Day: January 3, 2025

Bill’s time: 10m 59s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Rock group behind 2024’s Power Up Tour : 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.

17 Cocktail that’s called a French 75 if you use Champagne instead of soda water : TOM COLLINS

The cocktail known as a Tom Collins is a mixture of gin, lemon juice, sugar and club soda. The original recipe was supposedly invented by a head waiter called John Collins, in a London hotel in the early 1800s. Called a John Collins back then, the drink’s name was changed around 1869 when a popular recipe specifically called for Old Tom gin.

18 Mulligan : REDO

There doesn’t seem to be a definitive account for the origin of the term “mulligan”, which is most often used for a shot do-over in golf. There are lots of stories about golfers named Mulligan though, and I suspect that one of them may be true …

19 Eponymous tourist destination in Belgium : SPA

The word “spa” migrated into English from Belgium, as “Spa” is the name of a municipality in the east of the country that is famous for its healing hot springs. The name “Spa” comes from the Walloon word “espa” meaning “spring, fountain”.

21 Strength, poetically : SINEW

“Sinew” is another name for “tendon”. Tendons are bands of collagen that connect muscle to bone. Tendons are similar to ligaments and fasciae, which are also connective tissue made out of collagen, but ligaments join bone to bone, and fasciae connect muscle to muscle. We also use the term “sinew” to mean “muscular power”.

29 Early synthesizers : MOOGS

In the sixties, Robert Moog invented the Moog Synthesizer, an electronic device that he used to produce music. I used to own a few of his albums, including a Moog version of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”. What a great performance that is …

37 Words before someone finally snaps? : SAY “CHEESE”

Photographers often instruct us to say “cheese” to elicit a smile-like expression. Even Japanese photographers use the word “cheese” to achieve the same effect. Bulgarians use the word “zele” meaning “cabbage”. The Chinese say “eggplant”, the Danish “orange”, the Iranians “apple” and many Latin Americans say “whiskey”.

40 Stool at a counter, e.g. : PERCH

When we sit at a counter (in a diner, say), there’s a connection with money lenders. Back in the mid-1300s, a counter was the table used by a money lender doing business. The term “counter” came into English from Latin via French, ultimately from “computare” meaning “to count”.

41 Woody’s crush in “Toy Story” : BO PEEP

The lines that are most commonly quoted from the rhyme about “Little Bo Peep” are:

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can’t tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, And they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.

But, there are actually four more verses, including this one:

It happened one day, as Bo-peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.

1995’s “Toy Story” was the world’s first feature-length computer-animated movie. “Toy Story” was also Pixar’s first production. The main roles in the film are Buzz Lightyear and Woody, who are voiced by Tim Allen and Tom Hanks respectively. Hanks was the first choice to voice Woody, but Allen was asked to voice Buzz after Billy Crystal turned down the role.

42 Member of a warrior class : SAMURAI

Samurai were noble military officers in medieval and early-modern Japan who served particular clans and lords. Originally known as “bushi” in Japanese, the term “samurai” was introduced in the early part of the 18th century.

45 Small stretches, perhaps : FIBS

To fib is to tell a lie. The verb “to fib” likely comes from “fibble-fable” meaning “nonsense”, with “fibble-fable” coming from “fable”.

47 Much-sought-after commodity in “Dune” : SPICE

“Dune” is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, first published in 1965. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time. The book has a large and dedicated fanbase, who refer to themselves as “Duners” or “Dune fans.”

49 Singer Rita : ORA

Rita Ora is a British singer who was born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, Yugoslavia to Albanian parents. The family name “Sahatçiu” comes from a Turkish word meaning “watchmaker”. Rita’s parents changed their name to make it easier to pronounce. So, the family name morphed from “watchmaker” to “time”, which is “ora” in Albanian.

52 Ice skating move : LUTZ

In figure skating, a Lutz is a toe-pick-assisted jump that one starts skating backwards and ends skating backwards (there’s more to it that I don’t really understand!). The maneuver is named after Alois Lutz, an Austrian skater who first performed it in competition way back in 1913. Lutz wowed the crowd with a single jump, and today both men and women are landing triple Lutz jumps. No one has landed a clean quadruple Lutz in competition.

53 Postgame photo op between two opposing players : JERSEY SWAP

We use the word “jersey” for a sports shirt worn by a particular team member, one that usually bears the player’s name and team number. Back in the mid-1800s, the term was used for a knitted shirt or close-fitting tunic. The item of clothing was named for Jersey in the Channel Islands off the coast of France. The island was famous for its knitting trade during the Middle Ages.

55 First person to die, according to the Bible : ABEL

In the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis, Cain murders his brother Abel. Subsequently, God asks Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain replies, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

57 Set back to zero, in a way : TARE

Tare is the weight of a container that is deducted from the gross weight to determine the net weight, the weight of the container’s contents.

58 Press rooms? : GYMS

Our word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek “gymnasion” meaning “public place where exercise is taken”. The Greek term comes from “gymnos” meaning “naked”, as that physical training was usually done unclothed in ancient Greece.

Down

1 Common nap times, in brief : AFTS

Afternoon (aft.)

3 Hindu god of love : KAMA

Kama (more fully “Kamadeva”) is the Hindu god of erotic love. He is usually represented as a young man with wings, holding a bow and arrow. The bow is made from sugarcane, and the string is made from honeybees. The arrows are decorated with fragrant flowers.

9 Items harmed when they’re scratched, but not when they’re burned : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

10 Group whose band is the oldest professional music ensemble in the U.S. : MARINE CORPS

The US Marine Corps is one of the seven federal uniformed services, namely:

• Army
• Marine Corps
• Navy
• Air Force
• Coast Guard
• Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps

11 Change : AMEND

The verb “to amend” means “to change for the better, put right, alter by adding”. The related verb “to emend” is used more rarely, and mainly in reference to the editing of professional writing. Both terms are derived from the Latin “emendare” meaning “to remove fault”.

12 Meal before the 15th of Nisan : SEDER

Nisan is the first month in the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar, the month in which Passover falls. Adar is the last month in the same calendar, and is the month that includes the holiday of Purim.

24 ___ Taylor (fashion chain) : ANN

There was no actual person named “Ann Taylor” associated with the Ann Taylor line of clothes. The name was chosen by the marketing professionals because “Ann” was considered to be “very New England” back in 1954 when the stores first opened, and “Taylor” suggested that clothes were carefully “tailored”.

25 Australia declared “war” on them in 1932, in an attempt to stop them from destroying crops : EMUS

The emu has had a tough time in Australia since man settled there. There was even an “Emu War” in Western Australia in 1932 when migrating emus competed with livestock for water and food. Soldiers were sent in and used machine guns in an unsuccessful attempt to drive off the “invading force”. The emus were clever, breaking their usual formations and adopting guerrilla tactics, operating as smaller units. After 50 days of “war”, the military withdrew. Subsequent requests for military help for the farmers were ignored. The emus had emerged victorious …

26 Where Lola was a showgirl, in song : COPA

The Copacabana of the 1978 Barry Manilow song is the Copacabana nightclub in New York City (which is also the subject of the Frank Sinatra song “Meet Me at the Copa”). The Copa opened in 1940 and is still going today, although it is struggling. The club had to move due to impending construction and is now “sharing” a location with the Columbus 72 nightclub.

Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl
With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there
She would merengue and do the cha-cha
And while she tried to be a star
Tony always tended bar
Across the crowded floor, they worked from 8 ’til 4
They were young and they had each other
Who could ask for more?

28 Farm-to-table, say : FRESH

The farm-to-table movement promotes the serving of local food in restaurants and in schools.

31 For two musicians : A DUE

“A due” is a musical term meaning “together” that translates literally from Italian as “by two”.

33 Aristotle purportedly spoke with one : LISP

Aristotle was a student of Plato in ancient Greece (and in turn, Plato was a student of Socrates). Aristotle’s most famous student was Alexander the Great.

41 Curling target : BICEP

The biceps muscle is made up of two bundles of muscle, both of which terminate at the same point near the elbow. The heads of the bundles terminate at different points on the scapula or shoulder blade. “Biceps” is Latin for “two-headed”.

43 Dutch constituent in the Caribbean : ARUBA

Aruba is one of the so-called ABC islands located off the northern coast of Venezuela. “ABC Islands” is a name given to the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. The nickname comes from the first letters of the island names: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. All three of the ABC islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

44 Bishop’s headwear : MITER

A miter (also “mitre”) is a traditional headdress worn by bishops in some Christian traditions. The term “miter” comes from a Greek word for “headband, turban”.

48 Simple question on a high schooler’s hand-drawn poster : PROM?

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.

51 Church part : APSE

An apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally, apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

53 PNG alternative : JPG

The JPEG image file format (also “.jpg”) was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

54 Motif in 1995’s “Se7en” : SIN

The 1995 film “Seven” (often written as “Se7en”) is a crime thriller starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as two detectives tasked with tracking down a serial killer. The bad guy (played by Kevin Spacey) engages in thematic murder, basing each killing on one of the seven deadly sins. Critics and audiences liked this one, but squirmed quite a bit as it is also pretty brutal.