Day: February 3, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Figure (out), slangily DOPE
Apparently, “to dope out” is a slang term meaning “to figure out, infer from available information”.

9. Early Yucatán settlers MAYAS
The Maya civilization held sway in Central America and Mexico from about 350 AD until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.

The Yucatán is one of Mexico’s 31 states, and is located in the east of the country, on the northern tip of the Yucatán peninsula.

15. Irish New Age singer ENYA
Enya’s real name is Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, which can translate from Irish into Enya Brennan. Her Donegal family (in the northwest of Ireland) formed a band called Clannad, which included Enya. In 1980 Enya launched her very successful solo career. She sure does turn up a lot in crosswords!

New-Age music is created to provide a relaxing and stress-free atmosphere. The New Age movement is often said to have begun with the release of an album called “Spectrum Suite” by Steven Halpern in 1975.

16. Bite-the-bullet type STOIC
Someone who is “stoic” is indifferent to pleasure or pain, is relatively impassive.

Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher famous for teaching at the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch”, located on the north side of the Ancient Agora of Athens. Because of the location of his classes, his philosophy became known as stoicism (from “stoa”, the word for “porch”). And yes, we get our adjective “stoic” from the same root.

17. 400 athletes? CD PLAYERS (CD = 400)
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.

19. “Star Trek” lieutenant UHURA
Lt. Nyota Uhura is the communications officer in the original “Star Trek” television series, played by Nichelle Nichols. The role is significant in that Uhura was one of the first African American characters to figure front and center in US television. In a 1968 episode, Kirk (played by William Shatner) and Uhura kiss, the first inter-racial kiss to be broadcast in the US. Apparently the scene was meant to be shot twice, with and without the kiss, so that network executives could later decide which version to air. William Shatner says that he deliberately ran long on the first shoot (with the kiss) and fluffed the hurried second shoot (without the kiss), so that the network would have no choice.

20. Trophy prized by actors OSCAR
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is the organization that gives the annual Academy Awards also known as the “Oscars”. The root of the name “Oscar” is hotly debated, but what is agreed is that the award was officially named “Oscar” in 1939. The first Academy Awards were presented at a brunch in 1929 with an audience of just 29 people. The Awards ceremony is a slightly bigger event these days …

23. Austin-to-Baton Rouge direction EAST
Austin is the capital of the state of Texas. When the area was chosen to be the capital of the Republic of Texas, it was known as Waterloo. The name was changed in honor of Stephen F. Austin, a native of Virginia who was raised in Missouri and led the first successful colonization of Texas.

Baton Rouge is the capital city of the state of Louisiana. The name “Baton Rouge” is French for “red stick or staff”. The exact reason why such a name was given to the city isn’t really clear.

24. Flat hat with a pompom TAM
A tam o’shanter is a man’s cap traditionally worn by Scotsmen. “Tams” were originally all blue (and called “blue bonnets”), but as more dyes became readily available they became more colorful. The name of the cap comes from the title character of Robert Burns’ poem “Tam O’Shanter”.

The French call a ball made of tufted wool a “pompon”, a word that we imported into English directly as “pompon”. We use “pompon” to describe perhaps bobbles on some hats, or the tufted balls that are shaken by cheerleaders at sports events. Over time, the spelling “pompom” has become common in English, probably due to mishearing. To confuse matters a little, we also use the word “pom-pom”, which is a nickname for a British autocannon used mainly as an anti-aircraft weapon, particularly during WWII.

26. 40 polos? XL SHIRTS (XL = 40)
René Lacoste was a French tennis player who went into the clothing business, and came up with a more comfortable shirt that players could use. This became known as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted for use in the sport of polo, the shirts also became known as “polo shirts”. And then the “golf shirt” is basically the same thing.

28. Football club based in Lombardy AC MILAN
The famous Italian soccer club Associazione Calcio Milan is better known as AC Milan. AC Milan has won four world club titles, more than any club in the game anywhere. The team’s home ground is San Siro, which has a capacity of just over 80,000, the highest in the country. AC Milan is owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

There are twenty administrative regions of Italy, on of which is Lombardy, which is in the very north of the country. Lombardy’s capital is the city of Milan.

34. Kelly of morning TV RIPA
When Kelly Ripa secured the co-host spot on morning television with Regis Philbin, she was still acting in “All My Children” in a role she had been playing for over ten years. After a year of holding down two jobs, she eventually gave up the acting job.

39. Texter’s “Horrors!” OMG
OMG is text-speak for Oh My Gosh! Oh My Goodness! or any other G words you might think of …

46. ESPN analyst Hershiser OREL
Orel Hershiser is big into poker now that he has retired from Major League Baseball. Hershiser lives in Las Vegas and when he isn’t working for ESPN, apparently he is at the poker tables.

47. Wife of Abraham SARAH
In the Bible and the Quran, Sarah is the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac. The name “Sarah” is usually translated from Hebrew as “princess, noblewoman”.

54. Plea at sea, briefly SOS
The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.

56. Pouty expression MOUE
The term “moue” comes from French, and means a small grimace or a pout.

58. Repetitive musical piece RONDO
A rondo was often chosen by composers in the classical period for the last movement of a sonata (or symphony or concerto, for that matter). In rondo form there is a principal theme that alternates with a contrasting theme(s). So, the original theme anchors the whole piece in between secondary digressions.

62. ACC team with a turtle mascot TERPS
The sports teams of the University of Maryland are called the Maryland Terrapins, or “the Terps” for short. The name dates back to 1932 when it was coined by the the university’s president at the time, Curly Byrd. He took the name from the diamondback terrapins that are native to the Chesapeake Bay.

A kind blog reader (below) points out that the Maryland Terrapins left the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to join the Big Ten Conference in July of 2014.

68. Starbucks order TALL

– Demi … 3 fl oz
– Short … 8 fl oz
– Tall … 12 fl oz
– Grande … 16 fl oz (Italian for “large”)
– Venti … 20 fl oz (Italian for “twenty”)
– Trenta … 30 fl oz (Italian for “thirty”)

Starbucks is a coffee company based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest coffeehouse company in the world and has over 19,000 stores. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening one new store every single day! Starbucks is named after the chief mate on the Pequod in the Herman Melville book “Moby Dick”.

71. Battle of Normandy town ST LO
Saint-Lô is a town in Normandy that was occupied by Germany in 1940. Saint-Lo stood at a strategic crossroads and so there was intense fighting there during the Normandy invasion of 1944. After a prolonged bombardment, very little of the town was left standing.

Down
1. Geometric art style DECO
Art deco is the name given to a style of design and architecture of the 1920s that actually had its roots in Belgium and then spread throughout Europe before arriving in North America. Celebrated examples of art deco architecture are the magnificent Chrysler Building in New York City completed in 1930, and the GE Building that sits in the middle of Rockefeller Center also in New York City, with the address of “30 Rock”.

3. Like the word “waitress,” briefly UN-PC
To be “un-PC” is to be politically incorrect, not be politically correct (PC).

4. Gummy bear ingredient GELATIN
Gelatin is a foodstuff that is used as a gelling agent in cooking. Over 800 million pounds of gelatin are produced every year worldwide. It is produced from by-products of the meat and leather industries. Gelatin is basically modified collagen derived from pork skins and the the bones of cattle, pigs and horses. So, vegans usually avoid things like gummy bears and marshmallows.

5. Susan of “L.A. Law” DEY
The actress Susan Dey first appeared on “The Partridge Family” when she was 17-years-old when she had no acting experience. Years later, Dey won a Golden Globe for playing the leading role of Grace Van Owen in “L. A. Law”.

“L.A. Law” ran on NBC from 1986 to 1994, and was one of the network’s most successful drama series. It took over from the equally successful “Hill Street Blues” in the Thursday night 10 p.m. slot until, after a six-year run, it was itself replaced by yet another respected drama, “E.R.” The opening credits showed that famous California licence plate. The plate was on a Jaguar XJ for most of the series, but moved onto a Bentley towards the end of the run. For each series the registration sticker was updated, so no laws were being broken.

7. Oven-safe brand PYREX
Pyrex glassware is brand name owned by Corning. As well as being used in bakeware and laboratory glassware, Pyrex is often the material of choice for optics in large telescopes used in astronomy.

8. Stand in a painting class EASEL
The word “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey” would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would carry its load.

9. East Lansing sch. MSU
Michigan State University (MSU) is located in East Lansing, Michigan. MSU has the largest study-abroad program of any single-campus university in the US. Programs are offered on all continents of the world, including Antarctica. MSU’s athletic teams are called the Spartans.

10. Nonreligious sort ATHEIST
The term “atheism”, meaning “disbelief in the existence of a god or gods”, comes from the Greek “atheos” meaning “without god”.

11. Mall directory words YOU ARE HERE
Not me, not very often, as rarely as possible …

13. Sings like Ella SCATS
Scat singing is a vocal improvisation found in the world of jazz. There aren’t any words as such in scat singing, just random nonsense syllables made up on the spot.

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, had a hard and tough upbringing. She was raised by her mother alone in Yonkers, New York. Her mother died while Ella was still a schoolgirl, and around that time the young girl became less interested in her education. She fell in with a bad crowd, even working as a lookout for a bordello and as a Mafia numbers runner. She ended up in reform school, from which she escaped, and found herself homeless and living on the streets for a while. Somehow Fitzgerald managed to get herself a spot singing in the Apollo Theater in Harlem. From there her career took off and as they say, the rest is history.

18. Shrunken Asian sea ARAL
The Aral Sea is a great example of how man can have a devastating effect on his environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet Union irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

22. Broadband initials DSL
The acronym “DSL” originally stood for Digital Subscriber Loop, but is now accepted to mean (Asymmetric) Digital Subscriber Line. DSL is the technology that allows Internet service be delivered down the same telephone line as voice service, by separating the two into different frequency signals.

25. Harry and __, “Home Alone” bad guys MARV
In the 1990 film “Home Alone”, the bad guys trying to get into the McCallister house were “the Wet Bandits”, Harry and Marv. Harry was played by Joe Pesci, and Marv by Daniel Stern.

“Home Alone” is a 1990 film starring Macaulay Culkin that has become a Christmas classic. Culkin was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe for his performance, the youngest actor ever to be so honored.

29. Fesses up COMES CLEAN
The term “fess” is most often seen as part of the phrasal verb “to fess up” meaning “to admit to something”. “Fess” is simply a shortened form of “confess”.

30. Document sealed by King John in 1215 MAGNA CARTA
The Magna Carta is a landmark document issued in England in 1215. It represents the first time that an English king (King John) had to submit to the will of his subjects, a group of barons who sought to limit the powers of the monarchy. In particular the Magna Carta calls out that no freeman could be punished except through the law of the land. And of course, the Magna Carta was an inspiration for the United States Constitution.

38. Boston NBAer CELT
The Boston Celtics NBA basketball team were founded just after WWII in 1946. The Celtics won eight league championships in a row from 1958 to 1966. That’s the longest consecutive championship winning streak of any professional sports team in North America.

40. Islamic prayer leader IMAM
An imam is a Muslim leader, often the person in charge of a mosque or perhaps a Muslim community.

50. Five-time Wimbledon champ Bjorn BORG
Bjorn Borg reacted very calmly under pressure on the tennis court, earning him the nicknames “Ice Man” and “Ice Borg”, which is my personal favorite.

52. Pause punctuation COMMA
Our word “comma” comes into English via Latin from the Greek “komma” meaning “clause in a sentence”.

53. Khartoum’s land SUDAN
Sudan was the largest country in Africa until 2011, when the Southern Sudan region opted by referendum to become independent. “North Sudan” retained the name of Sudan, and the new state is called South Sedan. Sudan is now the third largest country in the continent, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan, and is located at the point where the Blue Nile and White Nile meet.

60. Computer giant DELL
Dell, the computer manufacturer, is named after the company’s founder Michael Dell. Michael Dell started his company in his dorm room at college, shipping personal computers that were customized to the specific needs of his customers. He dropped out of school in order to focus on his growing business, a decision that I doubt he regrets. Michael Dell is now one of the richest people in the world.

61. Norway’s most populous city OSLO
Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city of Oslo burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.

63. NBC comedy staple SNL
NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

65. Some Bronx trains ELS
“Els” are elevated trains.

The New York City borough known as the Bronx takes its name from the Bronx River that runs through it. The river was named after Jonas Bronck, an early immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Bronck’s farm gave rise to the name “Broncksland” and “Bronck’s River”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Pharmacy purchase DRUG
5. Figure (out), slangily DOPE
9. Early Yucatán settlers MAYAS
14. German “a” EINE
15. Irish New Age singer ENYA
16. Bite-the-bullet type STOIC
17. 400 athletes? CD PLAYERS (CD = 400)
19. “Star Trek” lieutenant UHURA
20. Trophy prized by actors OSCAR
21. Watermelon eater’s discard SEED
23. Austin-to-Baton Rouge direction EAST
24. Flat hat with a pompom TAM
26. 40 polos? XL SHIRTS (XL = 40)
28. Football club based in Lombardy AC MILAN
32. Many a casino visitor LOSER
33. Bank offering LOAN
34. Kelly of morning TV RIPA
37. Moral code ETHIC
39. Texter’s “Horrors!” OMG
40. 4 tire inserts? IV TUBES (IV = 4)
42. Squeeze (out) EKE
43. Local news hr. TEN PM
45. Mix STIR
46. ESPN analyst Hershiser OREL
47. Wife of Abraham SARAH
49. Chatty gathering GABFEST
51. 600 stand-ups? DC COMICS (DC = 600)
54. Plea at sea, briefly SOS
55. “Sadly …” ALAS …
56. Pouty expression MOUE
58. Repetitive musical piece RONDO
62. ACC team with a turtle mascot TERPS
64. 1,500 thermometer units? MD DEGREES (MD = 1,500)
66. Gobbled up EATEN
67. Letter carrier’s sackful MAIL
68. Starbucks order TALL
69. Sound from an angry dog SNARL
70. Sugar bowl invaders ANTS
71. Battle of Normandy town ST LO

Down
1. Geometric art style DECO
2. Frees (of) RIDS
3. Like the word “waitress,” briefly UN-PC
4. Gummy bear ingredient GELATIN
5. Susan of “L.A. Law” DEY
6. Small bills ONES
7. Oven-safe brand PYREX
8. Stand in a painting class EASEL
9. East Lansing sch. MSU
10. Nonreligious sort ATHEIST
11. Mall directory words YOU ARE HERE
12. Bombing missions AIR STRIKES
13. Sings like Ella SCATS
18. Shrunken Asian sea ARAL
22. Broadband initials DSL
25. Harry and __, “Home Alone” bad guys MARV
27. Ground breakers HOES
28. Plenty A LOT
29. Fesses up COMES CLEAN
30. Document sealed by King John in 1215 MAGNA CARTA
31. Petty peeves NITS
35. Salt (away) PUT
36. “Not __ deal” A BIG
38. Boston NBAer CELT
40. Islamic prayer leader IMAM
41. Notable periods ERAS
44. Thrive PROSPER
46. In some respects OF SORTS
48. That guy HIM
50. Five-time Wimbledon champ Bjorn BORG
51. Goes out with DATES
52. Pause punctuation COMMA
53. Khartoum’s land SUDAN
57. Cut a line from, say EDIT
59. Well-kept NEAT
60. Computer giant DELL
61. Norway’s most populous city OSLO
63. NBC comedy staple SNL
65. Some Bronx trains ELS

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