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CROSSWORD SETTER: Damon J. Gulczynski
THEME: None
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 20m 05s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Big coverage provider : AFLAC
In 1999, Aflac (American Family Life Assurance Company) 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 …
10. Nipper : TYKE
“Tyke” has been used playfully to describe a young child since at least 1902, but for centuries before that a tyke was a cur or mongrel, or perhaps a lazy or lower-class man.
16. Crop circles, e.g. : HOAX
Don’t believe what you hear. Crop circles are hoaxes …
17. Part of many a rural skyline : SILO
“Silo” is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English, originally coming from the Greek word “siros” that described a pit in which one kept corn.
19. Former Soviet leader Andropov : YURI
Yuri Andropov was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1982 until he passed away just 15 months after taking office. Andropov had also served as head of the KGB from 1967 to 1982, making him the longest-serving KGB chairman in its history.
20. Singer Goulding : ELLIE
Ellie Goulding is a singer-songwriter from England. One of Goulding’s claims to fame is that she sang at the wedding reception of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Buckingham Palace in 2011.
24. Film title role for Tyrone Power and Brad Pitt : JESSE JAMES
“Jesse James” is a 1939 film starring Tyrone Power in the title role, alongside Henry Fonda and Randolph Scott. The movie is notorious for a scene in which a horse falls to his death after being driven off a cliff. As a result, “Jesse James” is one of the films that led to the American Humane Association monitoring the use of animals in filmmaking.
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is a 2007 film adapted from the 1983 novel of the same name by Ron Hansen. The title roles are played by Brad Pitt (James) and Casey Affleck (Ford).
26. Theoretical : 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 …
27. ___Kosh B’Gosh : OSH
OshKosh B’gosh is a company that produces and sells children’s clothes. The trademark OshKosh bib-overalls remind us of the company’s roots, as it was originally a manufacturer of adult work clothes based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
28. Wrigley’s field : GUM
The Wrigley Company is the largest manufacturer of chewing gum in the world. Wrigley’s was founded in 1891 in Chicago by William Wrigley, Jr. to sell scouring soap. Wrigley switched to baking powder, and then began to offering two packs of gum as an incentive to buy a can of baking powder. The gum turned out to be more popular than the baking powder.
29. Noted bomb in a longtime war : NEW COKE
When “new Coke” was introduced in 1985, the market reacted very, very badly. The public reaction was so negative that the Coca-Cola company quickly reintroduced its “Coca Cola Classic” line. Ironically, the whole debacle resulted in Coke actually gaining market share when the “old coke” returned to supermarket shelves.
31. Energy qtys. : BTUS
In the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), the power of a heating or cooling unit can be measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs). This dated unit is the amount of energy required to heat a pound of water so that the water’s temperature increases by one degree Fahrenheit.
33. Block 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 …
39. Vegan milk source : ALMOND
I’m a big fan of almond milk, especially in my coffee …
41. “Sketches by ___” (1830s work) : BOZ
“Sketches by ‘Boz’” is a book of short pieces by Charles Dickens that was first published in 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank.
The English author Charles Dickens used the pen-name “Boz” early in his career. He had already established himself as the most famous novelist of the Victorian Era when he came to visit America in 1842. He was honored by 3,000 of New York’s elite at a “Boz Ball” in the Park Theater.
45. Ranchers’ enemies : COYOTES
The coyote is a canine found in most of Central and North America. The name “coyote” is Mexican Spanish, in which language it means “trickster”. Coyotes can sometimes mate with domestic dogs, creating hybrid animals known as “coydogs”. Coyotes can also mate with wolves, creating a “coywolf”. South Dakota named the coyote its state animal in 1949.
47. Dispensary measures: Abbr. : OZS
The unit of mass that we know today as a “pound” is descended from the old Roman unit of weight known as a “libra”. That “libra” connection is why we abbreviate “pound” to “lb”. The name “pound” though comes from the Latin “pondo” meaning “weight”. Our term “ounce” (abbreviated to “oz.”) comes from the Latin “uncia”, which was 1/12 of a Roman “libra”.
51. One might take you in : SCAM ARTIST
The slang term “scam”, meaning a swindle, may come from the British slang “scamp”.
54. Producer for Bowie and the Talking Heads : ENO
Brian Eno is a musician, composer and record producer from England who first achieved fame as the synthesizer player with Roxy Music. As a producer, Eno has worked with David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2.
56. French toast : SALUT
In French “salut” means “hi”, and is less formal than “bonjour”. The term can also be used as a friendly toast.
59. Denver’s ___ University : REGIS
Regis University is a Jesuit school in Denver, Colorado that was founded in 1877 in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Las Vegas school was merged with Sacred Heart College in Morrison, Colorado and moved to the present location in 1887.
62. Warranting a heart on Instagram, say : CUTE
Instagram is a photo-sharing application, one that is extremely popular I hear. Instagram was started in San Francisco in 2010. Facebook purchased Instagram two years later, paying $1 billion. The billion-dollar Instagram company had just 13 employees at the time of the sale …
63. Bridge unit : TRICK
That would be in bridge, the card game.
64. Trochee’s counterpart : IAMB
An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” consists of lines made up of four sequential iambs e.g. “Whose woods / these are / I think / I know”. With a sequence of four iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic tetrameter.
A trochee (also “choree, choreus”) is a metrical foot in poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (so is an iamb reversed). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” is written using trochaic meter
Should you / ask me,/ whence these / stor/ies?
Whence these / legends / and tra/ditions,
65. Emperor after Galba : OTHO
AD 69 was a year of civil war in ancient Rome. The unrest started with the death of emperor Nero in AD 68, after which followed the brief rule of Galba, of Otho, of Vitellius, and of Vespasian all in the same year. As a result, AD 69 became known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
67. Father of Harmonia : ARES
Harmonia was the Greek goddess of harmony and concord. According to some Greek lore, she was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. She is noted for the story of “the Necklace of Harmonia”. She received the necklace as a gift at her wedding, and it brought bad luck to her and all who wore it.
Down
4. French crowd? : TROIS
In France, three (trois) is a crowd, whereas two (deux) is company.
5. Only three-letter constellation other than Leo : ARA
The constellation of Ara takes its name from the Latin word for “altar”.
7. West Coast N.F.L.’er : LA RAM
The Los Angeles Rams are the only franchise to have won NFL championships in three different cities, i.e. Cleveland (1945), Los Angeles (1951) and St. Louis (1999). The Rams were based in Cleveland from 1936 to 1945, in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1994, in St. Louis from 1995 to 2015, and returned to Los Angeles in 2016.
8. Certain blackjack : ACE-TEN
The game of “twenty-one” was first referred to in a book by Cervantes, the author famous for writing “Don Quixote”. He called the game “ventiuna” (Spanish for “twenty-one”). Cervantes wrote his story just after the year 1600, so the game has been around at least since then. Twenty-one came to the US but it wasn’t all that popular so bonus payments were introduced to create more interest. One of the more attractive bonuses was a ten-to-one payout to a player who was dealt an ace of spades and a black jack. This bonus led to the game adopting the moniker “Blackjack”.
9. Basic order at Domino’s : CHEESE PIZZA
Domino’s Pizza started out as DomiNick’s, a pizza store in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The store was purchased by Dominic’s founder Tom Monaghan in 1960, along with his brother. Tom bought out his brother a few months later, for the price of a used VW! The store was renamed Domino’s Pizza in 1965, and two years later the first franchise store was opened. There are now over 8,000 stores worldwide, including one in Tallaght in Ireland, the town where I lived for many years in my youth. That Tallaght store became the first Domino’s outlet in the world to hit a turnover of $3 million a year. We Irish obviously have terrible taste when it comes to pizza …
10. “Go ___ ways to a nunnery”: Hamlet : THY
The full title of William Shakespeare’s play that we tend to call “Hamlet” is “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. It is the most performed of all Shakespeare’s plays and it is also his longest, the only one of his works comprising over 4,000 lines. That’s about a 4-hour sitting in a theater …
12. Bar activity : KARAOKE
Karate, means “open hand”, and the related word “karaoke” means “open orchestra”.
21. Headlines, for short? : EEG
An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of electrical activity caused by the firing of neurons within the brain. The EEG might be used to diagnose epilepsy, or perhaps to determine if a patient is “brain dead”.
25. Comeuppance : JUST DESERTS
The phrase “just deserts” describes something which is deserved, and in today’s usage that can be something good or bad. The expression has been around a long time, and back in the 14th century it only applied to something bad. I guess the idea is that someone doing something unacceptable got his “just deserts”, the dry and barren expanses fitting to the deed. Over time, the pronunciation of “deserts” changed, with the emphasis on the second syllable, like our word “desserts”. The correct phrase is still spelled “just deserts”, but it is pronounced “just desserts”. As a result, many believe that the phrase is in fact spelled “just desserts”, meaning is one is getting what one deserves, sweet endings to one’s meals, as it were. But no, one is getting a dry and arid expanse that sounds like something sweet to eat. The correct spelling is “just deserts” and the correct pronunciation is “just desserts”.
To receive one’s “comeuppance” is to get one’s just deserts, an unpleasant consequence for one’s actions. The term likely comes from the concept of being told to “come up” to a higher authority for judgment.
26. Fast-food debut of 1981 : MCRIB
The McDonald’s McRib sandwich is based on a pork patty. There isn’t any pork rib in the patty though. It is primarily made up of pork shoulder meat reconstituted with tripe, heart and stomach tissue. Enjoy …
34. Hunky-dory : FAB
Surprisingly (to me), the term “hunky-dory” has been around a long time, and is documented back in the mid-1800s. Nobody’s really sure of its origin, but some say it is an Anglicization of Honcho dori, that back in the day was a street of ill repute in Yokohama, Japan.
39. Big name in auto parts : ACDELCO
Delco Electronics took its name from Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company. Delco is often seen in the brand name “ACDelco”. The AC stands for Albert Champion, who was famous for the development of the spark plug.
46. White of the eye : SCLERA
The sclera is the white part of the eye. Usually the sclera is white, but in horses for example, it is black. Really, go check!
52. Backing : AEGIS
Someone is said to be under the aegis (also “egis”) of someone else (for example) if that other person provides protection, or perhaps sponsorship. The word “aegis” comes from the Greek word for a goat (“aigis”), the idea being that the goatskin shield or breastplate worn by Zeus or Athena, gave some measure of protection.
53. Actress Shire : TALIA
The actress Talia Shire is best-known for playing Rocky’s wife Adrian in the “Rocky” series of movies. She also played Connie, the daughter of Don Corleone, in “The Godfather” films. Shire is the sister of movie director Francis Ford Coppola and the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage. Her son is the actor Jason Schwartzman.
58. “___ gratias” : DEO
The phrase “Deo gratias”, meaning “Thanks be to God”, is heard repeatedly during the Latin Mass in the Roman Catholic faith.
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Amphibian once associated with bad spirits : NEWT
5. Big coverage provider : AFLAC
10. Nipper : TYKE
14. No longer stuck on : OVER
15. ___ Motel : ROACH
16. Crop circles, e.g. : HOAX
17. Part of many a rural skyline : SILO
18. Line up : AGREE
19. Former Soviet leader Andropov : YURI
20. Singer Goulding : ELLIE
22. Bad way to run : LATE
23. Start of some Southwest city names : LAS
24. Film title role for Tyrone Power and Brad Pitt : JESSE JAMES
26. Theoretical : MOOT
27. ___Kosh B’Gosh : OSH
28. Wrigley’s field : GUM
29. Noted bomb in a longtime war : NEW COKE
31. Energy qtys. : BTUS
33. Block letters? : SPF
35. Staying put : PARKED
36. Skeptical rejoinder : THAT’S A BIG IF
39. Vegan milk source : ALMOND
41. “Sketches by ___” (1830s work) : BOZ
42. Criticize in no uncertain terms : BASH
45. Ranchers’ enemies : COYOTES
47. Dispensary measures: Abbr. : OZS
49. ___-cow : MOO
50. Civil engineering projects : DAMS
51. One might take you in : SCAM ARTIST
54. Producer for Bowie and the Talking Heads : ENO
55. ___ sch. : ELEM
56. French toast : SALUT
57. Like Hawaiian shirts : LOUD
59. Denver’s ___ University : REGIS
61. Place : LIEU
62. Warranting a heart on Instagram, say : CUTE
63. Bridge unit : TRICK
64. Trochee’s counterpart : IAMB
65. Emperor after Galba : OTHO
66. Flip : SASSY
67. Father of Harmonia : ARES
Down
1. Hook remover, perhaps : NOSE JOB
2. Most baleful : EVILEST
3. “Huh, how about that!” : WELL SHUT MY MOUTH
4. French crowd? : TROIS
5. Only three-letter constellation other than Leo : ARA
6. Driver’s visual aids in bad weather : FOG LAMPS
7. West Coast N.F.L.’er : LA RAM
8. Certain blackjack : ACE-TEN
9. Basic order at Domino’s : CHEESE PIZZA
10. “Go ___ ways to a nunnery”: Hamlet : THY
11. Statement akin to “Have we met?” : YOU LOOK FAMILIAR
12. Bar activity : KARAOKE
13. Was : EXISTED
21. Headlines, for short? : EEG
25. Comeuppance : JUST DESERTS
26. Fast-food debut of 1981 : MCRIB
30. Turn tail? : WAG
32. Drives off : SHOOS
34. Hunky-dory : FAB
37. Sugar lover : ANT
38. Extended interview components : BOOM MICS
39. Big name in auto parts : ACDELCO
40. Give for a while : LOAN OUT
43. “I messed up … what of it?!” : SO SUE ME?
44. Jet settings : HOT TUBS
46. White of the eye : SCLERA
48. Yearbook div. : SRS
52. Backing : AEGIS
53. Actress Shire : TALIA
58. “___ gratias” : DEO
60. Blue hue : SKY