Day: August 4, 2025

Bill’s time: 7m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Letters on a radio switch : AM/FM

In telecommunications, a radio signal is transmitted using a sinusoidal carrier wave. Information is transmitted using this carrier wave in two main ways, by varying (modulating) the instantaneous amplitude (signal strength) of the carrier wave, and by modulating the instantaneous frequency of the carrier wave. The former is referred to as an AM signal (“amplitude modulation”), and the latter as an FM signal (“frequency modulation”).

10A Indian tourist city on the Taj Express route : AGRA

The Taj Express is a train service between Delhi and Agra. It was launched in 1964, primarily to serve tourists wishing to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra from the nation’s capital.

17A Seed covering : ARIL

The casing surrounding many seeds is called the aril, and it may be quite fleshy. This fruit-like characteristic makes it desirable as a food and hence aids in the dispersion of the seeds.

18A Yankees slugger who hit a record-setting 62 home runs in 2022 : AARON JUDGE

Aaron Judge is a baseball outfielder who was selected as 2017’s American League Rookie of the Year. Judge is a big guy. He weighs 282 pounds, and is 6 foot 7 inches tall. Judge set the American League single-season home run record in 2022 with 62 home runs, surpassing Roger Maris’s 61 from 1961.

20A Rotary phone feature : DIAL

The first patent for a rotary dial mechanism for a phone was granted in 1898, and the familiar rotary dial phones (with holes for the finger) were introduced by the Bell System in 1919. This form of dialing was called “pulse dialing”. When you dialed the number 5, say, the dial would rotate back to the start position, opening and closing electrical contacts five times and sending five pulses over the telephone line. I used to love rotary dial phones when I was a kid. My grandfather was a telephone engineer and he showed me how to “tap out” the pulses on the “hook” at the top of a pay phone. I was able to make free calls that way. He definitely contributed to the delinquency of a minor …

21A Garment from Playtex or Maidenform : BRA

Playtex Apparel makes bras and other lingerie. The most popular Playtex bras are iconic names such as “the Living Bra”, “the Cross Your Heart Bra” and “the Eighteen Hour Bra”. The famous slogan “it lifts and separates” is associated with the Cross Your Heart Bra and dates back to 1954.

Maidenform is a manufacturer of underwear for women that was founded in 1922. The three co-founders were driven to defy the norms of the day that dictated a flat-chested look for women. They produced items that fit the female body, hence the name “Maidenform”.

22A “Meet the Press” group : PANEL

NBC’s news and interview show “Meet the Press” first aired in 1947. That’s a long time ago, and so “Meet the Press” is the longest-running television series in US broadcasting history.

28A Bills with George Washington’s face : ONES

The nation’s first president, George Washington, is on the US one-dollar bills produced today. When the original one-dollar bill was issued in 1863, it featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury.

29A Small dish served in Spain : TAPA

“Tapa” is the Spanish word for “lid”. There is no clear rationale for why this word came to be used for an appetizer. There are lots of explanations cited, all of which seem to involve the temporary covering of one’s glass of wine with a plate or item of food to either preserve the wine or give one extra space at the table.

31A Accra’s country : GHANA

Accra sits on Ghana’s coast and is a major seaport as well as the country’s capital city. The name “Accra” comes from a local word “Nkran” meaning “ants”, a name chosen because of the large number of anthills found in the area when the city was founded.

35A Doozy : LULU

We call a remarkable thing or a person a lulu. The term “lulu” was coined in honor of Lulu Hurst, the Georgia Wonder, who was a stage magician active in the 1880s.

A doozy is something extraordinary or bizarre. The exact origins of the word “doozy” aren’t clear, but it might be a derivative of the name Eleanora Duse, an Italian actress popular early in the 20th century. Some say that the term comes from the Duesenberg brand of automobile, which was indeed referred to as a “duesy”. However, the use of “doozy” in print occurs before the Duesenberg hit the market.

44A “Star Wars” saga heroine : REY

Rey is a central character in the “Star Wars” universe who first appeared in 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. She is trained as a Jedi by Luke Skywalker and his sister Princess Leia Organa. In honor of her mentors, she takes the name Rey Skywalker, and eventually becomes “The Last Jedi”. Rey is played by British actress Daisy Ridley.

45A Desert plants : CACTI

The cactus (plural “cacti”) is a member of a family of plants that are particularly well-adapted to extremely dry environments. Almost all cacti are native to the Americas, although some succulent plants from the old world are similar in appearance and are often mislabeled as “cacti”.

46A Home of the New York Mets until 2008 : SHEA

Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York was named after William A. Shea, the man credited with bringing National League baseball back to the city in the form of the New York Mets. Shea Stadium was dismantled in 2008-2009, and the site now provides additional parking for the new stadium nearby called Citi Field.

48A College mil. program : ROTC

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)

50A “___, amas, amat …” (Latin 101 conjugation) : AMO

“Amo, amas, amat” translates from Latin as “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”.

53A Outlet from the heart’s left ventricle : AORTIC VALVE

The aortic valve is one of the heart’s four valves. It is located between the left ventricle and the aorta, and allows blood to flow out from the left ventricle into the aorta, and not the other way.

58A Dance to “The Blue Danube,” e.g. : WALTZ

What we tend to think of as a waltz today is danced at about 90 beats per minute. The original waltz was much faster, and danced at about 180 beats per minute. To differentiate, we now call the faster dance a “Viennese Waltz”, and sometimes refer to the other as the “English Waltz” or “slow waltz”.

Of the many classical composers with the Strauss name, “The Waltz King” was Johann Strauss II from Austria. Among the many beautiful waltzes that Strauss penned are “The Blue Danube” and “Tales from the Vienna Woods”. He also composed the famous operetta “Die Fledermaus”.

60A E.P.A.-banned pesticide : DDT

DDT is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (don’t forget now!). DDT was used with great success to control disease-carrying insects during WWII, and when made available for use after the war it became by far the most popular pesticide. And then Rachel Carson published her famous book “Silent Spring”, suggesting there was a link between DDT and diminishing populations of certain wildlife. It was the public outcry sparked by the book, and reports of links between DDT and cancer, that led to the ban on the use of the chemical in 1972. That ban is touted as the main reason that the bald eagle was rescued from near extinction.

62A Poet with the essay collection “Sister Outsider” : AUDRE LORDE

“Sister Outsider” is a 1984 collection of essays and speeches by writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde. The contents challenge a broad range of prejudices, including sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and classism.

65A Home services app that lists local vendors : ANGI

Angie’s List is a website used by consumers to rate and research local businesses. The “list” was founded in 1995, originally as a call-in service and publication with reviews, by William S. Oesterle and the eponymous Angie Hicks. Angie’s List moved to the Internet in 1996, and by 2013 had 70,000 subscribers. A rebranding exercise in 2021 resulted in Angie’s List becoming “ANGI”.

68A Pest control brand : RAID

Raid insecticide has been killing bugs since 1956.

69A Four years, for a U.S. president : TERM

The US president serves for four-year terms. George Washington, the nation’s first president, set a precedent by agreeing to serve only two terms. Subsequent presidents adhered to this custom, serving only two terms, until 1940 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to run for a third term. Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term during WWII, after which the Congress adopted the Twenty-Second Amendment to the constitution, which bars anyone from being elected president more than twice.

70A Trait transmitters : GENES

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

71A One of 26, approximately, in a marathon : MILE

The world’s first telethon took place in 1949. It was a 16-hour fundraiser hosted by Milton Berle that raised over a million dollars for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The term “telethon”, a portmanteau of “television” and “marathon”, was coined in the news media the day after the event. One of the most famous annual telethons was the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, which raised funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for over twenty years, from 1966 until 2010.

Down

2D Decluttering maven Kondo : MARIE

Marie Kondo (also “Konmari”) runs a very successful organizing consulting business that she founded when she was 19 years old, and while a student at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. She wrote an extremely successful book titled “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” that was first published in 2011. I’ve read it, and acted on at least some of the advice given therein …

3D Monastery resident : FRIAR

A friar is a member of a mendicant religious order, an order that combines monastic life with non-ownership of personal property. The term “friar” comes from the Old French “frere”, meaning “brother”.

7D Bat mitzvah reading : TORAH

The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching”, I am told.

8D Musician Brian who has an asteroid named after him : ENO

Brian Eno was presented with the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019, for his contribution to the popularisation of science. That same year, an asteroid was named in his honor. Asteroid 81948 was officially renamed to his full name, “Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno”. It is now most often referred to simply as “Eno”.

10D H2O, in Mexico : AGUA

A water molecule is composed of an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms on roughly opposite sides (at about a 150-degree angle). So, sometimes the molecule is represented by “HOH”, although more usually by “H₂O”.

12D Slugger Maris : ROGER

Roger Maris (whose original family name was “Maras”) was the son of Croatian immigrants. It was Maris’s single-season record of 61 home runs that Mark McGwire broke in 1998 (hitting 70 that season). Maris’s own record of 61 runs (from 1961) beat the previous record of 60 set in 1927 by Babe Ruth.

13D “Skyfall” singer : ADELE

Adele’s “Skyfall” theme song, released in 2012 for the James Bond film of the same name, earned her an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award. It was the first Bond theme song to win an Oscar.

19D Music genre from Tokyo : J-POP

“J-pop” is an abbreviation for “Japanese pop”, a genre of music that emerged in the nineties. Although J-pop is rooted in traditional Japanese music, it is heavily influenced by western bands from the sixties such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

24D Scrambled word: Abbr. : ANAG

Here are some of my favorite anagrams:

• “Dormitory” and “dirty room”
• “Elvis” and “lives”
• “The eyes” and “they see”
• “Eleven plus two” and “twelve plus one”
• “William Shakespeare” and “I’ll make a wise phrase”
• “Schoolmaster” and “the classroom”

26D R.p.m. indicator : TACH

The tachometer takes its name from the Greek word “tachos” meaning “speed”. A tachometer in a car measures engine revolutions per minute (rpm).

30D Wool-producing ranch : ALPACA FARM

Alpacas are like small llamas, but unlike llamas were never beasts of burden. They were bred specifically for the fleece. As such, there are no known wild alpacas these days, even in their native Peru.

33D Actress de Armas : ANA

Ana de Armas is an actress from Cuba. Having attended the National Theater School of Cuba, she moved to Spain at the age of 18. There, she made a name for herself in a Spanish TV series called “El Internado”. De Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014, after which her performance opposite Ryan Gosling in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049” earned her critical acclaim.

36D Short lines at the register? : UPC

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

38D Prefix with cycle or code : UNI-

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) lists codes for 32 “control” characters, as well as the 95 printable characters. These binary codes are the way that our computers can understand what we mean when we type, say a letter or a number. Unicode is a more contemporary standard, and is like “Ascii on steroids”, encompassing more characters.

40D Black-and-white cookie : OREO

The Oreo cookie was introduced in 1912. It was intended to be a competitor to the very similar Hydrox cookie, which had debuted four years earlier. The Oreo won the resulting battle on the grocery store shelves …

42D When Hamlet duels with Laertes in “Hamlet” : ACT V

In William Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”, Laertes is the son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia. It is Laertes who kills Hamlet using a poisoned sword..

47D Smog, e.g. : HAZE

The word “smog” is a portmanteau coined in 1905 by Dr. Henry Antoine Des Voeux to describe a mixture of smoke and fog, initially referring to the thick, polluted air in London. The infamous “Great Smog of London” in December 1952 caused thousands of deaths and led to significant environmental legislation.

51D “Harold and ___” (1971 black comedy) : MAUDE

“Harold and Maude” is a somewhat dark comedy film released in 1971. I found the storyline to be quite bizarre when I saw it many years ago, with a death-obsessed young man taken to driving a hearse as his private vehicle. The young man makes friends with a 79-year-old woman who, like him, is in the habit of attending the funerals of people she never knew. It’s not my cup of tea, quite frankly …

55D Hawaiian porch : LANAI

A lanai is a type of veranda, and a design that originated in Hawaii. A kind blog reader tells me that the etymology of “lanai” seems unclear, but that the island name of “Lana’i” is not related.

59D Transit option to N.Y.C.’s Roosevelt Island : TRAM

Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City’s East River lying within the borough of Manhattan. The island was known as Welfare Island when it was used principally for hospitals, from 1921 to 1973. It was renamed Roosevelt Island (in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt) in 1973. I recommend that visitors take a ride on the Roosevelt Island Tramway, especially at night, as the tram offers beautiful views of Manhattan and Queens.

64D Beethoven’s “___ to Joy” : ODE

Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” has to be one of the most recognizable pieces of music in the classical repertoire. “Ode to Joy”, based on the final movement of the work, is now the anthem of the European Union. If you’d like to see a fictional tale that explores Beethoven’s life at the time he was writing the “Ninth Symphony”, I highly recommend you take a look at the 2006 movie “Copying Beethoven”. Ed Harris plays Beethoven, and the soundtrack is superb.