Day: August 14, 2024

Bill’s time: 8m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 When the stage direction “Enter three Witches” appears in “Macbeth” : ACT I

The Three Witches in William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” are referred to in the text as the “weird sisters”. They cook up an ugly brew in their cauldron:

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravined salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

14 “High” time : NOON

Our word “noon”, meaning “midday”, comes from the Latin “nona hora” that translates as “ninth hour”. Back in ancient Rome, the “ninth hour” was three in the afternoon. Over the centuries, traditions such as church prayers and “midday” meals shifted from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m., and so “noon” became understood as 12 noon.

15 Like abandoned malls : EERIE

Surprisingly (to me!), our word “mall”, meaning “shady walk” or “enclosed shopping space”, comes from the Italian for “mallet”. All of our shopping-style malls are named for “The Mall” in St. James’s Park in London. This tree-lined promenade was so called as it used to be a famous spot to play the croquet-like game called “pall-mall”. The game derived its name from the Italian for ball (palla) and mallet “maglio”. The London thoroughfare called the Mall still exists, at one end of which is Buckingham Palace. Indeed, parallel to the Mall is a street called Pall Mall.

16 Chain with a “2 x 2 x 2” breakfast combo : IHOP

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was founded back in 1958. IHOP was originally intended to be called IHOE, the International House of Eggs, but that name didn’t do too well in marketing tests.

17 Seventh heaven : CLOUD THREE (from “cloud nine”)

I don’t think that anyone is really certain of the etymology of the term “on cloud nine” meaning “elated”, but I do like the following explanation. The 1896 “International Cloud-Atlas” was a long-standing reference used to define cloud shapes that was based on a classification created by amateur meteorologist Luke Howard some decades earlier. The biggest and fluffiest of all cloud shapes (and most comfortable-looking to lie on) is cumulonimbus. And you guessed it, of the ten cloud shapes defined in the atlas, cumulonimbus was cloud nine …

19 Purina rival : ALPO

Alpo is a brand of dog food introduced by Allen Products in 1936, with “Alpo” being an abbreviation for “Allen Products”. Lorne Greene used to push Alpo dog food in television spots, as did Ed McMahon and Garfield the Cat, would you believe?

Ralston Purina was founded in 1894 as Purina Mills, and originally supplied feed for farm animals. Most of Purina’s brand names include the word “Chow”, e.g. Purina Dog Chow, Purina Horse Chow and Purina Pig Chow. There’s even a Purina Monkey Chow.

20 Virginia Tech athletes : HOKIES

The sports teams of Virginia Tech are known as the “Hokies”. The name comes from a spirit yell that dates back to 1896:

Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy.
Techs, Techs, V.P.I.
Sola-Rex, Sola-Rah.
Polytechs – Vir-gin-ia.
Rae, Ri, V.P.I.

21 Texting format, in brief : SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is the name for the text messaging service that many of us still use on our cell phones to contact friends and family.

23 Lead-in to -meter : ODO-

An odometer measures distance traveled. “Odometer comes from the Greek “hodos” meaning “path” and “metron” meaning “measure”.

25 March Madness round : SWEET FOUR (from “Sweet Sixteen”)

In the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship, the teams remaining at various stages of the tournament are known as:

• The “Sweet Sixteen” (the regional semi-finalists)
• The “Elite Eight” (the regional finalists)
• The “Final Four” (the national semi-finalists)

“March Madness” is the name given to the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Championship (among others), that is held in the spring each year. Another name is “the Big Dance”.

28 Barbecue joint offering : RIBS

It is believed that our word “barbecue” (BBQ) comes from the Taíno people of the Caribbean in whose language “barbacoa” means “sacred fire pit”.

29 Thermostat piece : DIAL

The suffix “-stat” comes from the Greek “statos” meaning “standing, stationary”. It was first used in the mid-1700s in the term “heliostat”, which described an instrument that made the sun appear stationary. We still use “-stat” in the name of devices that stabilize or regulate. For example, a thermostat controls temperature and a rheostat uses resistance to control current flow in an electrical circuit.

30 Big name in Greek yogurt : OIKOS

Oikos is a brand of Greek yogurt made by Danone.

31 ___-Caps (movie treat) : SNO

Sno-Caps are a brand of candy usually only available in movie theaters. Sno-caps have been around since the 1920s, would you believe?

33 Church founded by Joseph Smith, for short : LDS

Joseph Smith, Jr. published the Book of Mormon in 1830, and founded the church that he originally called the Church of Christ, later known as the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Today, the largest of the churches descended from Smith’s organization is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the members of the church referred to as Latter Day Saints. The name “Mormons” is just a nickname, derived from the title of Joseph Smith’s book.

34 Beatles hit written by a teenage Paul McCartney : WHEN I’M EIGHT (from “When I’m Sixty-Four”)

“When I’m Sixty-Four” is a 1967 Beatles song composed by Paul McCartney. McCartney may have been looking forward to “when he’s sixty-four”, but he wrote the song when he was only 16 years old.

43 Like a go-getter : TYPE-A

The Type-A and Type-B personality theory originated in the fifties. Back then, individuals were labeled as Type A in order to emphasize a perceived increased risk of heart disease. Type-A personality types are so-called “stress junkies”, whereas Type Bs are relaxed and laid back. But there doesn’t seem to be much scientific evidence to support the linkage between the Type-A personality and heart problems.

47 Composer ___ Carlo Menotti : GIAN

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has a special place in the repertoire, in that it is the first opera specifically composed for American television. It was commissioned by NBC and had its debut at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve, 1951. In today’s world of commercially-driven television, I can’t imagine a network commissioning a classical work …

50 “Keep Climbing” airline : DELTA

Delta was the world’s largest airline for a while (after merging with Northwest Airlines in 2008) and is the oldest airline still operating in the US. Delta’s roots go back to 1924 before it started carrying passengers when it was Huff Daland Dusters, a crop-dusting company based in Macon, Georgia. The name “Delta Air Service” was introduced in 1928.

51 St. Louis summer setting : CDT

The city of St. Louis, Missouri was settled by French explorers in 1763. Sitting on the Mississippi River, it grew into a very busy port. By the 1850s, it was the second busiest port in the country, with only New York moving more freight. St. Louis was named for Louis IX of France. Louis was canonized in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII, and was the only French king to be declared a saint.

52 Dallas sch. : SMU

Southern Methodist University (SMU) is located in University Park, Texas (part of Dallas) and was founded in 1911. The school’s athletic teams are known as the Mustangs. Also, SMU is home to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

53 Wilbur, to Fern, in “Charlotte’s Web” : PET PIG

“Charlotte’s Web” is a children’s novel by author E. B. White. Charlotte is a barn spider, who manages to save the life of a pig named Wilbur. Wilbur is a pet pig, owned by the farmer’s daughter, Fern Arable. The story also includes a gluttonous rat named Templeton who provides some light and comical moments.

62 Leakes of reality TV : NENE

NeNe Leakes is one of the stars of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”. Leakes has used her exposure on the reality TV show to enhance her acting career. I saw her on “Dancing with the Stars”. Not a big fan …

63 “So long,” in Seville : ADIOS

The city of Seville (“Sevilla” in Spanish) is the capital of Andalusia in southern Spain. Seville is a favored setting for many operas including “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini, “Fidelio” by Beethoven and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “The Marriage of Figaro”.

Down

2 Fill, as with crayon : COLOR IN

We use the word “crayon” for a stick of colored wax used for drawing. The term was imported in the 16th century from French, in which language it means “pencil”.

4 Many residents of Nunavut : INUITS

The Inuit people live in the Arctic, in parts of the US, Russia, Greenland and Canada. A member of the Inuit people is known as an “Inuk”.

Nunavut is a Canadian territory that dates back to 1999 when it was separated from the Northwest Territories. That makes Nunavut the youngest of all Canada’s territories. It is also the nation’s largest territory, the least populous, as well as the furthest north. Even though it is the second-largest country subdivision in North America (after Greenland), Nunavut is home to just over 30,000 people, who are mostly Inuit.

8 Pump option : DIESEL

There are two main types of internal combustion engine. Most cars in the US use spark injection engines (gasoline engines) in which a spark plug sparks in order to ignite the fuel-air mixture. A diesel engine, on the other hand, has no spark plug per se, and uses the heat generated by compressing the air-fuel mixture to cause ignition.

10 Employer of Carrie Mathison on “Homeland,” for short : CIA

“Homeland” is a psychological drama on Showtime about a CIA officer who is convinced that a certain US Marine is a threat to the security of the United States. The show is based on a series from Israeli television called “Hatufim” (Prisoners of War”). I highly recommend it …

12 Tegan and Sara, e.g. : POP DUO

Tegan and Sara are an indie pop duo comprising Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirstan Quin, identical twin sisters from Canada.

13 Trackable scents : SPOORS

“Spoor” is both a verb and a noun. The word describes the track left by an animal, or the act of following said track. We’ve been using it in English since the early 1800s, having imported it from the Afrikaans language.

18 Ruby of “A Raisin in the Sun” : DEE

Ruby Dee was an actress and civil rights activist. Her big break early in her career was a role in “The Jackie Robinson Story” from 1950, playing Robinson’s sweetheart and wife. She is perhaps best remembered for co-starring in “A Raisin in the Sun” alongside Sidney Poitier, in “Do the Right Thing” alongside her husband Ossie Davis, and in “American Gangster” in which she played Denzel Washington’s mother.

“A Raisin in the Sun” is a 1961 film starring Sidney Poitier that is based on a 1959 play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry. Both film and play follow the lives of an African-American family from Chicago as they struggle with the decision about what to do with an insurance payout following the death of the family’s patriarch.

26 Retail giant headquartered in Bentonville, Ark. : WALMART

The city of Bentonville in Arkansas is perhaps best known as the birthplace and world headquarters of Walmart. Sam Walton bought the Harrison Variety Stone on the Bentonville town square in 1950. He remodeled the building and opened Walton’s 5 and 10 Variety Store (a “five and dime” store) the following year. That store has served as the Walmart Visitor’s Center since 1990.

27 Angle : FISH

We use the verb “to angle” to mean “to fish” because “angel” is an Old English word meaning “hook”.

29 2021 sci-fi epic nominated for Best Picture : DUNE

2021’s epic film “Dune” is the first of a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. The version of “Dune” did a lot better than the 1984 big-screen adaptation of the same novel, which really flopped at the box office.

32 Evergreens with fragrant wood : CEDARS

Cedar is used for the manufacture of some wardrobes and chests as it has long been believed that the fragrant oil in the wood is a moth-repellent. However, whether or not cedar oil is actually effective at keeping moths away seems to be in doubt.

41 Afternoon attraction : MATINEE

“Matinée” is a French word used to describe a musical entertainment held during the daytime. “Matinée” is derived from the word “matin”, meaning “morning”, although here the term is used in the sense of “daylight”.

43 Bigwig : TYCOON

Our term “tycoon” meaning powerful business person was originally used by foreigners to describe the shogun of Japan. “Tycoon” is an anglicization of the Japanese “taikun” meaning “great lord or prince”.

49 Poker variant with four hole cards : OMAHA

Omaha is a poker card game similar to Texas hold ‘em. The two games differ in that there are four initial hole cards per player in Omaha, as opposed to just two in Texas hold ’em. And in Omaha, each player’s hand is made up of exactly three cards from the board and exactly two of the player’s own cards.

50 “In excelsis ___” : DEO

“Gloria in excelsis Deo” is a Latin hymn, the title of which translates as “Glory to God in the Highest”.

53 Vietnamese soups : PHOS

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

55 Uno + due : TRE

In Italian, “uno + due” (one + two) is “tre” (three).

57 ___ Lilly and Company : ELI

Eli Lilly is the largest corporation in the state of Indiana. Founder Eli Lilly was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War, and a failed Mississippi plantation owner. Later in life he returned to his first profession and opened a pharmaceutical operation to manufacture drugs and sell them wholesale. Under Lilly’s early guidance, the company was the first to create gelatin capsules to hold medicines and the first to use fruit flavoring in liquid medicines.