Day: August 22, 2013

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
12. “How to Marry a Millionaire” actress : BACALL
What a bombshell Lauren Bacall was, with that husky voice and her quiet, suggestive manner. Bacall was born in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents from Europe. She is actually a first cousin of Shimon Peres, the President of Israel and former Prime Minister.

The 1953 romantic comedy “How to Marry a Millionaire” is a story about three “gold-diggers”, three women out to marry into money. The three female leads are played by Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, an impressive line-up. “How to Marry a Millionaire” was the first film to be shot in CinemaScope, the wide-screen format.

16. Police dept. broadcast : APB
An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

17. Suspended avian home : ORIOLE’S NEST
An oriole’s nest is a woven, cup-like structure that is suspended from a branch like a hammock.

18. While, in brief : THO’
Though (tho’)

19. Campaign pro : POL
Politician (pol.)

20. Bamboozled : AT SEA
It’s thought that the lovely word “bamboozle” came into English from the Scottish “bombaze” meaning “perplex”. We’ve been using “bamboozle” since the very early 1700s.

21. ___ de Guerre (French military award) : CROIX
The “Croix de Guerre” is a French military award, the name of which translates literally into “Cross of War”. The award was created in 1915.

25. Superior home?: Abbr. : 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”.

Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by area. The lake was referred to by the first French explorers as “le lac supérieur”, which translates literally as “the upper lake”. The British anglicized the name to “Lake Superior”.

26. Actors James and Scott : CAANS
James Caan is an actor from the Bronx in New York City. Caan is noted for his appearances in some very big movies such as “The Godfather”, “Misery”, “A Bridge Too Far”, “Rollerball” and more recently “Elf”. Caan is quite the sportsman. He plays golf with an 8 handicap, and is a 6-Dan Black Belt Master of Gosoku Karate.

Scott Caan is the actor playing “Danno” on the remake of “Hawaii Five-0”. Scott is the son of Hollywood actor James Caan.

29. Web opening : HTTP
“http” are the first letters in most Internet link addresses. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.

30. Deterrent to swimming : ALGAE
Algae are similar to terrestrial plants in that they use photosynthesis to create sugars from light and carbon dioxide, but they differ in that they have simpler anatomies, and for example lack roots.

33. Three-time N.H.L. M.V.P. : ORR
Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …

43. Sea urchin delicacy : ROE
Sea urchins are globular, spiny creatures found just about everywhere in the ocean. The “roe” of a sea urchin is eaten as a delicacy in several cuisines around the world. The term “roe” normally means “fish eggs”, but in the case of the sea urchin it refers to the gonads of both the male and female.

47. Dimwit : DODO
A dodo is a foolish person, and dodo is word that comes into English from the Portuguese “doudo”. “Doudo” was a slang term used by Portuguese sailors for the extinct bird that we now know as the dodo.

49. Lhasa ___ : APSOS
The Lhasa apso breed of dog originated in Tibet and is named after Lhasa (the capital city) and apso (a Tibetan word meaning “bearded”). The Lhasa apso has been around since 800 BC and is one of the oldest breeds in the world, one very closely related to the ancestral wolf.

52. Biltmore Estate state: Abbr. : N CAR
Biltmore House is a magnificent mansion located near Asheville, North Carolina. It was built by the George Washington Vanderbilt II in the late 1800s. Biltmore is still privately owned, and is the largest privately owned residence in the whole country. The house is now open to the public. My wife and I wanted to visit the estate not too long ago but, to be honest, we decided against it as we found the entrance fee a little steep ($69 per person for a self-guided tour).

56. Pooch, in Paris : CHIEN
“Chien” is the French word for “dog”.

59. “Ti ___” (Italian lover’s declaration) : AMO
In Italian, “one who is in love” (un innamorato) might say “I love you” (ti amo).

60. Owner of Moviefone : AOL
Moviefone is a movie listing service, available by telephone in many parts of the country.

61. Site of W.W. II’s first amphibious landing : GUADALCANAL
Guadalcanal is the largest island in the Solomon Islands in the South-Western Pacific. The island is named after Guadalcanal, a village in Andalusia, Spain which was the home of the explorer who discovered it.

64. Number of colori on the Italian flag : TRE
The Italian flag has three (tri) colors (colori), green white and red.

The Italian tricolor is made up of three vertical blocks of green, white and red. The three colors have been said to signify many different things. One interpretation is that the green represents the country’s plains and hills, the white represents the snowy Alps and the red represents blood spilt in the Wars of Italian Independence.

65. Commercial figure holding six beer mugs : ST PAULI GIRL
St. Pauli Girl beer is brewed in Bremen in Germany. The beer gets its name from the former St. Paul’s Monastery in Bremen, next door to which was located the original brewery.

66. Singer known as La Divina : CALLAS
Although Maria Callas was born in New York City, she was educated in music in Greece, and launched her career in Italy. Her marvelous performances earned her the nickname “La Davina”, and she was described by Leonard Bernstein as “the Bible of opera …”

Down
1. Homer’s Muse : CALLIOPE
In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

– Calliope (epic poetry)
– Clio (history)
– Erato (lyric poetry)
– Euterpe (music)
– Melpomene (tragedy)
– Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
– Terpsichore (dance)
– Thalia (comedy)
– Urania (astronomy)

Homer was a famous poet of Ancient Greece, believed to be the author of the two classic epic poems, the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey”. However, some scholars believe that Homer did not actually exist, but rather he is the personification of oral tradition that was passed down through the ages.

2. Discombobulate : THROW
To discombobulate is to faze, disconcert, to confuse.

3. Two-time Olympic running gold medalist ___ Gebrselassie : HAILE
Haile Gebrselassie is a very, very successful long-distance runner from Ethiopia. Among the impressive list of world-record achievements, Gebrselassie won the Boston Marathon four times in a row.

4. Bolivian president Morales : EVO
Evo Morales has been President of Bolivia since 2006. Morales has a socialist agenda, and as such his government is a close ally to the regimes of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba.

5. Place ___ Concorde : DE LA
The “Place de la Concorde” is the largest square in the French capital of Paris, and lies at the eastern end of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The square was built in 1755 and was originally called “Place Louis XV” after the king at the time. It was renamed “Place de la Révolution” during the French Revolution, and was the place where King Louis XVI and many others were guillotined. The name “Place de la Concorde” was adopted soon after the French Revolution.

7. It may be full of dirt : GOSSIP
Our word “gossip” comes from the Old English “godsibb” meaning “godparent”. The term was then used for women friends who attended a birth, and then for anyone engaging in idle talk.

8. Math ratios : SINES
The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. Each of these is a ratio, a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The reciprocal of these three functions are secant, cosecant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent.

9. Ancient theaters : ODEA
In Ancient Greece an odeon (also odeum) was like a small theater, with “odeon” literally meaning a “building for musical competition”. Odea were used in both Greece and Rome for entertainments such as musical shows and poetry readings.

10. Moroccan city known as the Athens of Africa : FES
Fes (sometimes “Fez”) is the third 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 is also gave the name to the red felt hat called a Fez.

13. Black fly, e.g. : APHIS
What we commonly call aphids belong to the genus “aphis”.

22. Rogue : RAPSCALLION
We might call a little imp a rapscallion, an evolution from “rascallion”, which in turn comes from “rascal”.

24. German wine made from fully ripe grapes : SPATLESE
Spätlese is a type of wine made from fully ripe grapes, and so is a late harvest wine. The term “Spätlese” translates from German as “late harvest”.

26. PC key : CTRL
The control key (Ctrl.)

29. Much of central Eur., once : HRE
The Holy Roman Empire (HRE) existed from 962 to 1806 AD and was a territory of varying size over the centuries that centered on the Kingdom of Germany. The HRE was a successor to the western half of the Ancient Roman Empire.

31. Head overseas : LOO
When I was growing up in Ireland, a “bathroom” was a room that had a bath and no toilet. The separate room with the commode was called “the toilet” or sometimes the W.C. (the water closet). Apparently the term closet was used because in the 1800s when homeowners started installing toilets indoors they often displaced clothes and linens in a “closet”, as a closet was the right size to take the commode. It has been suggested that the British term “loo” comes from Waterloo (water-closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo” in which the pot was called the loo!

In old sailing ships, the toilet area for the regular sailors was located in the forward part (the head) of the ship, hence the term “head” that has been used since then for any toilet on board a boat.

32. Animal whose young is a calf : GNU
A gnu is also known as a wildebeest, an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is actually the Dutch word for “wild beast”.

36. High, rocky hill : TOR
A tor is a high rocky hill. “Tor” comes from the Old English “torr”, the word for a tower or rock, which in turn comes from the Old Welsh “twrr” meaning a heap or a pile.

37. N.S.W. locale : AUS
New South Wales (NSW) is the most populous state in Australia and is home to Sydney, the most populous city in the country. New South Wales was founded in 1788. When the British took over New Zealand in 1840, for a while New Zealand was actually governed as part of New South Wales.

39. “O’Hara’s Choice” novelist : URIS
Leon Uris is an American writer. Uris’s most famous books are “Exodus” and “Trinity”, two excellent stories, in my humble opinion …

40. Inebriate : SOT
Our word “sot” comes from the Old English “sott”, meaning a fool. The word “sot” started to be associated with alcohol and not just foolery in the late 1500s.

41. Ford last produced in 1986 : LTD
There has been a lot of speculation about what the acronym LTD stands for in the car model known as “Ford LTD”. Many say it stands for Luxury Trim Decor, and others that it is an abbreviation for “limited”. Although the car was produced in Australia with the acronym meaning Lincoln Type Design, it seems LTD was originally chosen as just three meaningless letters that sound well together.

47. The Blue Demons of the N.C.A.A. : DEPAUL
DePaul University is a private school in Chicago. It was founded in 1898 and originally named St. Vincent’s College after the French priest Saint Vincent de Paul. The name was changed to DePaul in 1907, at the same time as the school admitted its first female students.

48. Verdi opera : OTELLO
Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Otello” was first performed in 1887 at La Scala Theater in Milan. The opera is based on Shakespeare’s play “Othello” and is considered by many to be Verdi’s greatest work.

49. Hoy día : AHORA
“Ahora” is the Spanish for “now”, as is “hoy día”.

54. Ruben ___, Phillies Gold Glove-winning shortstop : AMARO
Rubén Amaro, Sr. was a professional baseball player who played infield from 1958 to 1969 in Major League Baseball. Rubén’s father was from Cuba and played in the Mexican League. Rubén’s son Rubén Amaro, Jr. played outfielder in the Majors and is now the GM of the Philadelphia Phillies.

57. Family head : CAPO
More properly called a “caporegime”, a “capo” is high-ranking member of the Mafia (Cosa Nostra).

62. ___-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-Aztecian languages is Ute, Comanche and Hopi.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Stop threatening : CALL THE DOGS OFF
12. “How to Marry a Millionaire” actress : BACALL
15. One’s initial response to this clue, perhaps : I HAVE NO IDEA
16. Police dept. broadcast : APB
17. Suspended avian home : ORIOLE’S NEST
18. While, in brief : THO’
19. Campaign pro : POL
20. Bamboozled : AT SEA
21. ___ de Guerre (French military award) : CROIX
23. What shepherds may shepherd : EWES
25. Superior home?: Abbr. : WIS
26. Actors James and Scott : CAANS
27. Kind of jet : PROP
29. Web opening : HTTP
30. Deterrent to swimming : ALGAE
33. Three-time N.H.L. M.V.P. : ORR
34. ___ trap : SET A
38. Audition rebuff : DON’T CALL US, WE’LL CALL YOU
42. “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his ___?”: Mark 8:37 : SOUL
43. Sea urchin delicacy : ROE
44. Many opera houses have them : TIERS
45. Throw off : EMIT
47. Dimwit : DODO
49. Lhasa ___ : APSOS
51. Worked (up) : HET
52. Biltmore Estate state: Abbr. : N CAR
56. Pooch, in Paris : CHIEN
57. Mantles : CAPES
59. “Ti ___” (Italian lover’s declaration) : AMO
60. Owner of Moviefone : AOL
61. Site of W.W. II’s first amphibious landing : GUADALCANAL
64. Number of colori on the Italian flag : TRE
65. Commercial figure holding six beer mugs : ST PAULI GIRL
66. Singer known as La Divina : CALLAS
67. Extremely tight : TOO CLOSE TO CALL

Down
1. Homer’s Muse : CALLIOPE
2. Discombobulate : THROW
3. Two-time Olympic running gold medalist ___ Gebrselassie : HAILE
4. Bolivian president Morales : EVO
5. Place ___ Concorde : DE LA
6. Quick combination : ONE-TWO
7. It may be full of dirt : GOSSIP
8. Math ratios : SINES
9. Ancient theaters : ODEA
10. Moroccan city known as the Athens of Africa : FES
11. Moneybags : FAT CAT
12. One being passed in a race : BATON
13. Black fly, e.g. : APHIS
14. Roadside fixture : CALL BOX
22. Rogue : RAPSCALLION
24. German wine made from fully ripe grapes : SPATLESE
26. PC key : CTRL
28. Reminisce about : RECALL
29. Much of central Eur., once : HRE
30. Circular parts : ADS
31. Head overseas : LOO
32. Animal whose young is a calf : GNU
33. Be obliged : OWE
35. Size up : EYE
36. High, rocky hill : TOR
37. N.S.W. locale : AUS
39. “O’Hara’s Choice” novelist : URIS
40. Inebriate : SOT
41. Ford last produced in 1986 : LTD
46. In the midst of, poetically : MONGST
47. The Blue Demons of the N.C.A.A. : DEPAUL
48. Verdi opera : OTELLO
49. Hoy día : AHORA
50. Gobs : PILES
51. Was equipped for summer heat, as an auto : HAD AC
53. “That’s enough!” : CAN IT!
54. Ruben ___, Phillies Gold Glove-winning shortstop : AMARO
55. Class starter : ROLL CALL
56. Sound of derision : CATCALL
57. Family head : CAPO
58. Agronomy and metallurgy: Abbr. : SCIS
62. ___-Aztecan (language family) : UTO
63. Historical period : AGE

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