for the concept of human rights. A version of the rule used in the Christian tradition is attributed to Jesus:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

67 Singer __ Rae Jepsen : CARLY

Carly Rae Jepsen is a singer/songwriter from Mission, British Columbia. Jepsen got her start on TV’s “Canadian Idol” when she placed third in the show’s fifth season.

Down

1 Ledger entry : DEBIT

A ledger is an account book. The term ”ledger” comes from the Middle English “leggen” meaning “to lay”. The original ledger was a large book “laid” in one particular place permanently, an example being a breviary in a church.

2 “Fear of Flying” author Jong : ERICA

Author Erica Jong’s most famous work is her first: “Fear of Flying”, a novel published in 1973. Over twenty years later, Jong wrote “Fear of Fifty: a midlife memoir”, published in 1994.

4 Firewood units : CORDS

A cord of firewood has a volume of 128 cubic feet. More commonly it’s a neat stack measuring 4 feet high, 8 feet long and 4 feet deep.

5 Victorian or Elizabethan : ERA

The Victorian era was a period in British history from 1837 to 1901 that is defined by the reign of Queen Victoria. Generally speaking, the Victorian era was a period of peace and prosperity for the UK. How times have changed …

The Elizabethan era, the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, is considered by many to be the golden age of English history. It was the age of William Shakespeare and the age of the English Renaissance. Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and the last sovereign of the House of Tudor.

6 Janet __, attorney general after Barr : RENO

Janet Reno was Attorney General (AG) of the US from 1993 to 2001, and part of the Clinton administration. Reno was the second-longest holder of the office, and our first female Attorney General. In 2002, Reno ran for Governor of Florida but failed to win the Democratic nomination. Thereafter she retired from public life, and passed away at the end of 2016.

7 Hamburg’s river : ELBE

The River Elbe rises in the Czech Republic and travels over a thousand kilometers before emptying into the North Sea near the port of Hamburg in Germany.

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany (after Berlin), and the third largest port in Europe (after Rotterdam and Antwerp).

8 Prefix with metric : ISO-

The word “isometric” comes from Greek, and means “having equal measurement”. Isometric exercise is a resistance exercise in which the muscle does not change in length (and the joint angle stays the same). The alternative would be dynamic exercises, ones using the joint’s full range of motion.

12 Gateway Arch designer Saarinen : EERO

Eero Saarinen was a Finnish-American architect who was renowned in this country for his unique designs for public buildings such as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Dulles International Airport Terminal, and the TWA building at JFK. The list of his lesser-known, but still impressive, works includes several buildings erected on academic campuses. For example, the Chapel and Kresge Auditorium on the MIT campus, the Emma Hartman Noyes House at Vassar College, the Law School building at the University of Chicago, and Yale’s David S. Ingalls Rink.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, and is the tallest monument in the United States. It was designed by Eero Saarinen, with the help of structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel. They did their design work back in 1947, but construction wasn’t started until 1963. In 1980, a daredevil took it upon himself to parachute onto the top of the arch, intending to further jump from the apex of the arch and parachute to the ground. He hit the arch all right, and slid all the way down one of the arches to his death. No comment …

13 Bucks in a forest : DEER

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and the females called cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

25 Respiratory cavity : AIR SAC

The alveoli are the air sacs in the lungs, and as such are the basic units of respiration. They are hollow cavities around which the alveolar membranes perform the gas-exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen. That gas exchange surface is about 800 sq. ft. (!) in the average human.

26 MIT’s “I”: Abbr. : INST

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and first offered classes in 1865, in the Mercantile building in Boston. Today’s magnificent campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge opened in 1916.

28 Froot Loops mascot __ Sam : TOUCAN

Toucan Sam is the mascot of Kellogg’s Froot Loops breakfast cereal, and he can be seen on the front of every box. Froot Loops have been manufactured by Kellogg’s since 1963. The little loops come in different colors, originally red, orange and yellow, but now there are green, purple and blue loops as well. Notice I said “different colors” not “different flavors”. Each loop tastes the same, so I wonder where the color comes from …?

39 Capitol feature : DOME

A capitol is a building in which a legislature meets. Such buildings are often constructed with an impressive dome. The term “capitol” is a reference to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the most important temple in ancient Rome, and which sat on top of Capitoline Hill.

46 Upscale hotel : OMNI

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

49 Ross or Rigg : DIANA

Diana Ross is one of the most prolific recording artists in history. She sang with the Supremes from 1959 to 1970 and then launched an incredibly successful solo career. Ross was listed in the 1993 edition of “The Guinness Book of World Records” as the most successful music artist ever, with eighteen #1 records.

Diana Rigg was a marvelous actress from England who was best known for playing Emma Peel on the hit sixties show “The Avengers”. Rigg also won an Emmy for her performance in a 1997 television adaptation of “Rebecca”. In my humble opinion, she was also the best-ever Bond girl (opposite George Lazenby, the worst-ever Bond guy), in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” …

51 Sans-serif font : ARIAL

Serifs are details on the ends of characters in some typefaces. Typefaces without serifs are known as sans-serif, using the French word “sans” meaning “without” and “serif” from the Dutch “schreef” meaning “line”. Some people say that serif fonts are easier to read on paper, whereas sans-serif fonts work better on a computer screen. I’m not so sure though …

53 Golfer’s putting jitters, with “the” : … YIPS

The informal term “yips” applies to the nervous twitching that can sometimes spoil a sportsman’s performance, especially a golfer’s putting stroke.

54 Curved molding : OGEE

An ogee is a type of S-curve. Specifically, it is a figure consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite directions (like an S) but both ends of the curve end up parallel to each other (which is not necessarily true for an S).

56 Nobel Peace Prize city : OSLO

The Peace Prize is the most famous of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. The others are for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. There is also a Nobel Prize in Economics that is awarded along with the original five, but it is funded separately and is awarded “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Four of the prizes are awarded by Swedish organizations (Alfred Nobel was a Swede) and so the award ceremonies take place in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and is presented in Oslo.

59 Big Aussie bird : EMU

The large flightless birds called emus make sounds by manipulating inflatable neck-sacs. The sac is about a foot long, has a thin wall and allows the bird to emit a booming sound. The type of sound emitted is the easiest way to differentiate between male and female emus.

60 Indian bread : NAN

Naan (also “nan”) bread is very popular in Indian restaurants, as well as in other West, Central and South Asian cuisines. Indian Naan is traditionally baked in a clay oven known as a tandoor.

61 Pres. advisory group : NSC

The National Security Council (NSC) was created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. It is chaired by the sitting president and meets in the White House Situation Room.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Card that loses to a trey : DEUCE
6 Equine control : REIN
10 Dazzled : AWED
14 Boo-boo : ERROR
15 Besides that : ELSE
16 Waterslide cry : WHEE!
17 *Yellow tomato with red swirls : BIG RAINBOW (giving “bow tie”)
19 Dismiss from work : FIRE
20 __ coffee: cool drink : ICED
21 Anonymous Jane : DOE
22 One-on-one teacher : TUTOR
23 Mortarboard hanger : TASSEL
25 Flier’s seat choice : AISLE
27 *”Our group doesn’t agree” : WE THINK NOT (giving “knot tie”)
31 Heed, with “by” : ABIDE …
35 Couple’s pronoun : OURS
36 Currency for 19 states : EURO
38 Dull movie, say : BORE
39 “Spider-Man” actress Kirsten : DUNST
40 Staircase part : STEP
41 Fish that complains a lot? : CARP
42 One less than nona- : OCTA-
43 Liability offset on a balance sheet : ASSET
44 *Phillie Phanatic, notably : TEAM MASCOT (giving “ascot tie”)
47 Environmentally friendly : GREEN
48 Highway divider : MEDIAN
53 Opposite of old age : YOUTH
55 Long, long time : EON
57 About, on a memo : IN RE
58 Inuit word for “house” : IGLU
59 Concludes with no clear winner … and what each answer to a starred clue does? : ENDS IN A TIE
62 Bosc or Anjou : PEAR
63 Snail __: letter carrier’s burden : MAIL
64 Golfer Sam : SNEAD
65 Arid : SERE
66 “Do __ others … ” : UNTO
67 Singer __ Rae Jepsen : CARLY

Down

1 Ledger entry : DEBIT
2 “Fear of Flying” author Jong : ERICA
3 Impulses : URGES
4 Firewood units : CORDS
5 Victorian or Elizabethan : ERA
6 Janet __, attorney general after Barr : RENO
7 Hamburg’s river : ELBE
8 Prefix with metric : ISO-
9 Never been used : NEW
10 Terrible quality : AWFULNESS
11 Low-visibility snow events : WHITEOUTS
12 Gateway Arch designer Saarinen : EERO
13 Bucks in a forest : DEER
18 Doing nothing : IDLE
22 “For shame!” : TSK!
24 Meadow mom : EWE
25 Respiratory cavity : AIR SAC
26 MIT’s “I”: Abbr. : INST
28 Froot Loops mascot __ Sam : TOUCAN
29 Fox-and-hounds pursuits : HUNTS
30 Shade provider : TREE
31 Alphabet sequence symbolizing ease : ABC
32 Word with row or sail : … BOAT
33 Imperfect, as sale goods : IRREGULAR
34 Arrival’s opposite : DEPARTURE
37 Choose (to) : OPT
39 Capitol feature : DOME
43 Absorbed, as a cost : ATE
45 [Yawn] : [MEH]
46 Upscale hotel : OMNI
49 Ross or Rigg : DIANA
50 Prefix meaning “between” : INTER-
51 Sans-serif font : ARIAL
52 Impoverished : NEEDY
53 Golfer’s putting jitters, with “the” : … YIPS
54 Curved molding : OGEE
55 Do some prose-tightening : EDIT
56 Nobel Peace Prize city : OSLO
59 Big Aussie bird : EMU
60 Indian bread : NAN
61 Pres. advisory group : NSC