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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Slowpoke in a “mobile home” : 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.

Back in the early 1800s, a “poke” was a device attached to domestic animals such as pigs or sheep to keep them from escaping their enclosures. The poke was like a yoke with a pole, and slowed the animal down, hence the term “slowpoke”.

14A What a diaper pail helps minimize : ODOR

A Diaper Genie is a container that accepts used diapers, seals them using a scented film, and holds them for disposal when the container is full. When the diapers are removed, they are enclosed in a string of film that some folks call a “diaper sausage”.

15A ___ bear (cuddly toy) : TEDDY

The stuffed toy known as a teddy bear was introduced in the early 1900s and was named for President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. The toy was inspired by a political cartoon that was drawn in 1902 showing President Roosevelt on a bear hunt and refusing to kill a black bear cub. That event is celebrated annually on September 9th as National Teddy Bear Day.

19A Ancient Peruvian society : INCA

The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. They developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Túpac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.

22A “Pumpkin eater” in a nursery rhyme : PETER

“Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater” is a nursery rhyme that has been around in the US at least since the early 1800s. It is possibly derived from an older English rhyme, but pumpkins certainly weren’t in the English version.

24A Needle-working craft : CROCHET

Crochet is a process of making a fabric using a hooked needle. “Crochet” is a French word meaning “hook”.

35A Chess game’s end : MATE

In the game of chess, when the king is under immediate threat of capture it is said to be “in check”. If the king cannot escape from check, then the game ends in “checkmate” and the player in check loses. In the original Sanskrit game of chess, the king could actually be captured. Then a rule was introduced requiring that a warning be given if capture was imminent (today we announce “check!”) so that an accidental and early ending to the game doesn’t occur.

36A Children’s author A.A. ___ : MILNE

Alan Alexander (A.A.) Milne was an English author who is best known for his delightful “Winnie-the-Pooh” series of books. He had only one son, Christopher Robin Milne, born in 1920. The young Milne was the inspiration for the Christopher Robin character in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Winnie-the-Pooh was named after Christopher Robin’s real teddy bear, one he called Winnie, who in turn was named after a Canadian black bear called Winnie that the Milnes would visit in London Zoo. The original Winnie teddy bear is on display at the main branch of the New York Public Library in New York.

39A ___ constrictor : BOA

Boa constrictors are members of the Boidae family of snakes, all of which are non-venomous. Interestingly, the female boa is always larger than the male.

41A Instrument on which reveille is played : BUGLE

A bugle is a simple brass instrument, one that usually has no valves with which a player can alter the pitch. The altering of pitch is achieved by changing the way that the lips interface with the mouthpiece. Bugles evolved from wind instruments made from animal horns. “Bugle” is an abbreviation for “buglehorn”, an earlier name for the same instrument. Indeed, the term “bugle” comes from the Latin “buculus” meaning “young ox, heifer”.

“Réveillé” is a trumpet call that is used to wake everyone up at sunrise. The term comes from “réveillez!”, the French imperative meaning “wake up!”

42A Series that may feature forensics experts : TRUE CRIME SHOW

Something described as forensic is connected with a court of law, or with public discussion or debate. The term comes from the Latin “forensis” meaning “of a forum, of a place of assembly”. We mainly use the word today to mean “pertaining to legal trials” as in “forensic medicine” and “forensic science”.

46A Ninja’s quality : STEALTH

The ninjas were around in Japan at the time of the samurai, but were a very different type of warrior. The ninjas were covert operatives, specializing in the use of stealth to accomplish their missions. As they were a secretive cadre they took on a mystical reputation with the public, who believed they had the ability to become invisible or perhaps walk on water. We now use the term “ninja” figuratively, to describe anyone highly skilled in a specific field.

48A ___ whiskey : MALT

Single malt whisky is made from malted barley and distilled at a single distillery. It is typically aged for at least three years in oak casks. Single malts are typically more expensive than blended whiskies, as they are made by a single distillery and are aged for a longer period of time.

49A Surgery that leaves the patient looking better? : LASIK

LASIK surgery uses a laser to reshape the cornea of the eye to improve vision. The LASIK acronym stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis”.

55A Donation at some Red Cross events : BLOOD

Prior to 1915, blood transfusions were carried out directly, from a vein of the donor into a vein of the recipient. All that changed pretty quickly when it was discovered that sodium citrate could be added to blood to stop it coagulating. Soon, it was clear that refrigerated blood treated with an anticoagulant could be stored, and blood “depots” were created in Britain during WWI. The term “blood bank” was first used in 1937, to describe the store of blood kept in the Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

Back in 1859, a Swiss businessman called Henri Dunant went to meet French emperor Napoleon III, to discuss making it easier to conduct commerce in French-occupied Algeria. The Emperor was billeted at Solferino, where France and Austria were engaged in a major battle. In one day, Dunant witnessed 40,000 soldiers die or get wounded on the battlefield without any organized medical care. Dunant abandoned his business agenda and instead spent a week caring for the sick and wounded. Within a few years he had founded the precursor to the Red Cross, and in 1901 he was awarded the first ever Nobel Peace Prize.

58A “The King” in soccer : PELE

“Pelé” was the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a soccer player who used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. For my money, Pelé was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He was the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and was a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pelé’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

61A Uno + dos : TRES

In Spanish, “tres” (three) is “uno y dos” (one plus two).

Down

2D Garfield’s perky-eared canine buddy : ODIE

Jon Arbuckle is a fictional character, and the owner of Odie from Jim Davis’s comic strip “Garfield”. Garfield is Arbuckle’s orange tabby cat. Odie is his less-than-smart beagle.

6D Cosmic cloud : NEBULA

In astronomical terms, a nebula is a cloud of dust and ionized gases (“nebula” is the Latin for “cloud”). Many nebulae form as gases collapse in on themselves under the influence of enormous gravitational forces. Ultimately these collapses can result in the creation of new stars.

8D Passports and driver’s licenses, for short : IDS

Identity document (ID)

9D Aid in making soap : LYE

Soap is basically made by adding a strong alkali (like lye) to a fat (like olive oil or palm oil). The fats break down in the basic solution in a process called saponification. The crude soap is extracted from the mixture, washed, purified and finished in molds.

22D Hawaiian seafood dish : POKE

Poke is a Native Hawaiian dish featuring diced raw fish. “Poke” is a Hawaiian word meaning “to slice”.

25D Demolish : RAZE

To raze (“rase” in British English) is to level to the ground. I’ve always thought it a little quirky that “raise”, a homophone of “raze”, means “build up”.

26D First two syllables of “I am what I am,” aptly : IAMB

An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The lines in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” use four sequential iambs, e.g. “Whose woods / these are / I think / I know”. With that sequence of four iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic tetrameter.

27D Farewell in Florence : CIAO

Florence is the capital city of the Tuscany region in Italy. The city is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, as it was a hub of artistic and intellectual activity. It attracted some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the era, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Galileo Galilei.

29D Back tooth : MOLAR

Molars are grinding teeth. The term “molar” comes from the Latin “mola” meaning “millstone”.

33D Guthrie who sang “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant” : ARLO

Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for singing protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m 34s. In the song Guthrie tells how, after being drafted, he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War based on his criminal record. He had only one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18 years old.

37D What a mosquito bite causes : ITCH

Skeeter syndrome is an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite. Such bites usually create an itchy bump on the skin, but the reaction of a person with skeeter syndrome is more severe, involving inflammation and perhaps fever.

40D Swoleness : BULK

“Swole” is an informal term meaning “very muscular”. Yeah, I hear that word all the time …

41D Taco ___ : BELL

Taco Bell was founded by a former US Marine Glen Bell. His first restaurant was Bell’s Drive-In, located in Southern California. After opening that first establishment, Bell bought up some more restaurants including four named El Taco. He sold off the El Taco restaurants but used the name in part when he opened his first Taco Bell in 1962. Bell then sold franchises, with the 100th Taco Bell opening in 1967. The ex-Marine sold off the whole chain to PepsiCo in 1978, and I am guessing he made a pretty penny. Taco Bell has been using the “Live Más” slogan since 2012, with “más” being the Spanish word for “more”.

51D Pavlov known for canine experiments : IVAN

Ivan Pavlov was studying gastric function in dogs in the 1890s when he observed that his subject dogs started to salivate before he even presented food to them. This “psychic secretion”, as he called it, interested him so much that he changed the direction of his research and studied the reactions of dogs to various stimuli that were associated with the presentation of food. Famously, he discovered that a dog could be conditioned to respond as though he was about to be fed, just by sensing some stimulus that he had come to associate with food. This might be a bell ringing, an electric shock (poor dog!) or perhaps the waving of a hand. Nowadays we might describe someone as “Pavlov’s Dog” if that person responds just the way he/she has been conditioned to respond, rather than applying critical thinking.

52D Roman emperor who competed in the Olympics (and “won” every event he was in) : NERO

Nero was Emperor of Rome from 54 to 68 CE, and towards the end of his reign participated in the Olympic Games in the year 67. The Roman leader raced in a ten-horse chariot, of which he lost control and nearly perished after being thrown from the vehicle. Acting and singing were Olympic events back then, and Nero also took part in those competitions. By all accounts, Nero performed badly in every event in which he vied, and yet somehow still managed to win Olympic crowns that he paraded around Rome on his return from Greece. Just before he died, Nero reportedly declared, “What an artist the world is losing in me!”

55D Snookums : BAE

“Snookums”, the term of endearment, comes from the family name “Snooks”. Snooks was a name used in Britain in the 1800s for some hypothetical, unknown individual (as we would use the name “Joe Blow” today).

56D Alternative to JFK and EWR : LGA

The three big airports serving New York City (NYC) are John F. Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR).