Day: October 23, 2024

Bill’s time: 8m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Birth day party? : DOULA

A doula is a person who provides non-medical support for women and their families during childbirth as well as in the period immediately following the arrival. The term “doula” comes from the Ancient Greek word “doule” which means “female slave”. Given such a negative association, “doula” is often dropped in favor of “labor companion” or “birthworker”.

6 Oyster relative : CLAM

Clams can live up to about 500 years. The oldest recorded clam was a quahog clam found in Iceland, which lived to be 507 years old. To determine the clam’s age, the researchers opened it up. By doing so, they ended the life of the oldest living animal ever found …

10 Pick up the tab : BUY

When we run a “tab” at a bar, we are running a “tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

13 Canvas holder : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

14 Princess with “space buns” : LEIA

Princess Leia is Luke Skywalker’s twin sister in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and was played by Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher has stated that she hated the famous “cinnamon bun hairstyle” that she had to wear in the films, as she felt it made her face look too round. She also had to sit for two hours every day just to get her hair styled. Two hours to get your hair done? It takes me just two seconds …

15 Warrior I or Warrior II, in yoga : POSE

Warrior pose is a famous yoga pose that is also known as virabhadrasana.

16 B.A. in Communications? : BRAILLE ALPHABET

The Braille system of reading and writing was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, who was himself afflicted with blindness. Braille characters are composed of six positions or dots, each arranged in two columns of three dots each. Every dot can be raised or not raised, given a total of 64 possible characters.

20 Doha native : QATARI

Doha is the capital city of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “big tree” or “roundness”.

24 Stat for a successful squeeze play : RBI

In baseball, a squeeze play (also “squeeze bunt”) is one in which a batter bunts the ball expecting to be thrown out at first, but gives a runner at third base a chance to score. In a safety squeeze the runner at third waits to see where the bunt is going before heading for home. In a suicide squeeze, the runner heads home as soon as the pitcher throws the ball.

26 M.S. in Biology? : MICROSCOPE SLIDE

Microscope slides are thin pieces of glass on which are mounted samples for examination. Often a “cover slip”, a smaller and thinner sheet of glass, is placed on top of the sample. Originally called “sliders”, such specimens would “slide” into the gap between the stage and the objective lens on a microscope.

33 Accessory that might read “Prom King” or “Bride to Be” : SASH

A prom is a formal dance held upon graduation from high school (we call them “formals” over in Ireland). The term “prom” is short for “promenade”, the name given to a type of dance or ball.

Back where I come from, bachelor parties are called stag parties, and bachelorette parties are known as hen parties.

34 Website builder, for short : DEV

Developer (dev.)

46 “It seems to me,” in online shorthand : IMHO

In my humble opinion (IMHO)

47 “___ Mubarak!” (greeting around Ramadan) : EID

“Eid Mubarak” translates from Arabic as “Blessed festival/feast”. It is a greeting used by many Muslins at the two main holidays celebrated in Islam: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

48 Marshall’s friend on “How I Met Your Mother” : TED

“How I Met Your Mother” is a sitcom that CBS has been airing since 2005. The main character is Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor. Mosby is also the narrator for the show looking back from the year 2030 (the live action is set in the present). As narrator, the older Mosby character is voiced by Bob Saget.

49 Genre for James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room,” familiarly : GAY LIT

James Baldwin was an American writer, poet, and activist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential voices of the civil rights movement. He was born in Harlem, New York in 1924 and began writing at a young age, publishing his first book, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” in 1953.

52 “Nothing runs like a ___” (ad slogan) : DEERE

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

Down

1 Cabinet member Haaland : DEB

Deb Haaland became US Secretary of the Interior in 2021, making her the first Native-American Cabinet secretary. However, she was not the first Native American to serve in the Cabinet. That honor went to Charles Curtis, US Vice President under Herbert Hoover.

2 Item fit into a thole : OAR

In a boat, a thole is a wooden peg or pin that acts as a fulcrum for an oar that it is used in rowing. The thole is inserted into a hole in the gunwale, the top edge of the side of the boat.

3 Largest NATO member : USA

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international military alliance that was established in 1949. NATO headquarters was initially set up in London, moved to Paris in 1952, and then to Brussels 1967.

6 Dungeons & Dragons character with healing powers : CLERIC

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, DnD) is a complex role-playing game (RPG) introduced in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated (TSR). Dungeons & Dragons was probably the first of the modern role-playing games to be developed, and the most successful. It is still played by lots of people today, including my youngest son …

7 Hissing tire’s problem : LEAK

Here’s another example of terms that change as we cross the Atlantic Ocean. When talking about tires (“tyres” in Britain and Ireland), a defect can cause a “flat” (“puncture” in Britain and Ireland).

9 Website that contributed to the decline of road atlases : MAPQUEST

MapQuest was a very popular Internet site, one that provides driving directions and maps.

10 “Pearls” in a drink : BOBA

Bubble tea, sometimes called “boba tea”, is a tea-based drink from Taiwan. The “bubbles” are chewy tapioca balls that are usually added to the drink.

15 Pi’s last name in “Life of Pi” : PATEL

The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy named Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in a small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

22 Italian fashion capital, to Italians : MILANO

Milan (“Milano” in Italian) is Italy’s second-largest city, second only to Rome. It is a European fashion capital, the headquarters for the big Italian fashion houses of Valentino, Gucci, Versace, Armani, Prada and others. Mario Prada was even born in Milan, and helped establish the city’s reputation in the world of fashion.

28 Tennis champion Naomi : OSAKA

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

38 Prez depicted in a wheelchair at his D.C. memorial : FDR

The very moving Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial in Washington, D.C. was designed by Lawrence Halprin. It was dedicated in 1997 by President Clinton. Sculptures of President Roosevelt within the 7.5-acre memorial feature FDR alongside his Scottish Terrier named Fala.

40 Verb on an invoice : REMIT

An invoice is an itemized bill. The term “invoice” comes from the Middle French “envois” meaning “dispatch (of goods)”. The root verb is “envoyer”, which translates as “to send”.

43 Garments worn by caber tossers : KILTS

The caber toss must be the most recognizable event in the Scottish Highland Games. The tall pole is 19’ 6” long and weighs a whopping 175 pounds. The event may have originated with the practice of tossing large logs across chasms in order to cross them.

44 Pot : REEFER

Marijuana cigarettes have been known as reefers since the twenties. It is thought that the term “reefers” comes from either the Mexican Spanish for a drug addict (“grifo”), or from its resemblance to a rolled sail, i.e. a sail that has been “reefed”.

50 Plastic option, for short : AMEX

“Amex” is short for “American Express”, the name of the financial services company that is best known for its credit card, charge card and traveler’s check businesses. The company name is indicative of its original business. American Express was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, New York as an express mail service.

52 Bird symbolizing obsolescence : DODO

The dodo was a direct relative of the pigeon and the dove, although the fully-grown dodo was usually three feet tall. One of the reasons the dodo comes to mind when we think of extinction of a species, is that it disappeared not too long ago (last recorded alive in 1662) and humans were the reason for its demise. The dodo lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius and when humans arrived, we cut back the forests that were its home. We also introduced domestic animals, such as dogs and pigs, that ransacked the dodo’s nests. The dodo was deemed to be an awkward flightless bird and so the term “dodo” has come to mean a dull-witted person.

53 Acronymic achievement for Viola Davis : EGOT

Actress Viola Davis is probably best known on the small screen for playing the lead in the drama “How to Get Away with Murder”. On the big screen, I’d say that her most famous role is the starring role in the 2011 film “The Help”. Davis is one of the few EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) and is the only African-American to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (a competitive Oscar, Emmy and Tony).

55 South America’s ___ de la Plata : RIO

When the Uruguay River and the Paraná River come together on the border between Argentina and Uruguay, they form the Rio de la Plata. “Rio de la Plata” translates as “River of Silver” from Spanish, but in English we sometimes call the waterway the River Plate. The famous WWII action known as the Battle of the River Plate took place out to sea a few miles from the River Plate estuary. The German battleship Admiral Graf Spee took refuge in the River Plate in the neutral port of Montevideo. Forced to return to sea, and to the Royal Naval vessels waiting for her, Berlin gave orders for the Graf Spee to be scuttled in the estuary.

57 Soccer org. for Chelsea and Manchester United : EPL

English Premier League (EPL)

The best soccer teams in England and Wales play in the Premier League. The league was founded in 1992 as the FA Premier League to take advantage of a generous television deal. Today, the Premier League is the most-watched soccer league in the world.

Manchester United (“Man U” and “the Red Devils”) is one of the most successful football (soccer) clubs in England, having won more League titles than any other in the history of the game. The club is also famous for an airplane crash known as the 1958 Munich air disaster. The British European flight crashed during takeoff, resulting in the death of 23 passengers, including eight members of the Manchester United team.

Chelsea Football Club is a soccer team based in London that was founded in 1905. Since day one, the team has played in the London borough of Fulham, although it uses the name of the neighboring borough of Chelsea. That’s because there already was a Fulham Football Club in existence (founded in 1879).

58 Symbol atop the pyramid on a dollar bill : EYE

If you look at the back of a one-dollar bill there is an eye sitting above a pyramid. This is known as the Eye of Providence, and is similar to the Eye of Horus that we see so often in ancient Egyptian designs and hieroglyphs. The Eye of Providence is a common Christian emblem from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.