Day: March 1, 2024

Bill’s time: 13m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 ___ chip : NACHO

The dish known as “nachos” was supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

19 Canoodle : NECK

The term “necking” applies to kissing and caressing. I like what Groucho Marx had to say on the subject:

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

22 Arpad ___, creator of an eponymous chess rating system : ELO

The Elo rating system is used to compare the skill levels of competing players in games like chess and Scrabble. The system is named for a Hungarian-born professor of physics called Arpad Elo, who was also a master-level chess player active in the US Chess Federation.

23 Mill fodder : GRIST

When grain has been separated from its chaff, to prepare it for grinding, it is called “grist”. Indeed, the word “grist” is derived from the word “grind”. Grist can be ground into a relatively coarse meal, or into a fine flour. The names can be confusing though. For example, the grist from maize when ground to a coarse consistency is called “grits”, and when ground to a fine consistency is called “corn meal”. There is an idiomatic phrase “grist for one’s mill”, meaning something used to one’s advantage. The grinding mechanism, or the building that holds the mechanism, is known as a “gristmill”.

28 Feng shui energy : CHI

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese tradition of arranging objects, buildings and other structures in a manner that is said to improve the lives of the individuals living in or using the space. “Feng shui” translates as “wind-water”, a reference to the belief that positive and negative life forces ride the wind and scatter, but are retained when they encounter water.

38 Shade akin to peridot : LIME

Olivine is a relatively common mineral, but is rarely found with purity that is sufficient for use as a gemstone. When the olivine is pure enough to be used as a gem, it is called “peridot”. Peridot is always olive green in color, with its color intensity a function of how much iron is in the stone.

39 ___ Lingus : AER

Aer Lingus is the flag carrier airline of Ireland. It was founded in 1936 by the Irish government to provide air service between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The airline’s name means “air fleet” in Irish. In the 1950s, Aer Lingus became the first airline in the world to introduce a duty-free shopping service on board its flights.

40 The “dark” part of a Dark ‘n’ Stormy : RUM

A dark ‘n’ stormy is a classic cocktail made from dark rum and ginger beer, served over ice. The name comes from the ingredients, with the “dark” being the rum, and the “stormy” being the ginger beer.

41 Takes in the paper : OP-EDS

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

43 Tune often in 2/4 time : RAG

Ragtime music was at the height of its popularity in the early 1900s. It takes its name from its characteristic “ragged” rhythms. The most famous ragtime composer was Scott Joplin, who had a big hit with his “Maple Leaf Rag” when it was published in 1899. He followed that up with a string of hits, including the “Pine Apple Rag” (sic). Ragtime fell out of favor about 1917 when the public turned to jazz. It had a resurgence in the forties when jazz musicians started to include ragtime tunes in their repertoires. But it was the 1973 movie “The Sting” that brought the true revival, as the hit soundtrack included numerous ragtime tunes by Scott Joplin, including the celebrated “The Entertainer” originally published in 1902.

49 Bar or bell follower : -HOP

A bell captain supervises bellhops in a hotel. The term “bellhop” comes from the fact that the front desk clerk used to ring a “bell” to summon a porter, who then “hopped” to attention and received his or her instructions.

53 Shortening that omits “gram” : KILO

Today, the gram is defined as one thousandth of a kilogram, with the kilogram being equal to the mass of a physical sample preserved by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (well, up until 2019, when it became more hi-tech than I can explain!). Prior to 1960, the gram was defined as the weight of a cubic centimeter of pure water (at the temperature of melting ice).

54 One side of the Bering Sea : ALASKA

The Bering Sea, in the very north of the Pacific Ocean, is named for the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, who was the first European to systematically explore the area in 1728. Many believe that the first humans arrived in the Americas from Asia when the waters of the Bering Sea were lower during the last ice age, over what is known as the Bering land bridge.

61 Member of an “international brotherhood” : TEAMSTER

Originally, a teamster was a person who drove a team of animals that pulled a wagon. Over time, “teamster” became a synonym for “truck driver”. The term became more prevalent as the trade union called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters grew in importance during the Depression.

Down

3 Nina of fashion : RICCI

The Nina Ricci fashion house was founded by Italian-born Maria “Nina” Ricci, in Paris in 1932.

10 “The Jungle Book” character : BALOO

“The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling was originally published in 1894, and is a collection of adventure stories or fables featuring the animals of the jungle and a young boy named Mowgli. Baloo is a sloth bear that teaches the cubs of a wolf pack the Law of the Jungle. Baloo’s most challenging pupil however is no lupine, but rather the man-cub Mowgli.

29 Shortening that omits “gram” : INSTA

Instagram (often abbreviated to “Insta”, or “IG”) is a photo-sharing application, one that is extremely popular. Instagram 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 …

35 Simple bucket : LAYUP

That would be basketball.

36 Capital on the Mediterranean : TRIPOLI

Tripoli is the capital city of Libya and sits on the Mediterranean Coast. The city was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and was originally called Oea.

37 Greeting that contains another greeting backward : ALOHA

“Aloha!” and “Ho!”

48 Naval acronym : SONAR

The British developed the first underwater detection system that used sound waves. Research was driven by defense demands during WWI, leading to production of working units in 1922. This new sound detection system was described as using “supersonics”, but for the purpose of secrecy the term was dropped in favor of an acronym. The work was done under the auspices of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarine Division, so ASD was combined with the “IC” from “superson-ic-s” to create the name ASDIC. The navy even went as far as renaming the quartz material at the heart of the technology “ASDivite”. By the time WWII came along, the Americans were producing their own systems and coined the term SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), playing off the related application, RADAR. And so, the name ASDIC was deep-sixed …

52 Food that contains another food item backward : TUNA

“Tuna” and “nut”.

55 “___ Vermont” (winter tourist slogan) : SKI

The state name “Vermont” probably comes from the French “les Verts Monts”, meaning “The Green Mountains”.