Day: February 17, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
11. *Fruit juice brand : POM
POM Wonderful is a privately-held company that has been making fruit juice drinks since 2002. The main product line is pomegranate juice, hence the company name.

14. Managed care grp. : HMO
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

15. Wife of Charlie Chaplin : OONA
Oona Chaplin is an actress from Madrid in Spain. Chaplin is getting a lot of airtime these days as she plays Talisa Maegyr on HBO’s hit fantasy series “Game of Thrones”. Oona is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, and is named for her maternal grandmother Oona O’Neill. the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

16. Hero war pilot : ACE
A flying ace is an aviator who has shot down a number of enemy planes during combat. The qualifying number of kills seems to vary, but five is common. The first use of “ace” was during WWI when the French newspapers dubbed pilot Adolphe Pegoud “l’as” (French for “the ace”) when he shot down his fifth German plane.

17. 7’6″ Ming of the N.B.A. : YAO
Yao Ming is a retired professional basketball player from Shanghai who played for the Houston Rockets. At 7’6″, Yao was the tallest man playing in the NBA.

18. Kellogg’s Cracklin’ ___ Bran : OAT
Kellogg’s has been making Cracklin’ Oat Bran since 1977. The recipe for the cereal was revamped in 1989 in order to reduce the saturated fat content.

19. Like Superman’s vision : X-RAY
Superman was sent to Earth in a rocket as a child by his parents who were living on the doomed planet of Krypton. On Earth he was discovered by the Kents, farmers who lived near the fictional town of Smallville. The Kents raised the infant as their own, giving him the name Clark.

20. First U.S. color TV maker : RCA
During WWI, the US government actively discouraged the loss of certain technologies to other countries, including allies. The developing wireless technologies were considered to be particularly important by the army and navy. The government prevented the General Electric Company from selling equipment to the British Marconi Company, and instead facilitated the purchase by GE of the American Marconi subsidiary. This purchase led to GE forming the Radio Corporation of America that we know today as RCA.

21. Pi follower : RHO
Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.

22. 2000 novelty hit … or a hint to the answers to the nine starred clues : WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?
The Baha Men are so called because they hail from … the Bahamas. Their big hit was “Who Let the Dogs Out?” which has been ranked as third in a list of the world’s most annoying songs!

26. ___ pro nobis : ORA
“Ora pro nobis” translates from Latin as “pray for us”. It is a common term used in the Roman Catholic tradition and is often shortened to “OPN”.

27. Tristan’s love, in Camelot : ISEULT
According to Arthurian legend, Iseult (also “Isolde”) was the adulterous lover of Sir Tristan, one of the Knights of the Round Table. Iseult was an Irish Princess who fell in love with Tristan who was sent to win Iseult’s hand in marriage for King Mark of Cornwall. The tale was used as the basis for Richard Wagner’s celebrated opera “Tristan und Isolde”.

Camelot is featured in Arthurian legend, as King Arthur’s castle and his court.

28. Singer Guthrie : ARLO
Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for their singing of 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.

31. They convert hides to leather : TANNERIES
Leather is made from animal skins. When the flesh, fat and hair is removed from the skin and it is dried, the resulting product is called “rawhide”. An additional treatment of the skin with chemicals that permanently alter the protein structure of the skin is called “tanning”, and the resulting product is “leather”.

38. Pago Pago islander : SAMOAN
Pago Pago is the capital of American Samoa in the South Pacific. The island was used by the US Navy during WWII and it managed to escape most of the conflict. The only military incident of consequence was the shelling of the city’s harbor by a Japanese submarine. A more devastating event was the tsunami that hit Pago Pago and surrounding areas in 2009, causing widespread damage and numerous deaths.

43. Suffix with Dixie : -CRAT
Dixiecrats were members of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, a segregationist group that was disbanded after only a few months of activity, in 1948. The Dixiecrats were a breakaway faction from the Democratic Party. The Dixiecrat party platform was centered around States’ rights, racial segregation and white supremacy.

44. Curb’s place : STREET
“Curb” is another of those words that I had to learn when I came to the US. We park by the “kerb” on the other side of the Atlantic. Oh, and the “pavement”, that’s what we call the “footpath” (because the footpath is “paved”!). It’s very confusing when you arrive in this country from Ireland, and a little dangerous when one has been taught to “walk on the pavement” …

45. Clock radio toggle switch : AM/PM
The 12-hour clock has been around a long time, and was even used in sundial format in Ancient Egypt. Our use of AM and PM dates back to Roman times, with AM standing for Ante Meridiem (before noon) and PM standing for Post Meridiem (after noon). However, the Romans originally used the AM concept a little differently, by counting backwards from noon. So, 2AM to the Romans would be two hours before noon, or 10AM as we would call it today.

51. Sgts., e.g. : NCOS
An NCO is a non-commissioned officer in the armed forces. Usually such an officer is one who has earned his or her rank by promotion through the enlisted ranks. A good example would be a sergeant.

53. *Relentless pursuer : BLOODHOUND
Bloodhounds have an amazing sense of smell, and are particularly bred to track humans. Bloodhounds have been used to follow humans since the Middle Ages.

56. Skateboarder’s challenge : PIPE
Half-pipes and quarter-pipes are ramped structures used in extreme sports, such as skateboarding, snowboarding and freestyle BMX.

59. Wonder product : BREAD
Wonder Bread was introduced in 1921, a bread produced by the Taggart Baking company of Indianapolis. Back then Wonder Bread was unsliced, with the sliced version being introduced nationally in the 1930s.

64. Luau entertainers : UKES
The ukulele (“uke”) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

Nowadays the word “luau” denotes almost any kind of party on the Hawaiian Islands, but to the purist a luau is a feast that always includes a serving of “poi”, the bulbous underground stems of taro baked with coconut milk.

66. *Like Lauren Bacall’s voice : HUSKY
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.

69. One coming down for a landing? : STAIR
A “landing” is the area at the top and bottom of a staircase. Apparently, we called the steps between the landings a “flight” of stairs, because one flies between landings! Can that be true?

Down
1. *Grub : CHOW
“Chow” is an American slang term for food that originated in California in the mid-1800s. “Chow” comes from the Chinese pidgin English “chow-chow” meaning “food”.

The Chow Chow (sometimes just “Chow”) is a breed of dog that originated in China. The Chinese name for the breed is “Songshi Quan”, which translates as “puffy-lion dog”, a rather apt name given its appearance …

“Grub” is slang for food. The word “grub” has been used in this sense since way back in the 1600s, possible derived from birds eating grubs.

2. Indian nursemaid : AMAH
“Amah” is an interesting word in that we associate it so much with Asian culture and yet it actually comes from the Portuguese “ama” meaning “nurse”. Ama was imported into English in the days of the British Raj in India when a wet-nurse became known as an amah.

3. Pooch in Oz : TOTO
In movie “The Wizard of Oz” Toto is played by a terrier, but in the books by L. Frank Baum, Toto was just described as “a little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose”.

4. *One working on a canvas? : BOXER
The boxer breed of dog (one of my favorites!) originated in Germany. My first dog was a boxer/Labrador mix, a beautiful animal. Our current family dog is a boxer/pug mix, another gorgeous creature.

5. Largest blood vessel : AORTA
The aorta originates in the heart and extends down into the abdomen. It is the largest artery in the body.

6. Annoying pest : GNAT
Gnats are attracted to the smell of rotting food, and to vinegar. Simple homemade traps that use vinegar are often constructed to attract and kill gnats.

8. Busch ___ : GARDENS
The Busch Gardens group of theme parks was originally envisioned as a vehicle for the promotion of Anheuser-Busch products, so free beer samples were made available to patrons (but no longer!). The Tampa location was the first of the parks to be opened, in 1959. It has an African theme, whereas the only other US Busch Gardens property, in Williamsburg, Virginia has a European theme. There are plans to open a third park in Dubai, although the project has been put on hold due to the current financial climate.

10. *Darwin’s ship : BEAGLE
The Beagle breed of dog is a scent hound, developed for tracking small game. Because of this characteristic, Beagles are often used as detection dogs in customs halls around the world. The world’s most famous Beagle is probably Charlie Brown’s Snoopy, from the comic strip “Peanuts”.

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”.

11. Firebug : PYRO
“Pyro-” is the combining form of the Greek word for “fire”. A pyromaniac (a “pyro”) is someone with an abnormal desire to start fires, or with a general obsession with fire.

12. Frequent vacation locale for Obama : OAHU
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am pretty sure that Barack Hussein Obama II was indeed born in Hawaii. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.

13. ___ point : MOOT
“To moot” is to bring up as a subject for discussion or debate. So, something that is moot is open to debate. Something that is no longer moot, is no longer worth debating. We don’t seem to be able get that right …

23. Dress to the nines, say : LOOK ONE’S BEST
The term “to the nines” means “to perfection”. The first person to use the term in literature was Robbie Burns. Apparently the idea behind the use of “nines” is figurative (pun!), with the number nine considered “ideal” as it is arrived at by multiplying three by three.

24. Jacob’s twin : ESAU
Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).

30. Madagascar primates : LEMURS
Lemurs are the most unusual-looking creatures, native to the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. With their white fur and dark eyes that are very reflective at night, they have a “ghostly” appearance. Indeed, the animals takes their name from Roman mythology in which “lemures” were spirits of the restless dead.

Madagascar is the large island country lying off the southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The main island of Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo).

34. *Volleyball position : SETTER
In volleyball, the “set” is the second contact made by a team, the contact that is meant to “set up” an attacking shot.

45. Like the Incas : ANDEAN
Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro discovered the Incas in 1526, marking the beginning of the end for an ancient civilization that was to be ravaged by brutal Spanish colonists and by imported smallpox. The last leader of the Inca was Atahualpa. Pizarro staged a mock trial and then condemned Atahualpa to execution by burning. A Spanish friar intervened on behalf of the condemned man, as Atahualpa believed that if he was burned his soul would not move on to the afterlife. Pizarro, was kind enough to have Atahualpa garroted instead.

The Andes is the longest continuous chain of mountains in the world, running right down the length of the west coast of South America for about 4,300 miles. The highest peak in the range is Mt. Aconcagua, at an elevation of 22,841 feet. Interestingly, the peak of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest point on the Earth’s surface from the center of the planet. That’s because of the equatorial “bulge” around the Earth’s “waist”.

46. 1960s Borgnine sitcom title role : MCHALE
Ernest Borgnine was the stage name of actor Ermes Borgnino from Hamden, Connecticut. One of Borgnine’s most famous roles was Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale in the hit TV series “McHale’s Navy”. Borgnine had himself served in the US Navy from 1935 to 1941. He then re-enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor and served until 1945.

47. *Kind of skirt or haircut : POODLE
The standard Poodle breed of dog is considered to be the second most intelligent breed, after the Border Collie. The name “poodle” comes from a Low German word meaning “to splash about”, reflecting the original use of the breed as a water retriever.

48. Spartans’ sch. : MSU
Michigan State University’s (MSU’s) athletic team is known as the Spartans.

56. *___ nose : PUG
The pug is a breed of dog of Chinese origin. Our current family pet is a boxer/pug cross, a good-looking mutt!

57. “Likable” prez : IKE
“I Like Ike” was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.

63. Norse god of war : TYR
Týr is the Norse god of single combat, victory and heroic glory.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Enemy of the pictured animal : CAT
4. Items checked at the airport : BAGS
8. Talk, talk, talk : GAB
11. *Fruit juice brand : POM
14. Managed care grp. : HMO
15. Wife of Charlie Chaplin : OONA
16. Hero war pilot : ACE
17. 7’6″ Ming of the N.B.A. : YAO
18. Kellogg’s Cracklin’ ___ Bran : OAT
19. Like Superman’s vision : X-RAY
20. First U.S. color TV maker : RCA
21. Pi follower : RHO
22. 2000 novelty hit … or a hint to the answers to the nine starred clues : WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?
26. ___ pro nobis : ORA
27. Tristan’s love, in Camelot : ISEULT
28. Singer Guthrie : ARLO
31. They convert hides to leather : TANNERIES
35. Car radio button : SEEK
36. Remove, as a dictator : OUST
37. Feminine suffix : -ENNE
38. Pago Pago islander : SAMOAN
41. Diplomacy : TACT
42. “Don’t ask me!” : I DUNNO!
43. Suffix with Dixie : -CRAT
44. Curb’s place : STREET
45. Clock radio toggle switch : AM/PM
49. Hydrant attachment : HOSE
50. Flips a coin : TOSSES
51. Sgts., e.g. : NCOS
52. Decorative pitcher : EWER
53. *Relentless pursuer : BLOODHOUND
56. Skateboarder’s challenge : PIPE
59. Wonder product : BREAD
60. 59-Across, after crisping : TOAST
64. Luau entertainers : UKES
65. In the least : AT ALL
66. *Like Lauren Bacall’s voice : HUSKY
67. Mannerly man : GENT
68. Gift recipient : DONEE
69. One coming down for a landing? : STAIR

Down
1. *Grub : CHOW
2. Indian nursemaid : AMAH
3. Pooch in Oz : TOTO
4. *One working on a canvas? : BOXER
5. Largest blood vessel : AORTA
6. Annoying pest : GNAT
7. Greet : SAY HI TO
8. Busch ___ : GARDENS
9. Narrative : ACCOUNT
10. *Darwin’s ship : BEAGLE
11. Firebug : PYRO
12. Frequent vacation locale for Obama : OAHU
13. ___ point : MOOT
23. Dress to the nines, say : LOOK ONE’S BEST
24. Jacob’s twin : ESAU
25. Went from one seat to two, maybe : STRETCHED OUT
28. Lend a hand : ASSIST
29. Entertain, as with a bedtime story : READ TO
30. Madagascar primates : LEMURS
32. Lined up : IN A ROW
33. Box up : ENCASE
34. *Volleyball position : SETTER
39. Slippery as ___ : AN EEL
40. Middling : NOT SO BAD
45. Like the Incas : ANDEAN
46. 1960s Borgnine sitcom title role : MCHALE
47. *Kind of skirt or haircut : POODLE
48. Spartans’ sch. : MSU
54. “___ put it another way …” : OR TO
55. Unspecified degrees : NTHS
56. *___ nose : PUG
57. “Likable” prez : IKE
58. Write : PEN
61. Sick ___ dog : AS A
62. One going on foot in the mountains? : SKI
63. Norse god of war : TYR

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