Day: April 22, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Capital of Uganda : KAMPALA
Kampala is the capital city of Uganda. The airport that serves Kampala is in the town of Entebbe. Entebbe airport is well known for the daring hostage-rescue carried out by Israeli Defense Forces in 1976 following a highjacking.

8. Radio operator : HAM
Amateur radio enthusiasts were originally called ham operators by professional telegraph operators, and the term was intended to be insulting. It came from the similar term “ham actor”, describing a person who is less than effective on the stage. But amateur operators eventually embraced the moniker and so it stuck.

11. Syringe units, briefly : CCS
Cubic centimeters (ccs)

15. Peyton’s QB brother : ELI
Eli Manning plays as quarterback for the New York Giants. Eli’s brother Peyton Manning is quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Eli and Peyton’s father is Archie Manning, who was also a successful NFL quarterback.

16. Chaney of horror films : LON
Lon Chaney, Sr. played a lot of crazed-looking characters in the days of silent movies. He did much of his own make-up work, developing the grotesque appearances that became his trademark, and earning himself the nickname “the man of a thousand faces”. Most famous were his portrayals of the title characters in the films “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925).

21. Number pad locale, for short : ATM
Automated teller machine (ATM)

23. It’s not preferred for investors : COMMON STOCK
There are two main types of stock that one can own in company: common and preferred. Holders of preferred stock have the advantage of being paid dividends first, with holders of common stock only receiving dividends after preferred stockholders have been paid in full. Preferred stockholders are also paid off first in the event of a bankruptcy, with holders of common stock often receiving nothing or very little when assets are sold off.

27. Station on the Alaska Highway : ESSO
The brand name Esso has its roots in the old Standard Oil company as it uses the initial letters of “Standard” and “Oil” (ESS-O). The Esso brand was replaced by Exxon in the US, but ESSO is still used in many other countries.

The Alaska Highway is also known as the Alaska-Canadian Highway or ALCAN Highway. A highway connecting the contiguous United States to Alaska was proposed in the twenties, but the Canadian authorities didn’t believe the project had much merit as the road would be used by very few of its citizens. The perceived importance of the route increased during WWII and President Roosevelt deemed the road a strategic necessity so he made a deal with Canada. The cost of construction would be born by the US, but the road and related facilities were to be handed over to Canada at the end of the war. The project was accelerated when the Japanese invaded and occupied Kiska and Attu Islands in the Aleutians. The road of course has been improved and is still in use today. The ALCAN Highway forms part of what is popularly known as the Pan-American Highway, which runs from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the south of Argentina or Chile depending on how the route is defined.

31. Bather’s exfoliant : LOOFAH
The loofah (also loofa, lufah and luffa, all Arabic words) is a vine, with fruit that’s very popular in Asia and Africa. If the fruit is allowed to mature, it can be processed to remove everything but the more rigid xylem structure (remember your high school botany class?) leaving a soft, sponge-like mass that is used as a skin polisher.

41. Full complement of dwarfs : SEVEN
In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale called “Snow White”, the seven dwarfs were not given any names. The names were added for the 1937 classic Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The seven dwarfs are:

– Doc (the leader of the group)
– Grumpy (that would be me, according to my wife …)
– Happy
– Sleepy
– Bashful
– Sneezy
– Dopey

42. 1963 John Wayne comedy western : MCLINTOCK!
“McLintock!” is a comedy western released in 1963 starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. The film’s storyline was inspired by William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”. I don’t watch many westerns, but will have to keep an eye out for this one in reruns …

45. Chemical “twin” : ISOMER
In the world of chemistry, isomers are two compounds with same chemical properties and the same atomic constituents, but with a slightly different arrangement of the atoms relative to each other.

47. Thumbs-up responses : A-OKS
Our term “A-OK” is supposedly an abbreviation for “A(ll systems are) OK”, and arose in the sixties during the Space Program.

53. Bone below the elbow : ULNA
The humerus is the long bone in the upper arm. The bones in the forearm are the radius and ulna. “Ulna” is the Latin word for “elbow”, and “radius” is Latin for “ray”.

54. SEAL’s org. : USN
SEAL is an acronym used by the US Navy’s SEa, Air and Land teams. The SEALs were born out of the Navy’s special warfare groups from WWII, like the Underwater Demolition Teams and the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons. The Navy SEAL unit was established soon after President Kennedy’s famous speech in which he announced the plan to put a man on the moon, as in the same speech the president allocated $100m of funding to strengthen special operations forces. The Navy used some of this money to set up guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units, which soon became the SEALs.

55. ___ Murphy, W.W. II hero : AUDIE
Audie Murphy was a highly-decorated combat veteran from WWII before he launched a successful career as a Hollywood actor. One of his most famous films is 1955’s “To Hell and Back” that is based on Murphy’s own memoirs published in 1949. Sadly, he was killed in a private plane crash in 1971.

60. It may be read to a miscreant : RIOT ACT
The Riot Act was a British law that was in force from 1715 to 1967. According to the Riot Act, government entities could declare any gathering of twelve or more people “unlawful”. Our expression “read the Riot Act” is derived from the requirement for the authorities to read out the Riot Act proclamation to a unlawful assembly before the Act could be enforced.

62. Half moon? : BUTTOCK
The first recorded mooning incident took place in 66 AD, during the First Roman-Jewish War. Roman soldiers decided to moon Jewish pilgrims as they traveled to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

64. Odd or even, in roulette : BET
The name “roulette” means “little wheel” in French, and the game as we know it today did in fact originate in Paris, in 1796.

68. Palme ___ (Cannes award) : D’OR
The “Palme d’Or” (or “Golden Palm” in English) is the highest award given at the Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d’Or goes to the director of the film selected as the best shown at the festival that year. The palm was selected as an emblem for the award as there is a palm featured on the coat of arms of the Commune of Cannes.

Down
1. Smoky-voiced Eartha : KITT
Eartha Kitt sure did have a unique voice and singing style. Her rendition of “Santa Baby” has to be one of the most distinctive and memorable recordings in the popular repertoire. Some of you will no doubt remember Eartha playing Catwoman on the final series of the TV show “Batman”.

2. Foreign exchange fee : AGIO
The term “agio” derives from the Italian “aggio” meaning “exchange rate, discount, premium”. Most often, the agio is defined as the difference between the actual exchange rate and the nominal exchange rate for two currencies. That difference is mainly made up of the service fee for making the exchange.

3. Soft slip-ons : MOCS
“Moc” is short for “moccasin” shoe.

The moccasin is a traditional form of footwear worn by members of many Native American tribes.

4. Dawdler : POKE
Back in the early 1800s, a “poke” was a device attached to domestic animals such as pugs 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”.

5. Insurer with a duck mascot : AFLAC
In 1999 Aflac was huge in the world of insurance but it wasn’t a household name, so a New York advertising agency was given the task of making the Aflac brand more memorable. One of the agency’s art directors, while walking around Central Park one lunchtime, heard a duck quacking and in his mind linked it with “Aflac”, and that duck has been “Aflacking” ever since …

6. Tommy of Mötley Crüe : LEE
Mötley Crüe is an American rock band, from Los Angeles. They’ve been around since 1981, co-founded by the famous drummer Tommy Lee. Tommy Lee is also known for his two celebrated marriages, the first with Heather Locklear and the second with Pamela Anderson. The name “Mötley Crüe” was chosen as someone once described the band members as a “motley looking crew”. The spelling was made to look a little more exotic, with the umlauts added over the “o” and “u” one day, as the band were drinking bottles of “Löwenbräu” beer!

8. Music critic Nat : HENTOFF
Nat Hentoff writes regularly on jazz and country music for “The Wall Street Journal”.

9. Wellesley grad, e.g. : ALUMNA
Wellesley is a private women’s school located in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Wellesley was founded in 1870 and is one of the original Seven Sisters Colleges.

The Seven Sisters are a group of (traditionally women’s) colleges in the northeast of the country that were founded to parallel the all-male (as they were then) Ivy League colleges. The seven are:

– Mount Holyoke
– Vassar
– Wellesley
– Smith
– Radcliffe
– Bryn Mawr
– Barnard

10. “Good Will Hunting” sch. : MIT
“Good Will Hunting” was the movie that gave both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck their big break in films, and deservedly so. Affleck and Damon are actually distant cousins who lived two blocks from each other in Cambridge, Massachusetts where the pair spent their teen years. The two friends wrote the film’s screenplay and of course took starring roles, alongside Robin Williams and Minnie Driver. Affleck and Damon won an Academy Award for the screenplay. What a great success story, eh?

11. Mild cigar : CLARO
A claro is mild cigar made with light-colored tobacco. The name “claro” comes from the Spanish for “clear”.

12. Trig ratio : COSEC
(28D. Reciprocal of 12-Down : SINE)
The cosecant (cosec, for short) is the ratio of the hypotenuse of a triangle to its opposite side, and is the reciprocal of the sine, as we all remember from school …

24. Ye ___ Shoppe : OLDE
The word “olde” wasn’t actually used much earlier than the 1920s. “Olde” was introduced to give a quaint antique feel to brand names, shop names etc.

26. Charlie formerly of “Two and a Half Men” : SHEEN
Charlie Sheen’s real name is Carlos Irwin Estévez, and he is of course the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen. Charlie was the highest paid actor on television in 2010, earning $1.8 million per episode on the sitcom “Two and a Half Men”. Then of course he blew it and got fired from the show amid stories of alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence. I bet his co-stars were pretty tweaked about the show being cancelled, and pretty happy that it was given a second lease of life …

27. Hot times in la cité : ETES
One might spend the summer (été) under the sun (le soleil) in French-speaking cities (cités).

29. Onetime “S.N.L.”-type show : SCTV
“Second City Television” (SCTV) is a sketch show that was produced in Canada from 1976 to 1984. The TV show was a spinoff from the Second City comedy group from Toronto.

“Saturday Night Live” (SNL)

30. ’30s migrant : OKIE
“Okies” was a derogatory term used during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s for farming families who migrated from Oklahoma (hence the name), Arkansas, Kansas and Texas in search of agricultural jobs in California. The road used by many of these migrant families was Route 66, which is also called “Mother Road”.

33. He sings “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one / You make bath time lots of fun” : ERNIE
“Rubber Duckie” is a song performed by the muppet Ernie on “Sesame Street”. Rubber Duckie is also the name of Ernie’s favorite toy, his rubber duck.

35. Pro ___ (in proportion) : RATA
“Pro rata” is a Latin phrase meaning “in proportion”.

36. Suffix with buck : -AROO
The American English word “buckaroo” comes from “vaquero”, the Spanish for cowboy.

37. Down with the flu, say : SICK
Influenza (flu) is an ailment that is caused by a virus. The virus is readily inactivated by the use of soap, so washing hands and surfaces is especially helpful in containing flu outbreaks.

42. Tony Soprano, for one : MOBSTER
“The Sopranos” is an outstanding television drama that was made by HBO and is a story about Italian-American mobsters in New Jersey. “The Sopranos” has made more money than any other television series in the history of cable television. It’s “must see TV” …

44. Lion constellation : LEO
The constellation called Leo of course can be said to resemble a lion. Others say that it resembles a bent coat hanger. “Leo” is the Latin for “lion”, but I’m not sure what the Latin is for “coat hanger” …

46. Decorative wall coating : STUCCO
Stucco is a decorative coating that is applied to walls and ceilings. “Stucco” is the Italian name for the material, and a word that we imported into English.

48. High-performance engine : TURBO
A turbocharger is a device that is designed to extract more power out of an internal combustion engine. It does so by increasing the pressure of the air entering the intake. The pressure increase comes from the use of a compressor, which is cleverly powered by the engine’s own exhaust gases.

50. Bill worth 100 smackers : C-NOTE
“Smacker” is American slang for “money”, with “smackers” often being used to mean ”dollars”. It is suggested that the term might come from “smacking” a banknote into one’s hand.

51. Kit ___ bar : KAT
I grew up eating Kit Kat bars as a kid, as the chocolate confection has been around since the thirties. Kit Kats didn’t hit the shelves in the US until the seventies. I’ve seen new varieties of Kit Kat over in the UK, such as an orange-flavored version, but haven’t seen anything like that over here.

52. Bigot, e.g. : HATER
“Bigot” is a French word that back in the late 1500s meant “sanctimonious person, religious hypocrite”. We use the term today to describe someone who is biased towards his or her own group, and who is intolerant of those outside of that group.

56. ___ Reader (bimonthly magazine) : UTNE
The “Utne Reader” is known for aggregation and republishing of articles on politics, culture and the environment from other sources in the media. The “Utne Reader” was founded in 1984, with “Utne” being the family name of the couple that started the publication.

58. :-), for one : ICON
An emoticon is a glyph created using text characters to represent facial features, and usually oriented sideways. The emoticon is designed to indicate emotion or attitude. The classic example is the smiley face 🙂

59. Squeezes (out) : EKES
To “eke out” means to “make something go further or last longer”. For example, you could eke out your income by cutting back on expenses.

62. Cow genus : BOS
Domestic cattle belong to the genus Bos. “Bos” is the Latin for “cow, ox, bull”.

63. Something a scanner scans, in brief : UPC
UPC stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Capital of Uganda : KAMPALA
8. Radio operator : HAM
11. Syringe units, briefly : CCS
14. “Whoops!” : I GOOFED!
15. Peyton’s QB brother : ELI
16. Chaney of horror films : LON
17. ___ pink : TICKLED
18. Fruitcake : NUTCASE
20. Where sailors go : TO SEA
21. Number pad locale, for short : ATM
22. Geometric calculation : AREA
23. It’s not preferred for investors : COMMON STOCK
27. Station on the Alaska Highway : ESSO
31. Bather’s exfoliant : LOOFAH
32. Peeved : TICKED OFF
34. Clear the board : ERASE
39. Full : ENTIRE
40. Sweetheart : DEARIE
41. Full complement of dwarfs : SEVEN
42. 1963 John Wayne comedy western : MCLINTOCK!
45. Chemical “twin” : ISOMER
47. Thumbs-up responses : A-OKS
48. Spot at the front of a theater : TICKET BOOTH
53. Bone below the elbow : ULNA
54. SEAL’s org. : USN
55. ___ Murphy, W.W. II hero : AUDIE
60. It may be read to a miscreant : RIOT ACT
62. Half moon? : BUTTOCK
64. Odd or even, in roulette : BET
65. Swelling reducer : ICE
66. Like some women’s shoes : OPEN-TOE
67. Praiseful verse : ODE
68. Palme ___ (Cannes award) : D’OR
69. What a multiplex has a multiplicity of : SCREENS

Down
1. Smoky-voiced Eartha : KITT
2. Foreign exchange fee : AGIO
3. Soft slip-ons : MOCS
4. Dawdler : POKE
5. Insurer with a duck mascot : AFLAC
6. Tommy of Mötley Crüe : LEE
7. Do sums : ADD
8. Music critic Nat : HENTOFF
9. Wellesley grad, e.g. : ALUMNA
10. “Good Will Hunting” sch. : MIT
11. Mild cigar : CLARO
12. Trig ratio : COSEC
13. Act furtively : SNEAK
19. Feline : CAT
21. “I ___ the opinion …” : AM OF
24. Ye ___ Shoppe : OLDE
25. Cow’s call : MOO
26. Charlie formerly of “Two and a Half Men” : SHEEN
27. Hot times in la cité : ETES
28. Reciprocal of 12-Down : SINE
29. Onetime “S.N.L.”-type show : SCTV
30. ’30s migrant : OKIE
33. He sings “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one / You make bath time lots of fun” : ERNIE
35. Pro ___ (in proportion) : RATA
36. Suffix with buck : -AROO
37. Down with the flu, say : SICK
38. Squeals of alarm : EEKS
40. Gossip : DIRT
42. Tony Soprano, for one : MOBSTER
43. “Shake a leg!” : C’MON!
44. Lion constellation : LEO
46. Decorative wall coating : STUCCO
48. High-performance engine : TURBO
49. Perjurer’s admission : I LIED
50. Bill worth 100 smackers : C-NOTE
51. Kit ___ bar : KAT
52. Bigot, e.g. : HATER
56. ___ Reader (bimonthly magazine) : UTNE
57. Be sweet (on) : DOTE
58. :-), for one : ICON
59. Squeezes (out) : EKES
61. Help : AID
62. Cow genus : BOS
63. Something a scanner scans, in brief : UPC

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