Day: February 10, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
6. “Boyhood” actor Ethan HAWKE
Ethan Hawke is a Hollywood actor who made his breakthrough in a supporting role in “Dead Poet’s Society”, playing opposite Robin Williams. Hawke was married to Uma Thurman, with whom he has two children.

“Boyhood” sounds like an interesting 2014 film about the coming-of-age of a young boy and his older sister. The film was actually shot over an 11-year period, so that the actors were seen to be growing up at the same time as the characters that they were playing. The critics loved this movie.

14. Emancipation Proclamation subject SLAVE
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 during the Civil War. The order freed slaves in Confederate territory, but did not apply to the five slave states that were not in rebellion. Slavery became illegal in the whole of the United States in December 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified.

15. Tale of Achilles and Agamemnon ILIAD
“Iliad” is an epic poem by the Greek poet Homer, which tells the story of the siege of Ilium (also known as Troy) during the Trojan war.

Achilles is a Greek mythological figure, the main protagonist of Homer’s “Iliad”. Supposedly when Achilles was born his mother attempted to make him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx. As he was held by the heel as he was immersed, this became the only vulnerable point on his body. Years later he was killed when a poisoned arrow struck him in the heel. The arrow was shot by Paris.

Agamemnon was a figure in Greek mythology, the husband of Helen. When Helen ran off with Paris to Troy, Agamemnon led the united Greek forces in the resulting Trojan War.

26. Pen points NIBS
“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning the beak of a bird. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” meaning the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

29. They may be run at bars TABS
When we “run a tab” at a bar say, we are “running a tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

31. AT&T, briefly TELCO
A “telco” is a “telecommunications company”.

The original AT&T Corporation was known as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

33. Nebraska tribe OTOE
The Otoe (also Oto) Native American tribe originated in the Great Lakes region as part of the Winnebago or Siouan tribes. The group that would become the Otoe broke away from the Winnebago and migrated southwestwards ending up in the Great Plains. In the plains the Otoe adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle dependent on the horse, with the American bison becoming central to their diet.

34. Biblical beast ASS
The ass or donkey is mentioned several times in the Bible. One of the most-quoted biblical stories involving an ass is the story of Balaam. Balaam was a diviner who appears in the Book of Numbers in. In one account, Balaam is held to task by an angel for particularly cruel treatment of an ass.

36. Waikiki’s island OAHU
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, home to the famous Waikiki Beach. The name “Waikiki” means “spouting fresh water” in Hawaiian.

38. Aegean island IOS
The Cyclades are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea lying southeast of the Greek mainland. There are about 200 islands in the group, almost all of which are the peaks of a submerged mountain range. Ios is one of the larger islands, 11 miles long and 6 miles wide.

43. 14-time NBA All-Star Duncan TIM
Tim Duncan is professional basketball player from La Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Duncan was a natural swimmer with his eyes on the 1992 Olympic Games. He was forced to turn his attention to basketball when Hurricane Hugo destroyed St. Croix’s only Olympic-sized pool in 1989.

45. Anthem contraction O’ER
The words “o’er the ramparts we watched” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key.

The lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were written first as a poem by Francis Scott Key, inspired by the bombarding by the British of the American forces at Fort McHenry that he witnessed during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The words were then set to the tune of a popular British drinking song penned by John Stafford Smith called “The Anacreontic Song”, with the Anacreontic Society being a men’s club in London.

46. Indian princess 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.

48. Rainbow maker PRISM
When light passes through a prism, it is split up (“disperses”) into differing wavelengths. It then becomes clear that white light is actually a mixture of different colors, which show up as beautiful spectra.

55. Boy with a dragon, in a Disney classic PETE
“Pete’s Dragon” is a Walt Disney feature film released in 1977. It’s all about an orphan named Pete who has a dragon named Elliott as a friend.

56. Wine region near San Francisco NAPA
The first commercial winery in Napa Valley, California was established way back in 1858. However, premium wine production only dates back to the 1960s, with the region really hitting the big time after its success at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. The story of that famous blind wine tasting is told in the entertaining 2008 film “Bottle Shock”.

57. Part of USSR SOVIET
The former Soviet Union (USSR) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and was comprised of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

60. Louis XVI, for one ROI
“Roi” is the French word for “king”.

Louis XVI ruled France from 1774 to 1792. It was Louis XVI who was married to Marie Antoinette, and who died at the guillotine during the French Revolution.

62. Resistance measure OHM
The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every school kid knows as Ohm’s Law.

63. “Game of Thrones” airer HBO
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is a fantasy television drama that was adapted from a series of novels by George R. R. Martin called “A Song of Ice and Fire”. “Game of Thrones” is actually made in a studio in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

68. Spot for a Bluetooth headset EAR
Bluetooth is a standard for wireless technology that was introduced by Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson in 1994. The name was chosen in honor of Harald Bluetooth, a medieval King of Denmark and Norway. Harald is said to have earned his name because of his love of blueberries, which stained his teeth. Harald was said to have a gift for convincing diverse factions to talk to one another, so Ericsson’s communication protocol was given Harald’s name.

69. United Arab Emirates city DUBAI
Dubai is one of the seven Emirates that make up the federation known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two largest members of the UAE (geographically) are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the only two of the seven members that have veto power over UAE policy. The city of Dubai is the most expensive city in the Middle East, with the 2014 price of hotel rooms being second-highest in the world, behind Geneva in Switzerland.

70. Cat-__-tails O’ NINE
The cat o’ nine tails was a vicious instrument of punishment, particularly popular in the Royal Navy. The “cat” was made up on nine cord thongs and at the end of each thong was a knot. The specialty knot was aptly called a blood knot, and was designed to bite into the skin and draw blood. It was these “claws” at the end of the thongs, along with the nine “tails” that gave the name to the whip, the “cat o’ nine tails”.

71. Dr. of rap DRE
Dr. Dre is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is known for his own singing career as well as for producing records and starting the careers of others such Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

73. Modern surgical tool LASER
The term “laser” is an acronym, coming from “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” (LASER). It has been pointed out that a more precise name for laser technology is “Light Oscillation by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”, but the resulting acronym isn’t quite so appealing, namely LOSER …

Down
2. DVD alternative BLU-RAY
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.

4. Actress Gabor EVA
Eva Gabor was the youngest of the Gabor sisters, all three of whom were celebrated Hollywood actresses and socialites (her siblings were Zsa-Zsa and Magda). The Gabor sisters were born in Budapest and immigrated to the United States separately, with Eva being the first to arrive. Eva broke into movies, but her most famous role was on the TV sitcom “Green Acres” in which she played the lovely character Lisa Douglas opposite Eddie Albert. One of Eva’s claims to fame is the unwitting promotion of the game called “Twister”, the sales of which were languishing in 1996. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” she got on all fours and played the game with Johnny Carson. Sales took off immediately, and Twister became a huge hit.

5. Bit of progress DENT
A “dent” is a noticeable impact, often a reduction. For example, my kids made in a dent in my retirement savings account …

6. Many a Woodstock attendee HIPPIE
1969’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair was held on a dairy farm located 43 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York. 400,000 young people attended, and saw 32 bands and singers perform over three days.

7. In the style of A LA
The phrase “in the style of” can be translated as “alla” in Italian and “à la” in French.

8. Ill. neighbor WIS
Wisconsin is named for the Wisconsin River, the longest river in the state. The famous missionary Father Jacques Marquette recorded the Algonquian name for the river as “Meskousing”. This was modified by French explorers to “Ouisconsin”, with the first syllable pronounced just like the French word for “yes” … “oui’. In the early 1800s this was anglicized to “Wisconsin”.

9. Prince William’s wife KATE
Kate Middleton is the wife of Prince William of the UK. Middleton is what one might call a commoner, born to parents who had worked together as flight attendants before becoming quite wealthy running their own mail-order business. As is so often the case in Britain, Kate’s ancestry can be traced back far enough to show that she and William do have common ancestors, dating back to the 1500s on her mother’s side and to the 1400s on her father’s side.

10. Genesis garden EDEN
According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve lived in a garden “in” Eden, with Eden being geographically located by reference to four rivers including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Some scholars hypothesize that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, which encompasses much of modern-day Iraq.

11. Like Verdi’s most famous works OPERATIC
Giuseppe Verdi was an Italian composer mainly of operas who was active during the Romantic era. Equally as famous as Verdi’s operas, are arias from those operas such as “La donna è mobile” from “Rigoletto”, “The Drinking Song” from “La Traviata” and “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from “Nabucco”.

12. Subject of the 2010 film “The Social Network” FACEBOOK
If you’ve seen the 2010 movie “The Social Network”, you’ll know about the turmoil that surrounded the launch of the website Facebook. The company’s co-founders are Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). The way things are portrayed in the movie, Saverin was poorly treated by Zuckerberg after the “sharks” moved in, i.e. the professional investors. Supposedly Saverin’s stock position in the company was diluted “without his knowledge” from 34% to about 5%, to the benefit of the remaining investors.

23. __-Aztecan: language family UTO
The Uto-Aztecan language family consists of about 30 languages spoken in the Western United States and Mexico. Included in the list of Uto-Aztecan languages is Ute, Comanche and Hopi.

25. Actor Morales ESAI
Esai Morales is best known for his role in the 1987 movie “La Bamba”, which depicted the life of Ritchie Valens and his half-brother Bob Morales (played by Esai).

27. Dagwood’s wife BLONDIE
“Blondie” was created as a comic strip by Chic Young. It was first published in 1930, and is still being created today (although the strip is now controlled by Chic’s son, Dean). The strip spawned a series of radio programs (1939-1950) and a series of Blondie films (1938-1950). Blondie is married to Dagwood Bumstead. Dagwood slaves away at a construction company run by Julius Dithers, whose wife is called Cora. Another famous character in the strip is Elmo Tuttle, a pesky neighborhood kid who is always bugging Dagwood.

28. Big bunch SCAD
The origin of the word “scads”, meaning “lots and lots”, is unclear, although back in the mid-1800s “scads” was used to mean “dollars”.

35. NBC show with skits SNL
“Saturday Night Live” (SNL)

39. Place for cocktails and music PIANO BAR
Our word “cocktail” first appeared in the early 1800s. The exact origin of the term is not clear, but it is thought to be a corruption of the French word “coquetier” meaning “egg cup”, a container that was used at that time for serving mixed drinks.

40. Hardly a picky eater? OMNIVORE
The term “omnivore” comes from Latin, meaning “one who devours all”. That would be me …

41. 50+ org. AARP
AARP is now the official name for the interest group that used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons. The name change reflects the current focus of the group on all Americans aged 50 or over, as opposed to just people who have retired.

42. Waffle maker IRON
You can’t get a Belgian waffle in Belgium, and the nearest thing is probably a Brussels waffle. Brussels waffles were introduced to the world in 1958, and arrived in the US in 1962 at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle. The name “Brussels” was changed to “Bel-Gem” for the US market, which evolved into “Belgian”.

43. Vandalized TRASHED
A “vandal” is someone who destroys some beautiful or valuable. The term comes from the Germanic tribe called the Vandals who sacked Rome in the year 455. Our contemporary term “vandalism” was coined by Henri Grégoire in 1794, when he was describing the destruction of artwork during the French Revolution.

51. New Zealand natives MAORIS
The Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. The Māori are eastern Polynesian in origin and began arriving in New Zealand relatively recently, starting sometime in the late 13th century. The word “māori” simply means “normal”, distinguishing the mortal human being from spiritual entities.

52. Samsung Galaxy competitor IPHONE
Apple started development of the iPhone in 2004 in collaboration with Cingular Wireless (now AT&T Mobility). The confidential program was given the name “Project Purple”, and took thirty months to complete at a cost of about $150 million. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 at the Macworld convention in San Francisco.

The Galaxy is a series of mobile computing devices made by Samsung that was introduced in 2009.

59. T, on a test TRUE
An answer (ans.) to a test question might be true (T) or false (F).

65. Lawyer’s gp. ABA
American Bar Association(ABA)

66. Long-snouted fish GAR
The fish known as a gar is very unusual in that it is often found in very brackish water. What is interesting about gar is that their swim bladders are vascularized so that they can actually function as lungs. Many species of gar can actually be seen coming to the surface and taking a gulp of air. This adaptation makes it possible for them to live in conditions highly unsuitable for other fish that rely on their gills to get oxygen out of the water. Indeed, quite interesting …

67. “CSI” evidence DNA
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the DNA of living things is so very similar across different species. Human DNA is almost exactly the same for every individual (to the degree of 99.9%). However, those small differences are sufficient to distinguish one individual from another, and to determine whether or not individuals are close family relations.

Apparently, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” is the most-watched television show worldwide.

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Waned EBBED
6. “Boyhood” actor Ethan HAWKE
11. Taking a personal day, say OFF
14. Emancipation Proclamation subject SLAVE
15. Tale of Achilles and Agamemnon ILIAD
16. Bro PAL
17. Computer user’s combination CUT AND PASTE
19. Green prefix ECO-
20. Gallery display ART
21. Pinnacle TOP
22. Accustoms (to) ENURES
24. Wan PALE
26. Pen points NIBS
29. They may be run at bars TABS
30. What potatoes and needles both have EYES
31. AT&T, briefly TELCO
33. Nebraska tribe OTOE
34. Biblical beast ASS
36. Waikiki’s island OAHU
38. Aegean island IOS
39. Computer user’s combination POINT AND CLICK
43. 14-time NBA All-Star Duncan TIM
44. Washing machine filler LOAD
45. Anthem contraction O’ER
46. Indian princess RANI
48. Rainbow maker PRISM
50. Leave out OMIT
54. Have __: be connected AN IN
55. Boy with a dragon, in a Disney classic PETE
56. Wine region near San Francisco NAPA
57. Part of USSR SOVIET
60. Louis XVI, for one ROI
62. Resistance measure OHM
63. “Game of Thrones” airer HBO
64. Computer user’s combination DRAG AND DROP
68. Spot for a Bluetooth headset EAR
69. United Arab Emirates city DUBAI
70. Cat-__-tails O’ NINE
71. Dr. of rap DRE
72. Pine (for) YEARN
73. Modern surgical tool LASER

Down
1. Get away from it all ESCAPE
2. DVD alternative BLU-RAY
3. War movie scene BATTLE
4. Actress Gabor EVA
5. Bit of progress DENT
6. Many a Woodstock attendee HIPPIE
7. In the style of A LA
8. Ill. neighbor WIS
9. Prince William’s wife KATE
10. Genesis garden EDEN
11. Like Verdi’s most famous works OPERATIC
12. Subject of the 2010 film “The Social Network” FACEBOOK
13. Follows dental advice FLOSSES
18. “Please continue” DON’T STOP
23. __-Aztecan: language family UTO
25. Actor Morales ESAI
27. Dagwood’s wife BLONDIE
28. Big bunch SCAD
32. “Give me a break!” OH, COME ON!
35. NBC show with skits SNL
37. Suffix with glob -ULE
39. Place for cocktails and music PIANO BAR
40. Hardly a picky eater? OMNIVORE
41. 50+ org. AARP
42. Waffle maker IRON
43. Vandalized TRASHED
47. Pasta suffix -INI
49. Muscle injury STRAIN
51. New Zealand natives MAORIS
52. Samsung Galaxy competitor IPHONE
53. Mess (with), as a lock TAMPER
58. Whirlpool EDDY
59. T, on a test TRUE
61. Fan mail recipient IDOL
65. Lawyer’s gp. ABA
66. Long-snouted fish GAR
67. “CSI” evidence DNA

Return to top of page