Day: May 22, 2024

Bill’s time: 6m 55s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Language from which we get “shampoo” : HINDI

Back in the 1760s, the verb “to shampoo” was an Anglo-Indian word meaning “to massage”. A century later we started “to shampoo” our hair.

6 Story that starts with the end? : OBIT

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

10 “Let There Be Rock” band, 1977 : AC/DC

The Heavy Metal band known as AC/DC was formed by two brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in Australia. Malcolm and Angus chose the name “AC/DC” after their sister Margaret noticed them on a sewing machine (the abbreviation for alternating current/direct current). The group is usually called “Acca Dacca” down under.

14 A Philly cheesesteak comes “wit” or “witout” it : ONION

Apparently, the cheesesteak sandwich was introduced by Pat and Harry Olivieri and first sold in the 1930s at their hot dog stand in South Philadelphia. Pat later opened his own restaurant with a menu centered on the popular sandwich, and you can go eat one there to this day. It’s named Pat’s King of Steaks, and my guess is that everyone in South Philly knows it.

16 Nile queen, familiarly : CLEO

“Queen of the Nile” is a common description used for Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the last pharaoh to rule the country. After she died, Egypt became a province in the Roman Empire.

17 Coeur d’___, city on Idaho’s panhandle : ALENE

The city, lake and river in Idaho called Coeur d’Alene are all named for the Coeur d’Alene People, Native Americans who lived in the area when it was first explored by French Canadian fur traders. “Coeur d’Alene” translates from French as “heart of an awl”. The Native American people were given this name as they were perceived as shrewd traders by their Canadian counterparts.

18 Carbonated fountain drinks that contain neither … : EGG CREAMS

Egg cream is a beverage, and one that I only know from crosswords. It is remarkable, I think, in that it contains neither egg nor cream! The drink supposedly dates back to the late 1800s and was invented in Brooklyn. It is a fountain drink, made up from chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer (soda).

20 Derby entrant : RACER

Our use of the word “derby” to mean a race started in 1780 with the English Derby horse race, which was founded then by the 12th Earl of Derby. Ultimately, the term “derby” derives from the old English shire of “Deorby”, a word meaning “deer village”.

21 Kind of “quotes” : AIR

Air quotes are those gestures that some make with their fingers to emphasise sarcastically a particular word or phrase.

23 Unusual meat courses that are neither … : SWEETBREADS

“Ris de veau” is the French term for a dish made from calf sweetbreads. Sweetbreads are usually made from the thymus or pancreas.

27 Two past “cue” : ESS

In the alphabet, the letter Q (cue) comes two letters before the letter S (ess).

33 Celebratory occasions for founders to ring the N.Y.S.E. bell, for short : IPOS

An initial public offering (IPO) is a significant event for a company as it marks the first time it becomes a publicly traded company. IPOs are often accompanied by a so-called “lock-up period.” This is a period of time, typically 90 to 180 days after the IPO, during which company insiders, such as executives and early investors, are not allowed to sell their shares on the open market. The purpose of the lock-up period is to prevent a flood of shares from hitting the market and potentially driving down the price of the stock.

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

39 Cube creator ___ Rubik : ERNO

What was originally called the “Magic Cube” became better known as “Rubik’s Cube”, and was named for its inventor Ernő Rubik. Rubik’s Cube is the world’s biggest selling puzzle game, with over 350 million sold in just over 30 years.

40 StubHub purchases, informally : TIX

StubHub is an online ticket exchange business that is owned by eBay. StubHub acts as the middleman between buyers and sellers of event tickets, whether those buyers and sellers are individuals or large organizations.

41 Brian who composed the original start-up sound for Windows 95 : ENO

Brian Eno started his musical career with Roxy Music. His most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “startup jingle”, the 6-second sound you (used to) hear when the Windows operating system is booting up. Eno might have annoyed the Microsoft folks when he stated on a BBC radio show:

I wrote it on a Mac. I’ve never used a PC in my life; I don’t like them.

44 TV actor who was once a bodyguard (charging $10k/day) : MR T

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

45 Me, in Marseilles : MOI

Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and can attest that Marseille and environs is a great place to visit …

49 Woodwind instrument that is neither … : ENGLISH HORN

The English horn is also known by its French name “cor anglais” (and sometimes “alto oboe”). It is a double-reed, woodwind instrument.

52 Longtime bridge columnist Charles : GOREN

Charles Goren was a world champion bridge player from Philadelphia. Goren published many books on the game, and had a daily bridge column that appeared in almost 200 newspapers. He even had a weekly column in “Sports Illustrated”. Goren introduced several techniques and systems that eventually became part of the modern Standard American bidding system that is used by many bridge players today (including me!).

54 France’s ___-en-Provence : AIX

Aix-en-Provence is a beautiful city in the South of France, located just 30 miles north of Marseille. I had the remarkable privilege of living in Aix for two years, definitely two of the happiest years for our family …

56 Breakfast cereal that contains neither … : GRAPE-NUTS

C. W. Post decided to get into the cereal business after visiting the Battle Creek Sanitarium operated by John Harvey Kellogg. Post was interested in the chemistry of digestion and was inspired by the dietary products offered by Kellogg at his sanitarium. The first breakfast cereal Post introduced was Grape-Nuts, way back in 1897.

58 Feudal lord : LIEGE

A liege was a feudal lord, one to whom service or allegiance was owed under feudal law. “Liege” was also the term used for one who owed allegiance or service to a lord. Apparently the term is influenced by the Latin verb “ligare” meaning “to tie, bind”. So, I guess both lord and servant were “bound” to each other.

59 Dublin’s land, to Dubliners : EIRE

The city of Dublin, the capital of Ireland, is known as “Baile Átha Cliath” in Irish (“town of the hurdled ford”). The English name “Dublin” is an anglicized form of the older Irish name for the city “Dubh Linn”, meaning “black pool”.

62 Lengthy construction project, per a saying? : ROME

According to tradition, Rome was founded by the twin brothers Romulus and Remus. The pair had a heated argument about who should be allowed to name the city and Romulus hit Remus with a shovel, killing him. And so, “Rome” was born, perhaps instead of “Reme”!

64 Reformer Horace and writer Thomas : MANNS

Horace Mann was a Massachusetts politician, and the first Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Mann made sweeping educational reforms in the state, with other states around the country adopting many of the policies he developed. Such was his influence that he is known by historians as the “Father of the Common School Movement”. And as an aside, Mann was brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Thomas Mann was a German novelist whose most famous work is probably his novella “Death in Venice”, which was published originally in German in 1912 as “Der Tod in Venedig”. The story was famously adapted for the big screen in 1971, in a movie starring Dirk Bogarde.

Down

1 Like fervent fans at the Kentucky Derby, punnily enough : HOARSE

The first Kentucky Derby took place in 1875, and was a race modeled on the Epsom Derby in England and the Grand Prix de Paris (now called the “Prix de l‘Arc de Triomphe”). As such, the Kentucky Derby was run over 1½ miles, although in 1896 this was shortened to 1¼ miles. The winning horse is presented with a very elaborate blanket made of red roses, and so the Derby is nicknamed “Run for the Roses”. The race is held on the first Saturday in May each year, and is limited to 3-year-old horses.

5 Like the property cited in Newton’s first law : INERTIAL

Newton’s first law of motion states that a body that is moving maintains the same velocity unless it is acted upon by an external force. That resistance to changing velocity is known as inertia. Johann Kepler introduced the Latin word “inertia” to describe the physical phenomenon in the 17th century. The Latin term translates as “apathy, inactiveness”. We started using the Latin “inertia” in English to mean the same thing only in the 19th century, after the term had bopped around in science texts for a couple of centuries.

7 Humphrey of old Hollywood, to fans : BOGIE

Humphrey “Bogie” Bogart’s breakthrough movie was “The Petrified Forest” from 1936, but for me nothing beats “Casablanca”. That said, check out the original “Sabrina” from 1954. It’s a real delight. Bogie was nominated three times for a Best Actor Oscar, but only won once: for “The African Queen”.

34 Computer program that fixes other computer programs : DEBUGGER

Back in 1947, famed computer programmer Grace Hopper noticed some colleagues fixing a piece of equipment by removing a dead moth from a relay. She remarked that they were “debugging” the system, and so Hopper has been given credit for popularizing the term “bug” in the context of computing.

35 Handel’s “Messiah,” for one : ORATORIO

An oratorio is a large musical work for orchestra, choir and solo singers. Oratorios usually have a religious theme and are similar to operas, but without the action, costume and scenery.

“Messiah” is a famous oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel that was first performed in Dublin, Ireland in 1742. The libretto is a text from the King James Bible that was compiled by Handel’s friend Charles Jennens. Not long after he received the libretto from Jennens, Handel took just 24 days to compose the full oratorio. He was obviously on a roll, because Handel started into his next oratorio, “Samson”, just one week after finishing “Messiah”. He completed the first draft of “Samson” within a month.

38 Fleeing like a fugitive : ON THE LAM

To be on the lam is to be in flight, to have escaped from prison. “On the lam” is American slang that originated at the end of the 19th century. The word “lam” also means “beat” or “thrash”, as in “lambaste”. So “on the lam” might derive from the phrase “to beat it, scram”.

43 State bird of Hawaii : NENE

The nene is a bird that is native to Hawaii, and is also known as the Hawaiian goose. The name “nene” is an imitation of its call. When Captain Cook landed on the islands in 1778, there were 25,000 nene living there. By 1950, the number was reduced by hunting to just 30 birds. Conservation efforts in recent years have been somewhat successful. The nene was named State Bird of Hawaii in 1957.

50 Petrol unit : LITRE

On the other side of the Atlantic we use the French spelling for measurements that originated in French, so “metre” for “meter” and “litre” for “liter”.

Petrol is the same thing as gasoline. “Petrol” comes via French from the Latin “petroleum”, itself derived from “petra” meaning “rock” and “oleum” meaning “oil”.

51 Port city in northern Israel : HAIFA

Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel and the largest city in the north of the country. It is built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, and is a Mediterranean seaport.

57 ___ de plume : NOM

“Nom de plume” translates from French simply as “pen name”.