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Constructed by: Hoang-Kim Vu

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Words of Support

Themed answers are all WORDS OF SUPPORT from something/someone cited in the corresponding clues:

• 17A Words of support from an abacus? : YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
• 29A Words of support from a rideshare driver? : I’M HERE FOR YOU
• 45A Words of support from a crossbody bag? : I’M ON YOUR SIDE
• 57A Words of support from a broken elevator? : I WON’T LET YOU DOWN

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

Bill’s time: 7m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4A Piece of cake : CINCH

The term “cinch” was absorbed into American English from Spanish in the mid-1800s, when it was used to mean a “saddle-girth”. “Cincha” is the Spanish word for “girdle”. In the late 1800s, “cinch” came to mean a ‘sure thing”, in the sense that a saddle-girth can provide a “sure hold”.

9A Granny Smith, for one : APPLE

The Granny Smith apple originated in Australia, a chance propagation by Maria Ann Smith in 1868. Ms. Smith was in her late sixties at the time, so the new cultivar of apple was called a Granny Smith. We’ve only been eating Granny Smiths in the US since 1972.

17A Words of support from an abacus? : YOU CAN COUNT ON ME

The abacus (plural “abaci”) was used as a counting frame long before man had invented a numbering system. It is a remarkable invention, particularly when one notes that abaci are still widely used today across Africa and Asia.

21A Epitome of slowness : SNAIL

Snails and slugs are referred to collectively as gastropods. There are many, many species of gastropods, found both on land and in the sea. Gastropods with shells are generally described as snails, and those species without shells are referred to as slugs.

22A Six years for a U.S. Senator, e.g. : TERM

The six-year terms enjoyed by US senators are staggered, so that every two years about one third of the 100 US Senate seats come up for reelection.

23A __ Arabia : SAUDI

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East, one of the the world’s largest oil producers, and home to some of the world’s largest oil reserves. The Saudi dynasty started in central Arabia in 1744 when the secular leader Muhammad ibn Saud joined forces with the Islamic scholar and Imam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. At the time, Saud was a ruler of a town near Riyadh and he was determined to bring “true” Islam to the Arabian peninsula. Since 1744 the fortunes of the Saud family have risen and fallen, but it is that same family who rules what we know today as Saudi Arabia.

32A Santa __, California : ANA

Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city.

35A Used a pair of sculls, say : OARED

A scull is a boat used for competitive rowing. The main hull of the boat is often referred to as a shell. Crew members who row the boat can be referred to as “oars”. And, a scull is also an oar mounted on the stern of a small boat. It’s all very confusing …

36A Chutzpah : NERVE

Our word “chutzpah” meaning “nerve, gall, impudence” is derived from the Yiddish “khutspe”, which has the same meaning.

37A Out that gets a runner home, for short : SAC FLY

That would be a sac(rifice) fly, in baseball.

40A Invoice amount : TOTAL

An invoice is an itemized bill. The term “invoice” comes from the Middle French “envois” meaning “dispatch (of goods)”. The root verb is “envoyer”, which translates as “to send”.

44A Sault __ Marie : STE

“Sault Ste. Marie” is the name of two cities on either side of the Canada-US border, one in Ontario and the other in Michigan. The two cities were originally one settlement in the 17th century, established by Jesuit Missionaries. The missionaries gave the settlement the name “Sault Sainte Marie”, which can be translated as “Saint Mary’s Falls”. The city was one community until 1817, when a US-UK Joint Boundary Commission set the border along the St. Mary’s River.

49A Madrid museum : PRADO

The Museo del Prado is in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and has one of the finest art collections in the world. The gallery’s most famous work is “Las Meninas” by Velázquez. The museum takes its name, which translates to “meadow” in Spanish, from the tree-lined boulevard Paseo del Prado where it is located.

56A Prefix with -lithic : PALEO-

The prefix “paleo-” means “prehistoric, primitive”. It comes from the Greek word “palaios” which means “old, ancient”. The prefix “neo-” would be the opposite, meaning “new, recent”.

64A Tasseled hat that shares a name with a Moroccan city : FEZ

A fez is a red, cylindrical hat worn mainly in North Africa, and by Shriners here in the US. The fez used to be a very popular hat across the Ottoman Empire. The etymology of “fez” is unclear, although it may have something to do with the Moroccan city named Fez.

Fes (sometimes “Fez”) is the second-largest city in Morocco. Fes is home to the Fes el Bali quarter, a walled part of the city that is thought to be the largest car-free urban area in the world. Fes also gave its name to the red felt hat called a “fez”.

Down

4D Pros who are busy in Apr. : CPAS

April 15th wasn’t always Tax Day in the US. The deadline for returns was March 1st from 1913-18, when it was moved to March 15th. Tax Day has been April 15th since 1955.

5D Actor McKellen : IAN

Sir Ian McKellen is a marvelous English actor, one who is comfortable playing anything from Macbeth on stage to Magneto in an “X-Men” movie. On the big screen, McKellen is very famous for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings”. In the UK, Sir Ian is noted for being at the forefront of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, a role he has enthusiastically embraced since the eighties.

6D “SNL” TV network : NBC

Radio manufacturer RCA founded NBC in 1926 simply to create content that would drive sales of their hardware. RCA originally operated two networks, the entertainment-focused NBC Red and the news-focused NBC Blue, but were forced by regulators to sell off the Blue network in 1943, which was then renamed ABC.

11D Dominate, in gaming slang : PWN

“To pwn” is online gamer-speak for “to own, defeat easily”. It’s likely that “pwn” evolved from “own” as it is a common typo caused by the close proximity of the o- and p-keys on a computer keyboard. “Pwn” is pronounced like “pone”.

12D Go on the __: get out of town : LAM

To be on the lam is to be in flight, to have escaped from prison. “On the lam” is American slang that originated at the end of the 19th century. The word “lam” also means “beat” or “thrash”, as in “lambaste”. So “on the lam” might derive from the phrase “to beat it, scram”.

13D Organ with a retina : EYE

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cells in the retina that are sensitive to light, namely rods and cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

18D Top that’s useful in layering, for short : CAMI

A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undershirt worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English that ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

19D Innocent one : NAIF

A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

23D Mitchell of “Pretty Little Liars” : SHAY

Actress Shay Mitchell first gained widespread recognition starring as Emily Fields in the hit teen drama series “Pretty Little Liars”. Before landing her breakout role, she worked internationally as a model in cities like Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Barcelona

“Pretty Little Liars” is a mystery drama TV series aimed at teens. It is based on a series of novels penned by Sara Shepard. The original show spawned a whole franchise of TV series, including “Pretty Dirty Secrets”, “Ravenswood”, “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists” and “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin”.

24D __ Lingus: Irish carrier : AER

Aer Lingus is my favorite airline! Well, the service isn’t that great, but when I get on board an Aer Lingus plane I feel like I am back in Ireland. Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland, with “Aer Lingus” being a phonetic spelling of the Irish “aer-loingeas” meaning “air fleet”. These days Aer Lingus can only lay claim to the title of Ireland’s oldest airline as it is no longer the biggest. That honor goes to the controversial budget airline Ryanair.

26D “Turn! Turn! Turn!” band, with “The” : BYRDS

The Byrds were a rock band that formed in Los Angeles in 1964. The band’s most successful songs were cover versions of earlier hits i.e. “Mr. Tambourine Man” (Bob Dylan) and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (Pete Seeger).

There aren’t many pop hits that have lyrics taken almost entirely from the Bible. Pete Seeger took some words from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and set them to music in 1959, using the title “To Everything There Is a Season”. He recorded the song in 1962 for one of his albums. It wasn’t until it was recorded by the Byrds as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” that the song climbed the charts. It’s a nice contemplative song, I always think …

28D Fuzzy fabric : SUEDE

Suede is leather made from the underside of an animal’s skin, usually the skin from a lamb. As such it is very soft, although not as durable as leather made from the exterior skin. The soft leather was, and is still used for making gloves. Back in 1859 these gloves were called “gants de Suede” in France, or “gloves of Sweden”. So, the name “suede” comes from the French word for Sweden.

30D “Pretty in Pink” star Ringwald : MOLLY

Actress Molly Ringwald is best known for her roles in 1980s teen films. She rose to fame through her collaborations with director John Hughes, starring in classics like “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” and “Pretty in Pink.” Ringwald is fluent in French, and moved to Paris in the mid-1990s. There, she starred in several French movies, and was married to French author Valéry Lameignère from 1999 to 2002.

33D Two-time Australian Open winner Osaka : NAOMI

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

38D Burlesque performance : FAN DANCE

The fan dance performed using ostrich feathers was popularized by burlesque star Sally Rand. “Sally Rand” was a stage name used by Helen Beck. The Rand name was given to her by film director Cecil B. DeMille, inspired by the Rand McNally road atlas. Rand’s most famous performance was at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. While performing at the Fair she was arrested four times for public nudity, even though the nudity was only an illusion as Rand was in fact wearing a bodysuit at the time.

The word “burlesque” came into English from French, although the word is rooted in the Italian “burla”, the word for a joke, or mockery. A burlesque is a work of literature, drama or music that is intended to amuse and cause laughter. Burlesques in the US took on a variety show format and were popular in the US from the 1860s. Over time, the variety acts started to include female striptease, and the term “burlesque” has come to be mainly associated with such entertainment. The derivative verb “to burlesque” means “to imitate mockingly”.

39D Spirit : BRIO

“Brio” is borrowed from Italian, in which language the term means “vigor and vivacity”. “Con brio” is a musical direction often found on a score, instructing the musicians to play “with energy, vigor”.

41D Inexplicably weird : SURREAL

The cultural movement known as Surrealism emerged in the 1920s, and grew out of the Dada activities that were a response to WWI. The term “surrealist” was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire, when he used it in the preface of his play “Les Mamelles de Tirésias”.

43D Amer. capital : USD

The US dollar (USD) became the nation’s official currency in 1785. However, it took the Coinage Act of 1792 to tie the USD to the precise value of pure silver and gold, and formally establish a decimal currency.

53D __ scheme : PONZI

Charles Ponzi was born in Lugo, Italy in 1882 and arrived in the US in 1903, flat broke having gambled away all his money on the voyage to Boston. Ponzi devised a scheme to buy what were known as “international reply coupons” through friends in Italy, which he had sent to him in the US so that he could redeem them on this side of the Atlantic. As the value in the US was greater than that in Italy, he could make a handsome profit. This was in itself a legal transaction, buying an asset in one market at a low price, then immediately selling it in another market at a higher price. But it’s what he did next that became known as a Ponzi Scheme. He couldn’t redeem his coupons quickly enough due to red tape so he approached other investors, initially friends, and had them give him cash so that he could buy more coupons in Italy. He promised the investors he would double their money, which they did initially. Many people wanted to get in on the scheme seeing that Ponzi was able to make the new investors a profit and double the money of the original investors. Eventually, somebody did the math and word started to get out that the investment was risky, so the number of new investors started to fall. Without sufficient new investors Ponzi couldn’t double the money of his latest investors, and the whole scheme unraveled.