LA Times Crossword Answers 6 Dec 14, Saturday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
10. Excuse ALIBI
“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed … I have an ‘alibi'”.

16. Mauritian coin RUPEE
The Mauritian rupee is the currency of the island nation of Mauritius. The Mauritian rupee replaced the Indian rupee, the pound sterling and the Mauritian dollar as the official currency in 1877.

The island of Mauritius lies in the Indian Ocean, about 700 miles east of Madagascar. One of Mauritius’ claim to fame is that it was the only place where one could find the renowned flightless bird called a dodo. The dodo became extinct less than a century after it was discovered, due to human settlement on the island.

17. Chocolate-covered snack RAISINETS
Raisinets are chocolate-covered raisins produced by Nestlé. They are often sold in boxes in movie theaters.

24. Beethoven’s “Archduke,” for one TRIO
Beethoven’s most famous piano trio is commonly referred to as the “Archduke Trio”, as it was dedicated to friend and student Archduke Rudolph of Austria.

28. 2000s best-seller subtitled “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” FAST FOOD NATION
“Fast Food Nation” is an expose by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that reveals in the inner workings of the US fast food industry. One of Schlosser’s more controversial findings was the deliberate targeting of children by the marketing folks at McDonald’s. McDonald’s copied the marketing plans of Walt Disney to attract not only children, but also their parents and grandparents. That’s how Ronald McDonald was born …

33. Alternative to shaving NEET
The hair removal product “Neet” was launched in Canada in 1901, and was also sold as “Immac”. Today it is sold under the name “Veet”.

34. __-Cat SNO
The brand name Sno-Cat is owned by the Tucker company. All “snowcats” are tracked vehicles built to work in snow, famously used in expeditions to the polar regions. The modern Sno-Cat from Tucker differs from its competitors in that it has four, independently-mounted tracks.

44. Hammer setting EAR
The middle ear is the portion of the ear immediately behind the eardrum. The middle ear contains three small bones called the ossicles, the three smallest bones in the human body. The ossicles’ job is to transmit sound from the outer ear to the inner ear. The shape of the bones gives rise to their common names: the hammer, anvil and stirrup.

45. It contains a due process clause FIFTH AMENDMENT
“To plead the Fifth” is to take advantage of the legal protection provided by the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights. As a result of the Amendment, an individual can refuse to answer questions that could provide self-incriminating evidence of an illegal act.

50. “I’m just sayin’,” in texts FWIW
For what it’s worth (FWIW)

52. Persian Gulf capital DOHA
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar located on the Persian Gulf. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “the big tree”.

54. Slate, for one E-ZINE
“Slate” is an online magazine founded in 1996. “Slate” was originally owned by Microsoft and was part of the MSN online offering. The magazine has been available for free since 1999 (it is ad-supported) and has been owned by the Washington Post Company since 2004.

56. Bk. before Job ESTH
Esther was a Jewish queen, wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus, and the heroine of the Book of Esther in the Bible. By the way, Esther is the only book in the Bible that doesn’t mention the word “God”.

59. Female lobster HEN
A male lobster is called a cock, and a female a hen. A lobster weighing less than a pound is called a chicken.

63. Kingdom east of Australia TONGA
The Kingdom of Tonga is made up of 176 islands in the South Pacific, 52 of which are inhabited and scattered over an area of 270,000 square miles. Tonga was given the name Friendly Islands in 1773 when Captain James Cook first landed there, a reference to the warm reception given to the visitors.

65. Olympic event since 1968 SKEET
There are three types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports:

– Skeet shooting
– Trap shooting
– Sporting clays

66. There’s one in the London Chancery Bldg. US EMBASSY
The US Embassy in London is the largest American Embassy in Western Europe. It is currently located in Grosvenor Square in the Westminster, in the American Embassy Chancery Building. The building was designed by celebrated Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen and opened for business in 1960. Plans are well underway to move the embassy to the Nine Elms area of Wandsworth, with construction starting in 2013 and expected to finish in 2017.

Down
3. It may precede 16501 ERIE, PA
One of the zip codes covering the city of Erie, Pennsylvania is 16501.

4. Daughter of Hyperion EOS
In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn who lived at the edge of the ocean. Eos would wake each morning to welcome her brother Helios the sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora.

Hyperion was one of the Titan deities, and was the personification of the Earth.

5. Fool TWIT
“Twit” is a word not used very often here in America. It’s a slang term that was quite common in England where it was used for “someone foolish and idiotic”.

6. Eastern royal RANI
“Raja” (also “rajah”) is word derived from Sanskrit that is used particularly in India for a monarch or princely ruler. The female form is “rani” (also “ranee”) and is used for a raja’s wife.

9. Lille lily LYS
“Lys” (also “lis”) is the French word for “lily”, as in “fleur-de-lys”, the heraldic symbol often associated with the French monarchy.

Lille is a large city in the very north of France sitting right on the border with Belgium. The name “Lille” is a derivation of the term “l’isle” meaning “the island”.

10. Buck add-on -AROO
The American English word “buckaroo” comes from “vaquero”, the Spanish for cowboy.

11. Bit of wheel hardware LUG NUT
A lug nut is a nut on which one side is tapered. Lug nuts are used to secure wheels to a vehicle.

13. Pub game BEER PONG
The game of beer pong is also known as “Beirut”. Beer pong reputedly originated as a drinking game in the fraternities of Dartmouth College in the fifties, when it was played with paddles and a ping pong net on a table. The origin of the “Beirut” name is less clear, but it probably was coined in while the Lebanese Civil War was raging in late seventies and the eighties.

14. -osis : -oses :: -y : -__ -IES
For example, neurosis : neuroses, and pony : ponies.

27. Get lovey-dovey, in Leeds SNOG
“Snogging” is British slang of unknown origin that dates back to the end of WWII. The term is used for “kissing and cuddling”, what we call “making out” over here in the US.

I went to school for a while not far from Leeds in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Leeds was a major center for the production and trading of wool, and then with the onset of mechanization it became a natural hub for manufacture of textiles. These days Leeds is noted as a shopping destination and so has been dubbed “the Knightsbridge of the North”. People from Leeds are known locally as “Loiners”, but nobody really knows why.

29. Regular religious reading TORAH
The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching”, I am told.

35. Behind DUFF
“Duff” is a slang term for the buttocks, rump. The exact etymology isn’t known, but it dates back to the 1830s.

36. 1944 battle site ENIWETOK
Enewetak Atoll is an atoll consisting of 40 islands in the Marshall Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean. The Battle of Eniwetok was fought in February 1944, with US forces capturing the atoll from the Japanese in order to provide a forward base for later operations by the US Navy. Enewetak Atoll was the site of 43 nuclear test by the US from 1946 to 1958, including the test of the first ever hydrogen bomb. That H-bomb test in 1952 completely vaporized one of the islets in the atoll.

37. Place to get connected WI-FI ZONE
A Wi-Fi hotspot is a “spot” where one can connect wirelessly with a Wi-Fi connection to a router at the center of the hotspot. From there, one can access the Internet via a modem connected to that router.

“Wi-Fi” is nothing more than a trademark, a trademark registered by an association of manufacturers of equipment that use wireless LAN (Local Area Network) technology. A device labeled with “Wi-Fi” has to meet certain defined technical standards, basically meaning that the devices can talk to each other. The name “Wi-Fi” suggests “Wireless Fidelity”, although apparently the term was never intended to mean anything at all.

38. Strong cotton PIMA
Pima is a soft cotton that is very durable and absorbent. Pima cotton is named after the Pima Native Americans who first cultivated it in this part of the world.

40. __ Scott v. Sandford: 1857 Supreme Court case DRED
Famously, the slave Dred Scott was unsuccessful in suing for his freedom in St. Louis, Missouri in 1857.

43. Fax forerunners TELEXES
Telex grew out of the world of the telegraph. What Telex brought to telegraphy was the ability to route messages. Instead of having to talk to an operator to route a particular message to the intended party, the user of a telex could route the message directly to another telex machine by way of a rotary dial, very similar to that on a telephone.

47. Maker of 17-Across NESTLE
(17A. Chocolate-covered snack RAISINETS)
Nestlé is the world’s largest food company. It was founded in 1905 in Vevey, Switzerland where the company headquarters is to this day. Although the company came into being as the result of a merger, it retains the name of one of the co-founders, German confectioner Henri Nestlé. Henri Nestlé’s real breakthrough product was baby formula.

49. Luther’s 95 __ THESES
Martin Luther wrote his “95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of the Indulgences” in 1517, a document that is often seen as the spark that set off the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s main argument was that the Catholic Church’s practice of granting “indulgences”, forgiveness from punishment for sins, was wrong, in particular when the such indulgences were granted in exchange for money.

53. Restless ANTSY
The word “antsy” embodies the concept of “having ants in one’s pants”, meaning being nervous and fidgety. However, “antsy” has been used in English since the 1830s, whereas “ants in the pants” originated a century later.

58. “Sunny” singer Bobby HEBB
Bobby Hebb was a singer from Nashville who is best remembered for his 1966 hit “Sunny”. Hebb toured with the Beatles that year, and while doing so, “Sunny” was ranked higher than any Beatles song in the US charts.

60. D and C, in D.C. STS
Famously, the layout of the streets in Washington was designed by French-born American architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant. The L’Enfant Plan called for a grid of east-west and north-south streets. This grid was criss-crossed with diagonal avenues. The avenues and streets met at circles and rectangular plazas. The east-west streets are generally named for letters, while the north-south streets are numbered. Later, many of the diagonal avenues were named for states of the union.

61. Old French coin ECU
The ecu was an Old French coin. When introduced in 1640, the ecu was worth three livres (an older coin, called a “pound” in English). The word “ecu” comes from the Latin “scutum” meaning “shield”. The original ecu had a coat of arms on it, a shield.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Breakfast fare SWEET ROLL
10. Excuse ALIBI
15. Disposable THROWAWAY
16. Mauritian coin RUPEE
17. Chocolate-covered snack RAISINETS
18. Tyrannical types OGRES
19. Packed away ATE
20. Current TIDE
21. Revere HONOR
22. Dry, in a way WIPE
24. Beethoven’s “Archduke,” for one TRIO
26. Ones working at home, maybe UMPS
28. 2000s best-seller subtitled “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” FAST FOOD NATION
32. Besides TOO
33. Alternative to shaving NEET
34. __-Cat SNO
35. Cause of a wet blade DEWDROP
39. Easter tradition DYED EGG
41. Prefix with lateral UNI-
42. Working hard AT IT
44. Hammer setting EAR
45. It contains a due process clause FIFTH AMENDMENT
50. “I’m just sayin’,” in texts FWIW
51. Reason for a warning GALE
52. Persian Gulf capital DOHA
54. Slate, for one E-ZINE
56. Bk. before Job ESTH
59. Female lobster HEN
60. Gem STONE
61. Zealot EXTREMIST
63. Kingdom east of Australia TONGA
64. Some priests CELIBATES
65. Olympic event since 1968 SKEET
66. There’s one in the London Chancery Bldg. US EMBASSY

Down
1. __ vote STRAW
2. Experimenter’s question WHAT IF?
3. It may precede 16501 ERIE, PA
4. Daughter of Hyperion EOS
5. Fool TWIT
6. Eastern royal RANI
7. Had because of OWED TO
8. Eventually LATER ON
9. Lille lily LYS
10. Buck add-on -AROO
11. Bit of wheel hardware LUG NUT
12. “You can depend on me!” I PROMISE!
13. Pub game BEER PONG
14. -osis : -oses :: -y : -__ -IES
21. Flavored, as roasted chicken HONEYED
23. Cornerstone abbr. ESTD
25. Named IDED
27. Get lovey-dovey, in Leeds SNOG
29. Regular religious reading TORAH
30. Movie scenes FOOTAGE
31. Select group A-TEAM
35. Behind DUFF
36. 1944 battle site ENIWETOK
37. Place to get connected WI-FI ZONE
38. Strong cotton PIMA
40. __ Scott v. Sandford: 1857 Supreme Court case DRED
43. Fax forerunners TELEXES
46. Minor pain TWINGE
47. Maker of 17-Across NESTLE
48. Pitches a gem against NO-HITS
49. Luther’s 95 __ THESES
53. Restless ANTSY
55. Undiluted NEAT
57. In good shape TRIM
58. “Sunny” singer Bobby HEBB
60. D and C, in D.C. STS
61. Old French coin ECU
62. Kid’s cry MAA!

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