Day: May 6, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
7. Speaker ___ : PRO TEM
“Pro tempore” can be abbreviated to “pro tem” or “p.t.” “Pro tempore” is a Latin phrase that best translates as “for the time being”. It is used to describe a person who is acting for another, usually a superior.

15. Processed bauxite : ALUMINA
Bauxite is an aluminum ore. It takes its name from the absolutely beautiful village of Les Baux in southern France, the home of the geologist who first recognized that the mineral was a useful source of the metal.

16. Longtime “General Hospital” actress : ANNA LEE
The English actress Anna Lee was best known in her latter years for playing the matriarch Lila Quartermaine in the soap opera “General Hospital”. Lee’s godfather was novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the character Sherlock Holmes.

17. Place for a “Don’t Mess With Texas” buckle, perhaps : GUN BELT
“Don’t Mess with Texas” is a phrase that started in an advertising campaign for the Texas Department of Transportation in 1986. The intent behind the campaign was to reduce the amount of litter on the roads by placing signs with the slogan along the major highways. Even though “Don’t Mess with Texas” is a registered trademark, it has been adopted by countless other organizations.

18. Former giant in communications, for short : ITT
International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) was formed in 1920 from the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. ITT divested its telecommunications business in 1986, today the company is known for its products in the field of water and fluids management, as well motion and flow control. Many of ITT’s products are sold into the aerospace market.

30. Fr. ladies : MMES
The plural of Madame (Mme.) is Mesdames (Mmes.).

37. “This Land Is Your Land” composer/singer : GUTHRIE
Woody Guthrie was a singer-songwriter best known for his recording of the folk song “This Land is Your Land”, the lyrics of which were written by Guthrie himself.

40. Competitor of Mug : A AND W
A&W is a brand of root beer that has been around since 1920, when Roy Allen partnered with Frank Wright to create the A&W moniker from their family names.

Mug Root Beer is produced in San Francisco. The beverage was introduced in the city in the forties under the name Belfast Root Beer.

44. Horne with backup horns : LENA
Lena Horne was an American jazz singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne started out her career as a nightclub singer and then began to get some meaty acting roles in Hollywood. However, she ended up on the blacklist during the McCarthy Era for expressing left wing political views. One of Horne’s starring roles was in the 1943 movie “Stormy Weather” for which she also performed the title song.

45. Surrealist Max : ERNST
Max Ernst was a painter and sculptor, a pioneer in the Dada movement and Surrealism. Ernst was born near Cologne in Germany in 1891 and he was called up to fight in WWI, as were most young German men at that time. In his autobiography he writes “Max Ernst died the 1st of August, 1914” a statement about his experiences in the war. In reality, Ernst died in 1976 having lived to the ripe old age of 85.

47. Peculiar sundial numeral : IIII
Even though the correct Roman numeral for 4 is IV, but often the numeral is written as IIII on clock faces.

51. German “Oh!” : ACH!
The German exclamation “ach!” is usually translated into English as “oh!”

57. Cholesterol type, for short : LDL
LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is one of the compounds responsible for transporting fats around the body. When LDL is combined with cholesterol it can be referred to as “bad cholesterol”. This is because LDL actually transports cholesterol into the inner walls of blood vessels leading to atherosclerosis.

HDL (high-density lipoprotein) is a compound that is used to transport fats around the body. When HDL is combined with (i.e. is transporting) cholesterol, it is often called “good cholesterol”. This is because HDL seems to remove cholesterol from where it should not be, say on the walls of arteries, and transports it to the liver for reuse or disposal. Important stuff …

60. Word spelled out in an Aretha Franklin hit : RESPECT
I think Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, had a tough life. Franklin had her first son when she was just 13-years-old, and her second at 15. In 2008, “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked Franklin as number one in their list of the greatest singers of all time.

“Respect” is a song by Otis Redding, and one that he recorded himself in 1965. It became a hit when Aretha Franklin made her famous cover version in 1967. The Redding and Franklin versions have different storylines though, and different musical “feels”.

63. Hobo transporter : RAILCAR
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.

Down
2. 20,000 pounds : TEN TONS
Here in the US, a ton is equivalent to 2,000 pounds. Over in the UK, a ton is 2,240 pounds. The UK unit is sometimes referred to as an Imperial ton or sometimes a “long ton”. Folks over there refer to the US ton then as a “short ton”. To further complicate matters, there is also a “metric ton” or “tonne”, which is equivalent to 2,204 pounds. I wish we’d just stick to kilograms …

4. Panhandle state: Abbr. : IDA
The US state of Idaho has a panhandle that extends northwards between Washington and Montana, right up to the border with Canada. Across that border is the Canadian province of British Columbia. Most of Idaho is in the Mountain Time Zone, but Northern Idaho (the Panhandle) is in the Pacific Time Zone.

8. Littlest ones in litters : RUNTS
Back around 1500. a runt was an old or decayed tree stump, and by the early 1600s “runt” was being used to describe animals that were similarly old and decayed. Ultimately “runt” came to mean the smallest and often sickest in a litter.

9. Executive fiscal grp. : OMB
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the successor to the Bureau of the Budget, formed in 1970 during the Nixon administration. The main task of the OMB is to prepare the budget for the federal government, and the Director of the OMB is a member of the Cabinet.

23. Manager’s credential, for short : MBA
The world’s first Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree was offered by Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration, in 1908.

28. Co-owner of a French firm, maybe : FRERE
“Frère” is the French word for “brother”.

29. French legislative body : SENAT
The French Senate (“Sénat”) meets in the beautiful Luxembourg Palace (“Palais du Luxembourg”) in Paris. There are occasions when both houses of the French Parliament (the Senate and the National Assembly) meet at the Palace of Versailles. This joint session is held for the purpose of voting on revisions to the Constitution, or to listen to an address by the President.

34. That, in Madrid : ESA
Madrid is the largest city in Spain and the capital. Madrid is located very close to the geographical center of the country. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (after London and Paris). People from Madrid called themselves Madrileños.

39. Mai ___ : TAI
The Mai Tai cocktail is strongly associated with the Polynesian islands, but the drink was supposedly invented in 1944 in Trader Vic’s restaurant in Oakland, California. One recipe is 6 parts white rum, 3 parts orange curaçao, 3 parts Orgeat syrup, 1 part rock candy syrup, 2 parts fresh lime juice, all mixed with ice and then a float added of 6 parts dark rum.

41. “Collages” author : NIN
Anaïs Nin was a French author, famous for her journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.

“Collages” is the last novel that French author Anaïs Nin had published, in 1964.

42. Castilian vis-à-vis Spanish : DIALECT
The Kingdom of Castile was one seven medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. The name comes from the large number of castles that were built across the kingdom.

43. Kind of strike : WILDCAT
Something described as “wildcat” runs without control or regulation.

46. Gather in rows, as cloth : SHIRR
Shirring is a decorative technique used when sewing a garment. I don’t understand it …

50. ___ & Whitney (aircraft engine manufacturer) : PRATT
Pratt & Whitney is a huge manufacturer of aircraft engines, a competitor with General Electric and Roll-Royce. The company is headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut.

 The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

56. Everest, for one : PEAK
Mount Everest was first summited in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Hillary and Norgay were part of an expedition from which two pairs of climbers were selected to make a summit attempt. The first pair were Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, and they came within 330 feet of their goal but had to turn back. The expedition sent up the second pair two days later, and history was made on 29 May 1953.

59. Yes, in Yokohama : HAI
Yokohama is the second-most populous city in Japan. Yokohama lies on Tokyo Bay and is just a 40-minute drive from the nation’s capital.

61. Party in Mideast negotiations, for short : PLO
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. The PLO’s early stated goal was the liberation of Palestine, with Palestine defined as the geographic entity that existed under the terms of the British Mandate granted by the League of Nations back in 1923. The PLO was granted observer status (i.e. no voting rights) at the United Nations in 1974.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Bitter conflict : STRIFE
7. Speaker ___ : PRO TEM
13. More impoverished : NEEDIER
15. Processed bauxite : ALUMINA
16. Longtime “General Hospital” actress : ANNA LEE
17. Place for a “Don’t Mess With Texas” buckle, perhaps : GUN BELT
18. Former giant in communications, for short : ITT
19. Egocentric demand : ME FIRST
21. “Scram!” : GIT!
22. Seems about to happen : LOOMS
24. Chicago-to-Toronto dir. : ENE
25. Like a smooth operator : SUAVE
27. Not send an expected invitation, say : SNUB
28. Lets out : FREES
30. Fr. ladies : MMES
31. It may be a step up : STAIR
33. Go from 30 to 35 degrees, say : STEEPEN
35. Noted quartet : SEASONS
37. “This Land Is Your Land” composer/singer : GUTHRIE
40. Competitor of Mug : A AND W
44. Horne with backup horns : LENA
45. Surrealist Max : ERNST
47. Peculiar sundial numeral : IIII
49. Take ___ down memory lane : A TRIP
51. German “Oh!” : ACH!
52. Summed up : IN ALL
53. Go pfft : DIE
54. Register printout : RECEIPT
57. Cholesterol type, for short : LDL
58. Fit : IN SHAPE
60. Word spelled out in an Aretha Franklin hit : RESPECT
62. Jots down : NOTATES
63. Hobo transporter : RAILCAR
64. Not conducted elsewhere : ON SITE
65. Difficult : KNOTTY

Down
1. Slow movers : SNAILS
2. 20,000 pounds : TEN TONS
3. Let : RENT OUT
4. Panhandle state: Abbr. : IDA
5. Content of some festivals : FILMS
6. Extra-wide shoe spec : EEEE
7. ___ sizes : PLUS
8. Littlest ones in litters : RUNTS
9. Executive fiscal grp. : OMB
10. Reason for extra play : TIE GAME
11. Spice up : ENLIVEN
12. Unshiny finishes : MATTES
14. Send elsewhere, as a patient : REFER
15. Go along with : AGREE TO
20. Fundamentally : IN ESSENCE
23. Manager’s credential, for short : MBA
26. “Stee-rike!” caller : UMP
28. Co-owner of a French firm, maybe : FRERE
29. French legislative body : SENAT
32. Sort of: Suffix : -ISH
34. That, in Madrid : ESA
36. Hero pilots : AIR ACES
37. Become a part of : GET IN ON
38. Social disturbances : UNRESTS
39. Mai ___ : TAI
41. “Collages” author : NIN
42. Castilian vis-à-vis Spanish : DIALECT
43. Kind of strike : WILDCAT
44. Judeo-Spanish : LADINO
46. Gather in rows, as cloth : SHIRR
48. “O.K., here goes …” : I’LL TRY …
50. ___ & Whitney (aircraft engine manufacturer) : PRATT
52. “___ the bag” : IT’S IN
55. Sports event with electronic scoring : EPEE
56. Everest, for one : PEAK
59. Yes, in Yokohama : HAI
61. Party in Mideast negotiations, for short : PLO

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