Day: November 19, 2013

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Schmooze : CHAT
“To schmooze” is to chat intimately, a word that comes from the Yiddish “schmusen” meaning ‘to chat” .

5. Tanning lotion letters : SPF
In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …

8. Discombobulates : FAZES
To discombobulate is to faze, disconcert, to confuse.

13. Bum : HOBO
No one seems to know for sure how the term “hobo” originated, although there are lots of colorful theories. My favorite is that “hobo” comes from the first letters in the words “ho-meward bo-und”, but it doesn’t seem very plausible. A kind blog reader tells me that according to Click and Clack from PBS’s “Car Talk” (a great source!), “hobo” comes from “hoe boy”. Hoe boys were young men with hoes looking for work after the Civil War. Hobos differed from “tramps” and “bums”, in that “bums” refused to work, “tramps” worked when they had to, while “hobos” traveled in search of work.

14. Chimney feature : FLUE
The flue in a chimney is a duct that conveys exhaust gases from a fire to the outdoors. An important feature of a flue is that it is adjustable. When starting a fire, the flue should be wide open, maximizing airflow to get help ignition. When the fire is burning, flow through the flue should be more restricted. The flue needs to be open sufficiently to allow smoke and exhaust gases exit, but not too wide so that too much hot air escapes, dragging cold air into the house from elsewhere.

17. 1922 Willa Cather novel that won a Pulitzer : ONE OF OURS
American novelist Willa Cather wrote what’s called the “prairie trilogy”, books that tell the story of Swedish immigrants living in Nebraska. The titles in the trilogy are “O, Pioneers!”, “The Song of the Lark” and “My Antonia”. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for another novel, “One of Ours”, that is set in Nebraska and the French battlefields of WWI.

21. “___, With Love” : TO SIR
“To Sir, with Love” is an excellent 1967 drama film starring Sidney Poitier that is based on a novel of the same name by E. R. Braithwaite. The film is about an inexperienced teacher in a tough school in the East End of London. If you see the movie keep a lookout for a couple of supporting actors. Lulu plays the student called Babs Pegg, and also sings the hit theme song from the movie. Patricia Routledge plays fellow teacher Clinty Clintridge, and later in her career played Hyacinth Bucket in the iconic BBC comedy series “Keeping Up Appearances”.

23. Jazz instrument : SAX
The saxophone was invented by Belgian Adolphe Sax. Sax developed lip cancer at one point in his life, and one has to wonder if his affliction was related to his saxophone playing (I am sure not!). I had the privilege of visiting Sax’s grave in the Cemetery of Montmartre in Paris a few years ago.

24. Next-to-last Greek letter : PSI
The Greek letter psi is the one that looks a bit like a trident or a pitchfork.

25. Bridge or Scrabble need : SCOREPAD
The version of the card game bridge that is mostly played today is “contract bridge”. “Auction bridge” is a similar game, and a precursor to contract bridge.

The game of Scrabble has been produced in many international versions, and each of these editions has its own tile distribution to suit the local language. For example, in English we have two tiles worth ten points: one “Q” and one “Z”. If you play the game in French then there are five tiles worth ten points: one “K”, one “W”, one “X”, one “Y” and one “Z”.

28. Classic pop brand : NEHI
“Nehi Corporation” was the nickname for the Chero-Cola/Union Bottle Works that introduced the Nehi drink in 1924. Years later the company developed a new brand, Royal Crown Cola (also known as RC Cola). By 1955, RC Cola was the company’s flagship product, so the “Nehi Corporation” became the “Royal Crown Company”. In 1954, RC Cola became the first company to sell soft drinks in cans.

30. Darwin’s “On the ___ of Species” : ORIGIN
Englishman Charles Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland but neglected his studies largely due to his interest in nature and natural history. In the early 1830s, a friend put forward Darwin’s name as a candidate for the post of “collector” on the voyage of HMS Beagle. The Beagle was intending to spend two years at sea primarily charting the coast of South America. The voyage ended up taking five years, during which time Darwin sent back copious letters describing his findings. Back in Britain these letters were published as pamphlets by a friend and so when Darwin eventually returned home in 1836, he had already gained some celebrity in scientific circles. It was while on the Beagle that Darwin developed his initial ideas on the concept of natural selection. It wasn’t until over twenty years later that he formulated his theories into a scientific paper and in 1859 published his famous book “On the Origin of the Species”. This original publication never even mentioned the word “evolution” which was controversial even back then. It was in 1871 that Darwin addressed head-on the concept that man was an animal species, in his book “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex”.

36. Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” e.g. : GRAND OPERA
“Don Carlo” is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The name “Don Carlo” is the name used when the opera is performed in Italian. “Don Carlos” is the title when the work is performed with its original French libretto.

41. University address ender : EDU
The .edu domain was one of the six original generic top-level domains specified. The complete original list is:

– .com (commercial enterprise)
– .net (entity involved in network infrastructure e.g. an ISP)
– .mil (US military)
– .org (not-for-profit organization)
– .gov (US federal government entity)
– .edu (college-level educational institution)

42. Class boosters, for short : PTAS
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

47. Site of an occasional outbreak in Sicily : ETNA
Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius.

55. Mrs., in Monterrey : SRA
Monterrey is a Mexican city, the capital of the state of Nuevo Leon in the northeast of the country. Monterrey is the second largest city in Mexico in terms of area, but third largest in terms of population (the largest area city in the country is Mexico City, and the most populous are Mexico City and Guadalajara).

58. With 35-Down, a court game : JAI
(35D. See 58-Across : ALAI)
Even though jai alai is often said to be the fastest sport in the world because of the speed of the ball, in fact golf balls usually get going at a greater clip. Although, as a kind blog reader once pointed out to me, you don’t have to catch a golf ball …

64. Texas monument, with “the” : ALAMO
The famous Alamo in San Antonio, Texas was originally known as Mission San Antonio de Valero. The mission was founded in 1718 and was the first mission established in the city. The Battle of the Alamo took place in 1836, a thirteen-day siege by the Mexican Army led by President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Only two people defending the Alamo Mission survived the onslaught. One month later, the Texian army got its revenge by attacking and defeating the Mexican Army in the Battle of San Jacinto. During the surprise attack on Santa Anna’s camp, many of the Texian soldiers were heard to cry “Remember the Alamo!”.

68. B-ball player : CAGER
In the early days of basketball, when a ball went out of bounds possession was awarded to the player who first retrieved the ball. This led to mad scuffles off the court, often involving spectators. As the game became more organized courts were routinely “caged”, largely because of this out of bounds rule, to limit interaction with the crowd. It’s because of these cages that basketball players are sometimes referred to today as “cagers”.

71. Speed units for seafarers : KNOTS
A knot (kt.) is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. Traditionally a vessel’s speed was determined by using a “chip log”. A chip log is made up of a wooden board attached to a line wrapped around a reel. The line (called a “log-line”) had knots tied in it at uniform spacings. To determine the vessels speed the board was thrown overboard and the line allowed to unroll. The speed was then the “number of knots” paid out in a fixed time interval.

72. Flamenco shout : OLE!
Flamenco is a style of Spanish music and dance. The origin of the word “flamenco” isn’t clearly understood, but the explanation that seems most credible to me is that it comes from Flanders in Northern Europe. Given that “flamenco” is the Spanish word for “Flemish” and Flanders is home to the Flemish people it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Down
1. Bite from Pac-Man : CHOMP
The Pac-Man arcade game was first released in Japan in 1980, and is as popular today as it ever was. The game features characters that are maneuvered around the screen to eat up dots and earn points. The name comes from the Japanese folk hero “Paku”, known for his voracious appetite. The spin-off game called Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981.

2. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Wagner, one of the first five inductees : HONUS
Honus Wagner was professional baseball player who played from 1897 to 1917, mainly for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner was one of the first five inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He received the second highest number of votes, tying with Babe Ruth and just behind Ty Cobb.

3. Prez who delivered a famous address on Nov. 19, 1863 : ABE LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only two out 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

5. Bay Area airport, briefly : SFO
San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

6. Dwarf planet whose moons include Charon and 12-Down : PLUTO
Pluto was discovered in 1930, and was welcomed as the ninth planet in our solar system. Pluto is relatively small in size, just one fifth of the mass of our own moon. In the seventies, astronomers began to discover more large objects in the solar system, including Eris, a “scattered disc object” at the outer reaches. Given that Eris is actually bigger than Pluto, and other objects really aren’t that much smaller, Pluto’s status as a planet was drawn into question. In 2006 there was a scientific definition for a “planet” agreed for the first time, resulting in Pluto being relegated to the status of “dwarf planet”, along with Eris.

Charon is the largest moon of Pluto. Charon and Pluto will be studied up close in 2015 when NASA’s New Horizons space probe arrives.

8. Mondale’s 1984 running mate : FERRARO
Geraldine Ferraro came to national attention in 1984 when she became the first woman chosen by a major political party as candidate for Vice President. Democrats Ferraro and Walter Mondale were defeated in a landslide by the incumbent Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

10. Hits with a Taser : ZAPS
Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon named its product as a homage to the novel. The acronym TASER stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”. Interesting, eh?

11. Fitzgerald who sang duets with Louis Armstrong : ELLA
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.

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1900. Armstrong had a poor upbringing, and only stayed in school till he was 11 years old. The exact origin of Louis’s nickname “Satchmo” seems to be a little unclear. One story is that he used to dance for pennies in New Orleans as a youngster and would hide those pennies in his mouth away from the other kids. For this he earned the nickname “satchel mouth”, which was shortened to “Satchmo”.

12. Moon of 6-Down named for a mythological river : STYX
Styx is the fifth largest moon of Pluto, and is only 10 or 25 kilometers in diameter.

15. To be, to Tiberius : ESSE
Tiberius was the second Emperor of Rome, succeeding Augustus. In his latter life Tiberius became very reclusive, not really wanting the responsibilities of Emperor but refusing to give up his power. Instead, he exiled himself from Rome leaving administrative control of the Empire to unscrupulous aides. Tiberius himself led a quiet life on the island of Capri. His death at the age of 77 was apparently hastened by a pillow placed over his face, an act ordered by his successor, Caligula.

27. Big ___ (group of stars in Ursa Major) : DIPPER
The constellation called Ursa Major (Latin for “Larger Bear”) is often just called the Big Dipper because of its resemblance to a ladle or dipper. Ursa Major also resembles a plow, and that’s what we usually call the same constellation back in Ireland: the “plough”.

31. Where 3-Down’s address was delivered : GETTYSBURG
I visited Gettysburg for the first time in 2010, and goodness me what a moving place that is. As I discovered on my visit, there are five known copies of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and all of them differ in some way or another, so I suppose the exact words spoken will never be known. Martin Luther King Jr. evoked Abraham Lincoln’s words in another of America’s iconic addresses, his “I Have a Dream” speech. Lincoln’s speech began with “Four score and seven years ago …”, and King’s speech began with “Five score years ago …” a nod to the Gettysburg Address.

32. 1979 revolution site : IRAN
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 involved the overthrow of the US-supported Shah and his replacement with Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. The Shah ended up in the US for cancer treatment, which led to protests by young Islamists. The protests escalated into the Iran hostage crisis in which fifty-two Americans were held for 444 days.

33. 2011 launcher of Curiosity : NASA
NASA’s Curiosity rover is the fourth in a series of unmanned surface rovers that NASA has sent to Mars. Previous rovers are the Sojourner rover (1997), Spirit rover (2004-2010) and Opportunity rover (2004-present). Curiosity rover was launched in November of 2011, and landed on Mars in August 2012 after having travelled 350 million miles. After that long journey, Curiosity landed just 1½ miles from its targeted touchdown spot.

46. Seafarer, informally : TAR
A Jack Tar, or just “tar”, was a seaman in the days of the British Empire. The term probably arose due to a sailor’s various uses of tar back then, including waterproofing his clothes and using tar in his hair to slick down his ponytail.

50. Library ID : ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was invented by one Gordon Foster who is now a professor at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. The code was originally developed for booksellers, so that they had a unique number (and now a barcode) for each publication.

53. Muse of poetry : ERATO
In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses seems to be debated a lot, 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)

54. Anaheim ballplayer : ANGEL
The Anaheim Angels are today more correctly called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The “Angels” name dates back to 1961 when the team was founded in the “City of Angels”, Los Angeles. When the franchise moved to Anaheim in 1965 they were known as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and most recently the Los Angeles Angels at Anaheim.

56. 31-Down general’s signature : R E LEE
The Battle of Appomattox Court House was the last engagement by the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Immediately after the battle, Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. When the two men met for the signing of the surrender documents, even though the pair were acquaintances, it was the first time they had seen each other in almost 20 years. Grant started off the conversation by discussing a previous meeting they had during the Mexican-American War, when they were fighting on the same side.

59. Country singer Jackson : ALAN
Alan Jackson is a country music singer, and a bit of an author too. Jackson married his high school sweetheart in 1979, but they had a parting of the ways about twenty years later due to the pressures on the marriage from Jackson’s career. The pair reconciled, and Jackson wrote a book describing the relationship he has with his wife and his commitment to Christianity. The book is called “It’s All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life”, and it topped the New York Times Bestseller List.

60. Shakespearean villain : IAGO
Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. Iago is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. He hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife. By the end of the play it’s Iago himself who is discredited and Othello (before committing suicide) apologizes to Cassio for having believed Iago’s lies. Heavy stuff …

63. Shaving lotion brand : AFTA
Afta is an aftershave in the Mennen range of products that is owned by Colgate-Palmolive.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Schmooze : CHAT
5. Tanning lotion letters : SPF
8. Discombobulates : FAZES
13. Bum : HOBO
14. Chimney feature : FLUE
16. Praise to the skies : EXALT
17. 1922 Willa Cather novel that won a Pulitzer : ONE OF OURS
19. Email option : REPLY
20. Prefix with lateral : MULTI-
21. “___, With Love” : TO SIR
23. Jazz instrument : SAX
24. Next-to-last Greek letter : PSI
25. Bridge or Scrabble need : SCOREPAD
28. Classic pop brand : NEHI
30. Darwin’s “On the ___ of Species” : ORIGIN
34. PC alternatives : MACS
36. Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” e.g. : GRAND OPERA
40. Very much : A LOT
41. University address ender : EDU
42. Class boosters, for short : PTAS
43. Big attraction for bargain hunters : SALES EVENT
47. Site of an occasional outbreak in Sicily : ETNA
48. Musical incompetence : TIN EAR
49. Light and breezy : AIRY
51. Some school exams : MIDYEARS
55. Mrs., in Monterrey : SRA
58. With 35-Down, a court game : JAI
61. Discover : LEARN
62. Innocent ones : BABES
64. Texas monument, with “the” : ALAMO
66. Maximum loads of hay or vegetables : WAGONFULS
68. B-ball player : CAGER
69. Worry, worry, worry : STEW
70. Word with family or shoe : TREE
71. Speed units for seafarers : KNOTS
72. Flamenco shout : OLE!
73. A really long time : AGES

Down
1. Bite from Pac-Man : CHOMP
2. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Wagner, one of the first five inductees : HONUS
3. Prez who delivered a famous address on Nov. 19, 1863 : ABE LINCOLN
4. Blow a whistle : TOOT
5. Bay Area airport, briefly : SFO
6. Dwarf planet whose moons include Charon and 12-Down : PLUTO
7. Big to-do : FUROR
8. Mondale’s 1984 running mate : FERRARO
9. Log cutter : AXE
10. Hits with a Taser : ZAPS
11. Fitzgerald who sang duets with Louis Armstrong : ELLA
12. Moon of 6-Down named for a mythological river : STYX
15. To be, to Tiberius : ESSE
18. Take the bait? : FISH
22. Music lover’s carry-along : IPOD
26. Short smoke? : CIG
27. Big ___ (group of stars in Ursa Major) : DIPPER
29. High regard : ESTEEM
31. Where 3-Down’s address was delivered : GETTYSBURG
32. 1979 revolution site : IRAN
33. 2011 launcher of Curiosity : NASA
34. Crow’s-nest site : MAST
35. See 58-Across : ALAI
37. Sun. sermonizer : REV
38. Summer cooler : ADE
39. One with a regular habit? : NUN
44. Seafarers : SAILORS
45. Our planet, to a German : ERDE
46. Seafarer, informally : TAR
50. Library ID : ISBN
52. Swerves at sea : YAWS
53. Muse of poetry : ERATO
54. Anaheim ballplayer : ANGEL
56. 31-Down general’s signature : R E LEE
57. Complete jerks : ASSES
58. Hike, with “up” : JACK
59. Country singer Jackson : ALAN
60. Shakespearean villain : IAGO
63. Shaving lotion brand : AFTA
65. Came across : MET
67. Have creditors : OWE

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