Day: May 10, 2025

Bill’s time: 27m 55s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Unappetizing food : GLOP

Glop is food that’s deemed unappetizing. “Glop” is imitative of the sound of inferior food hitting the plate.

14 Integrated, as an approach : HOLISTIC

A holistic approach to medicine emphasizes not only physical symptoms but also social considerations and the environment.

15 Apt name for a NASCAR driver? : OTTO

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR)

17 Pioneer in musical Impressionism, despite rejecting the term : DEBUSSY

Claude Debussy is one of my favorite composers, and someone who epitomises the Romantic Era and Impressionist Movement in music. One of my favorite CDs is a collection of some “lighter” Debussy pieces called “Debussy for Daydreaming”, and what an evocative collection it is. Included are “Syrinx”, “Maid with the Flaxen Hair”, “Rêverie” and everyone’s favorite, “Clair de Lune”.

22 Ribs, e.g. : BONES

In the human rib cage, the top seven sets of bones are known as true ribs as they are attached directly to the sternum or breastbone. The five sets below the true ribs are called false ribs as they don’t have this direct connection. The bottom two of the false ribs are also called floating ribs as they don’t connect to the sternum at all.

28 Massachusetts’ Cape ___ : ANN

Cape Ann is located 30 miles north of Boston and is on the northernmost edge of Massachusetts Bay. The Cape was first mapped by the explorer John Smith. Early in his adventurous life Smith had been captured and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire. His “owner” in his days of slavery was a woman called Tragabigzanda, and apparently the slave and owner fell in love. Smith originally called Cape Tragabigzanda in her memory, but King Charles I changed the name to Cape Ann in honor of his own mother, Anne of Denmark.

29 Some dragonflies : DARNERS

Dragonflies are predatory insects and love to feed on flies, bees, ants, wasps and mosquitoes. When dragonflies are in their aquatic larval stage, they are known as nymphs or naiads, and live beneath the water’s surface.

33 Where Ferrari is “RACE,” in brief : NYSE

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) can give some quite descriptive ticker symbols to companies, for example:

• Anheuser-Busch (BUD, for “Budweiser”)
• Molson Coors Brewing Company (TAP, as in “beer tap”)
• Steinway Musical Instruments (LVB, for “Ludwig van Beethoven”)
• Sotheby’s (BID, for the auction house)

35 Deep defenses : MOATS

A moat is a protective trench that surrounds a castle, say, or an exhibit in a zoo. A moat may or may not be filled with water.

41 Wine found in “tasting” : ASTI

The word “Asti” is hidden within the word “tasting”.

Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy that is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a “poor man’s champagne”. The “Spumante” was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.

Down

1 Like American bacon, but not Canadian bacon : CRISPED

What we tend to call “Canadian bacon” in the US, we know as “rashers” in Ireland. One of my uncles worked in the meat trade in Dublin, and his nickname was “Rasher”.

3 Perfume compound : ESTER

Esters are very common chemicals. The smaller, low-molecular weight esters are usually pleasant smelling and are often found in perfumes. At the other end of the scale, the higher-molecular weight nitroglycerin is a nitrate ester and is very explosive, and polyester is a huge molecule and is a type of plastic. Fats and oils found in nature are fatty acid esters of glycerol known as glycerides.

5 Donor grp. : PAC

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

7 “Mary Poppins” tune that begins “With tuppence for paper and strings / You can have your own set of wings” : LET’S GO FLY A KITE

The “Mary Poppins” series of children’s novels were written by Australian-born English writer and actress P. L. Travers. Poppins is a magical children’s nanny with a best friend Bert, who is a chimney sweep. In the famous 1964 musical film adaptation of the Mary Poppins stories, Poppins is played by Julie Andrews and Bert is played Dick Van Dyke.

8 Rolled ___ : OATS

Oat cereals all start out as “groats”, toasted oat grains with the hull still intact:

• Steel-cut oats, sometimes called “Irish oats”, are groats that have been chopped into chunks about the size of sesame seeds.
• Stone-ground oats, sometimes called “Scottish oats”, have been ground into smaller pieces, about the size of poppy seeds.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats are made by first steaming the toasted groats, and then rolling them into flakes.
• Quick-cooking oats are similar to rolled oats, but thinner flakes.
• Instant oats have been chopped, rolled, pre-cooked, dehydrated and often have salt and sugar added.

17 Team for which Sandy Koufax pitched for all of his 12 M.L.B. seasons : DODGERS

Sandy Koufax is a retired baseball pitcher who turned out for the Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. Koufax was the first player to win three Cy Young Awards, and the first player to pitch four no-hitters. He was also an iconic Jewish American in the field of sports, notably refusing to play in the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. When Koufax was invited to attend a White House reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month in 2010, President Obama remarked that he and Kofax had something in common. The president continued, “He can’t pitch on Yom Kippur. I can’t pitch.” Funny …

19 One side in an 1899-1902 war : BOERS

“Boer” is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “farmer”, and a word that was used to describe the Dutch-speaking people who settled parts of South Africa during the 1700s.

21 Some works of Wordsworth : SONNETS

The great English poet William Wordsworth is intrinsically linked with the Lake District in the north of England, where he lived from much of his life. The Lake District is a beautiful part of the country, and I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Dove Cottage in Grasmere a couple of times, where Wordsworth lived with his sister Dorothy …

24 Shoved down the throat of : FOISTED ON

The word “foist”, meaning “to pass off fraudulently as genuine”, comes from the Dutch word meaning “take in hand”. The original concept came from playing dice, in which one die was held surreptitiously in one hand.

33 Natives of Scandinavia : NORDICS

Strictly speaking, Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe that covers the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The broader region that includes Finland and Iceland is referred to locally as “the Nordic countries”.

35 Center of town, on signs : MAIN ST

The main street of a city or town is often referred to as the “main drag”. The main drag is where horses would “drag” along most of the wagons and buggies back in the day.

42 Someone will pay for this : TAB

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.