Day: December 2, 2013

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Chicago air hub : O’HARE
O’Hare International is the fourth busiest airport in the world. The original airport was constructed on the site between 1942 and 1943, and was used by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the manufacture of planes during WWII. Before the factory and airport were built, there was a community in the area called Orchard Place, so the airport was called Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. This name is the derivation of the airport’s current location identifier: ORD (OR-chard D-ouglas). Orchard Place Airport was renamed to O’Hare International in 1949 in honor of Lieutenant Commander Edward O’Hare who grew up in Chicago. O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient in WWII. As an aside, Edward O’Hare’s father was a lawyer for Al Capone who helped get the famous gangster convicted on tax evasion.

10. Letterman of late-night : DAVE
Talk show host and comedian David Letterman has been appearing on late night television since 1982. Letterman has the longest late-night hosting career on US television, even longer than the iconic Johnny Carson.

14. Cleveland’s lake : ERIE
Cleveland, Ohio was named after the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.

15. Forty-___ (California Gold Rush participant) : NINER
The California gold rush actually started in 1848, and not 1849. The first to exploit the find were those people already in California. By 1849 the word had spread and gold-seekers started to arrive from all over the world. The “out-of-towners” who arrived in 1849 became known as forty-niners.

16. Grandson of Eve : ENOS
Enos was the son of Seth and the grandson of Adam and Eve.

18. Flared dress type : A-LINE
An A-line skirt is one that fits snugly at the hips and flares toward the hem.

19. Pants fillers : LEGS
The term “pants”, meaning trousers, is an abbreviated from of “pantaloons” that first appeared in the 1840s. Pantaloons were a kind of tights named for a silly old male character in Italian comedy called “Pantaloun” who always wore tight trousers over skinny legs.

20. “The Bad News Bears” activity : LITTLE LEAGUE
“The Bad News Bears” is 1976 comedy film starring Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal. The movie is all about a Little League baseball team made up of misfits who are coached by an alcoholic former minor-league baseball player. The film was a big hit that spawned two sequels, “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training” (1977) and “The Bad News Bears Go to Japan” (1978). There was also a television series and a 2005 remake that stars Billy Bob Thornton.

23. Includes in an emailing : CCS
I wonder do the kids of today know that “cc” stands for carbon copy, and do they have any idea what a carbon copy was? Do you remember how messy carbon paper was to handle?

26. ___ Moines, Iowa : DES
The city of Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, and takes its name from the Des Moines River. The river in turn takes its name from the French “Riviere des Moines” meaning “River of the Monks”. It looks like there isn’t any “monkish” connection to the city’s name per se. “Des Moines” was just the name given by French traders who corrupted “Moingona”, the name of a group of Illinois Native Americans who lived by the river. However, others do contend that French Trappist monks, who lived a full 200 miles from the river, somehow influenced the name.

27. Scuba tank content : OXYGEN
A SCUBA tank contains compressed air, so is mainly made up of nitrogen and not just oxygen …

28. Colored part of the iris : AREOLA
An areola (sometimes “areole”) in anatomy is a small ring of color, as in the areola surrounding the nipple, and the areola surrounding the pupil of the eye. “Areola” comes from Latin, meaning “small open space”, and is a diminutive of the Latin word “area”, meaning “open space”.

The iris is the colored part of the eye with an aperture in the center that can open or close depending on the level of light hitting the eye.

32. Supposed hints that mislead : RED HERRINGS
The exact origin of the term “red herring”, meaning “something that misleads”, isn’t known. The most common explanation for the use of the phrase is that kippers (strong-smelling smoked herrings) were used to by fugitives to distract bloodhounds who were on their trail. Kippers become red-colored during the smoking process, and are no long “white herrings”.

34A. With 61-Down, description of the 1-Across : BIG
(61D. See 34-Across : BAD
1A. Villain in the tale named by the starts of 20-, 32-, 41- and 52-Across : WOLF)
“Little Red Riding Hood” is a fairy tale that originated in Europe and was first published in France by Charles Perrault in 1697. The title translates into French as “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge”.

37. Eve’s mate : ADAM
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.

38. Number before dos and tres : UNO
Uno, dos, tres … (one, two, three in Spanish).

39. Musical ending : CODA
In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

40. Elephant’s weight unit : TON
There are only three species of elephant living today, with all others being extinct. These are the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant (or “Indian elephant”). As is well known, the African elephant is distinguished from the Asian/Indian elephant by its much larger ears.

47. Disco light : STROBE
Discotheques first appeared during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.

50. Caribbean ___ : SEA
The Caribbean Sea takes its name from the Carib people. The Caribs are an American Indian people that live in the Lesser Antilles islands, part of the West Indies.

52. Jaguar on the front of a Jaguar, e.g. : HOOD ORNAMENT
Jaguar started out as a manufacturer of sidecars for motorcycles back in 1922, when the company was known as the Swallow Sidecar Company (SS for short). The company changed its name to Jaguar after WWII, because of the unfortunate connotations of the letters “SS” at that time.

56. Slightly : A TAD
Back in the 1800s “tad” was used to describe a young child, and this morphed into our usage of “small amount” in the early 1900s. The original use of “tad” for a child is very likely a shortened version of “tadpole”.

57. Part of a carpenter’s joint : TENON
One simple type of joint used in carpentry is a mortise and tenon, basically a projection carved at the end of one piece of wood that fits into a hole cut into the end of another. The mortise is the “hole” and the tenon is the “projection”.

58. Spirited horse : ARAB
The Arab (or Arabian) breed of horse takes its name from its original home, the Arabian Peninsula. Like any animal that humans have over-bred, the horse falls prey to genetic diseases, some of which are fatal and some of which require the horse to be euthanized.

62. Malden or Marx : KARL
Karl Malden was the stage name of Serbian American actor Mladen George Sekulovich. Malden was born in Chicago, the son of a Serbian father and Czech mother. Malden liked to slip his real family name of “Sekulovich” into the movies and TV shows in which he appeared. For example, playing Omar Bradley in “Patton”, he address a soldier with “Hand me that helmet, Sekulovich”. Playing a prison warden in “Birdman of Alcatraz” he includes “Sekulovich” in a rollcall of inmates. And then in the seventies cop show “The Streets of San Francisco”, Malden’s character Mike Stone employed a legman named Sekulovich.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher and revolutionary who helped develop the principles of modern communism and socialism. Marx argued that feudal society created internal strife due to class inequalities which led to its destruction and replacement by capitalism. He further argued that the inequalities created in a capitalist society create tensions that will also lead to its self-destruction. His thesis was that the inevitable replacement of capitalism was a classless (and stateless) society, which he called pure communism.

67. Took a gander at : EYED
To take “a gander” is to take a long look. It’s a term we’ve been using since the 1880s and comes from the idea that in taking a long look one might be craning one’s neck like a goose (or gander).

Down
3. “___ Abner” : LI’L
“Li’l Abner” was created and drawn by Al Capp for over 43 years starting in 1934. Al Capp stopped producing the strip in 1977, largely due to illness (he died from emphysema two years later). As the strip finished up, he went so far as to apologize to his long-standing fans, saying that he should have stopped 3-4 years earlier as he felt that the quality of his work had gone down in those latter years.

7. Indigo dye : ANIL
Anil is another name for the indigo plant, as well as the name for the blue indigo dye that is obtained from it. The color of anil is relatively close to navy blue.

8. Actress Russo : RENE
The lovely and very talented actress Rene Russo is a native of Burbank, California. Russo went to highschool (with actor/director Ron Howard), but dropped out in tenth grade. At seventeen, she was given the opportunity to train as a model and within a very short time appeared on the cover of “Vogue”. As her modelling jobs slowed down in her early thirties, Russo made a career change and studied theater and acting. I am so glad she did, as Rene Russo is one of my favorite actresses …

11. Lay ___ (bomb) : AN EGG
Apparently the expression “to lay an egg”, meaning “to perform or play really badly” comes from the resemblance of the number 0 to an egg. One laying an egg scores zero.

13. City on the Ruhr : ESSEN
I knew a man back in Ireland, a German national from the city of Essen. He had very sad tales to tell from the days of WWII. As a young boy he lost his (socialist) parents during the Nazi purges early in the war. In 1943 he was living with his grandmother and still attending school when he was drafted into the army along with the rest of his class (at 14 years of age). His platoon leader was his school teacher who made a point of tutoring the boys in place of military drilling. One day he was on guard duty with his class/platoon at the dam above the city, and along come the Dam Busters with their bouncing bombs. The raid was successful (from the perspective of the Allies), but he described terrible famine faced by the people below the dam due to flooding of the farmland that surrounded the factories.

23. Diamond unit : CARAT
A carat is a unit of mass used in measuring gemstones and is equal to 200 mg.

24. The Golden rule is a good one : CREDO
“Credo” is the Latin word for “I believe”, and we use it in English as an alternate for “creed”.

The Golden Rule is also known as the ethic of reciprocity, and is a basis for the concept of human rights. A version of the rule used in the Christian tradition is attributed to Jesus: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

25. Alternative to a station wagon : SEDAN
The American “sedan” car is the equivalent of the British “saloon” car. By definition, a sedan car has two rows of seating and a separate trunk (boot in the UK), although in some models the engine can be at the rear of the car.

29. Georg with a physics law : 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.

30. The end : FINIS
Our word “finis”, meaning “it’s ended”, comes directly from Latin.

36. En ___ (fencer’s cry) : GARDE
“En garde” is a French term that has been absorbed into the sport of fencing. Originally a warning “on guard!”, it is spoken at the start of an encounter to warn the fencers to take a defensive position.

39. College in Iowa : COE
Coe College is a private school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that was founded in 1851. Coe is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.

41. Movie lead-in to Cop : ROBO-
“RoboCop” is a film that was released in 1987, starring Peter Weller in the title role. Weller wore a very impressive “robot” suit for the film, the most expensive item on the set, costing over a million dollars. Weller would lose three pounds a day in sweat alone as temperatures inside the suit went to over 100 degrees F.

42. Subject of Newton’s first law of motion : INERTIA
Newton’s first law of motion states that a body that is moving maintains the same velocity unless it is acted upon by an external force. That resistance to changing velocity is known as “inertia”.

45. Treat like a baby : CODDLE
The word “coddle” means to boil gently, as in “coddle an egg”. Coddle was first used to mean “treat tenderly” by Jane Austen. Austen he introduced the extended usage in her masterpiece “Emma”.

49. Sounds heard at the start of MGM movies : ROARS
There has been a lion in the logo of the MGM studio since 1924. The original was an Irishman (!), a lion named Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However, it wasn’t until Jackie took over from Slats in 1928 that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo, and he has been around since 1957.

50. Struck down, biblically : SMOTE
“To smite” is to strike with a firm blow.

53. Soft ball material : NERF
Nerf is the name given to the soft material used in a whole series of toys designed for “safe” play indoors. The Nerf product is used to make darts, balls and ammunition for toy guns. “NERF” is an acronym, standing for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Villain in the tale named by the starts of 20-, 32-, 41- and 52-Across : WOLF
5. Chicago air hub : O’HARE
10. Letterman of late-night : DAVE
14. Cleveland’s lake : ERIE
15. Forty-___ (California Gold Rush participant) : NINER
16. Grandson of Eve : ENOS
17. Sound signaling the start and end of class : BELL
18. Flared dress type : A-LINE
19. Pants fillers : LEGS
20. “The Bad News Bears” activity : LITTLE LEAGUE
23. Includes in an emailing : CCS
26. ___ Moines, Iowa : DES
27. Scuba tank content : OXYGEN
28. Colored part of the iris : AREOLA
30. Judges levy them : FINES
32. Supposed hints that mislead : RED HERRINGS
34. With 61-Down, description of the 1-Across : BIG
37. Eve’s mate : ADAM
38. Number before dos and tres : UNO
39. Musical ending : CODA
40. Elephant’s weight unit : TON
41. Lawn tractor : RIDING MOWER
45. Orange traffic markers : CONES
46. Staggered : REELED
47. Disco light : STROBE
50. Caribbean ___ : SEA
51. NNW’s opposite : SSE
52. Jaguar on the front of a Jaguar, e.g. : HOOD ORNAMENT
56. Slightly : A TAD
57. Part of a carpenter’s joint : TENON
58. Spirited horse : ARAB
62. Malden or Marx : KARL
63. Steaming mad : IRATE
64. “Come to ___” : PAPA
65. In other ways : ELSE
66. Following : AFTER
67. Took a gander at : EYED

Down
1. What a spider spins : WEB
2. Valuable rock : ORE
3. “___ Abner” : LI’L
4. Cut down, as a tree : FELL
5. Running wild : ON A TEAR
6. Sword handles : HILTS
7. Indigo dye : ANIL
8. Actress Russo : RENE
9. Soon, old-style : ERELONG
10. Airport woes, as due to bad weather : DELAYS
11. Lay ___ (bomb) : AN EGG
12. Style : VOGUE
13. City on the Ruhr : ESSEN
21. Nothing doing? : IDLE
22. Former spouses : EXES
23. Diamond unit : CARAT
24. The Golden rule is a good one : CREDO
25. Alternative to a station wagon : SEDAN
29. Georg with a physics law : OHM
30. The end : FINIS
31. Hip to : IN ON
33. Like talking during a movie, e.g. : RUDE
34. Soup holders : BOWLS
35. Notions: Fr. : IDEES
36. En ___ (fencer’s cry) : GARDE
39. College in Iowa : COE
41. Movie lead-in to Cop : ROBO-
42. Subject of Newton’s first law of motion : INERTIA
43. Like the grass on the other side, in a saying : GREENER
44. Be defined as : MEAN
45. Treat like a baby : CODDLE
47. Drink that may be ordered with a burger : SHAKE
48. Completely wreck : TOTAL
49. Sounds heard at the start of MGM movies : ROARS
50. Struck down, biblically : SMOTE
53. Soft ball material : NERF
54. Med. school subj. : ANAT
55. Adhesive : TAPE
59. Sunbeam : RAY
60. Copy : APE
61. See 34-Across : BAD

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