Category: Barbara Lin

Bill’s time: 7m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Hoppy brew, for short : IPA

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

The foodstuff that we call “hops” are actually the female flowers of the hop plant. The main use of hops is to add flavor to beer. The town in which I used to live here in California was once home to the largest hop farm in the world. Most of the harvested hops were exported all the way to the breweries of London, where they could fetch the best price.

10 Some nest eggs, for short : IRAS

A nest egg is an amount of money laid down as a reserve. This is the figurative use of “nest egg” that originally described an artificial egg left in a nest to encourage a hen to lay real eggs in that spot. So our financial nest egg is set aside in anticipation of continued growth, more eggs being laid.

14 Kylo ___ (“Star Wars” antagonist) : REN

Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa in the “Star Wars” universe. The character’s birth name was Ben Solo. He was trained as a Jedi knight by his uncle, Luke Skywalker. However, Ben came to embrace the Dark Side, and changed his name to Kylo Ren. Ren is played by actor Adam Driver.

15 Peninsula northeast of Africa : ARABIA

The Arabian Peninsula (also “Arabia”) is part of Western Asia that is located just north-east of Africa. The peninsula is bordered to the west by the Red Sea, to the northeast by the Persian Gulf, and to the southeast by the Indian Ocean. Most of the Arabian Peninsula is taken up by Saudi Arabia, but also included are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. And, it’s the largest peninsula in the world, covering about 1¼ million square miles.

16 2017 Pixar film with two Oscars : COCO

“Coco” is a 2017 Pixar movie about a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who ends up in the land of the dead by accident. There, he seeks out the help of the great-great-grandfather to get back to his family in the land of the living.

18 Movie rating scale with “Fresh” and “Rotten” labels : TOMATOMETER

Rotten Tomatoes is a website that mainly provides reviews and ratings of movies, although it now covers TV shows as well. The site was launched in 1998 and takes its name from the practice of audience members throwing rotten tomatoes at an unappreciated performer on stage.

20 “Library-like” section of an Amtrak train : QUIET CAR

“Amtrak” is the name used commercially by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. It comes from a melding of the words “America” and “track”.

23 Zoom, maybe : MEET

Zoom is a videoconferencing app that became remarkably popular in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The market deemed Zoom to be the easiest to use of the free videoconferencing apps. I’ve been using it, but really prefer Google’s Meet offering …

26 2022 murder mystery movie with cameos by Serena Williams and Yo-Yo Ma : GLASS ONION

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is a 2022 sequel to “Knives Out”, with both films written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daniel Craig as private investigator Benoit Blanc. Johnson wrote “Glass Onion” during the COVID-19 lockdown, and set the film against the backdrop of the pandemic. The score for both films was written by Nathan Johnson, Rian’s cousin.

30 “Moby-Dick” captain : AHAB

The full title of Herman Melville’s novel is “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale”. Note that the convention is to hyphenate “Moby-Dick” in the title, as that was how the book was first published, in 1851. However, there is no hyphen in the name of the whale “Moby Dick” as reproduced throughout the text.

36 Item on the back of a Jeep : TIRE

The Jeep is the original off-road vehicle. It was developed by the American Bantam Car Company in 1940 at the request of the US government who recognized the upcoming need for the armed forces as American involvement in WWII loomed. The Bantam Company was too small to cope with demand, so the government gave the designs to competing car companies. The design and brand eventually ended up with AMC in the seventies and eighties.

39 Goat’s plaint : MAA!

A plaint is a grouse, a complaint.

40 ___ four : PETIT

A petit four is a small confection served at the end of a meal, either as a dessert or with coffee. The name “petit four” is French for “small oven”.

46 Sport craze of the 2020s : PICKLEBALL

Pickleball is a sport invented in the 1960s that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton. Originally marketed as a game for children to play in backyards, pickleball is now played on purpose-built courts by many, many adults, but mainly in North and South America.

48 La Louisiane, par exemple : ETAT

In French, Louisiana (Louisiane) is a state (état).

The French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the Mississippi River basin for France in 1682. He named the region “La Louisiane” in honor of Louis XIV, who was King of France at that time. It is from “La Louisiane” that we get the state name “Louisiana”.

63 Common cookout fare whose toppings can be found stacked in this grid : BURGER

The dish we know today as a hamburger was referred to as a “hamburger sandwich” prior to 1939. “Hamburger” comes from “hamburg steak”, which was named for the German city starting in 1880.

67 Summer setting in N.Y.C. : EDT

Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Down

1 Second-greatest oil producer in OPEC : IRAQ

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 at a conference held in Baghdad, Iraq that was attended by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nine more countries joined the alliance soon after, and OPEC set up headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and then Vienna, Austria in 1965. The basic aim of OPEC was to wrest control of oil prices from the oil companies and put it in the hands of the sovereign states that own the natural resource.

2 Lima’s home : PERU

Lima is the capital city of Peru. It was founded in 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who named it “la Ciudad de los Reyes” (the City of Kings). He chose this name because the decision to found the city was made on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany that commemorates the visit of the three kings to Jesus in Bethlehem. Lima is home to the oldest university in all of the Americas, as San Marco University was founded in 1551 during the days of Spanish colonial rule.

3 Stuff that’s the opposite of stuff : ANTIMATTER

In the world of particle physics, antimatter is made up of particles that have the same mass as particles of ordinary matter, but with the opposite charge and quantum spin. Mixing matter and antimatter causes the annihilation of both, with a release of energy equal to the mass of the particles according to Einstein’s equation E=mc².

4 Some college entrance exams, redundantly : SAT TESTS

Today, the standardized test for admission to colleges is known as the SAT Reasoning Test, but it used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test, which led to the abbreviation “SAT”.

5 Exam overseer : PROCTOR

A proctor is a supervisor, and especially a person overseeing a school examination or a dormitory. The word “proctor” originated in the late 1500s, and is a contraction of the word “procurator”, the name given to an official agent of a church.

6 Dalai ___ : LAMA

The Dalai Lama is a religious leader in the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th to hold the office. He has indicated that the next Dalai Lama might be found outside of Tibet for the first time, and may even be female.

9 “The way,” in Mandarin : TAO

The name of the Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Taoism signifies the true nature of the world.

11 Unleavened Indian flatbread : ROTI

In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is an unleavened cousin of naan.

12 Passed with flying colors : ACED

The phrase “to pass with flying colors” is a reference to the flying of the flag of a regiment or ship, i.e. the colors.

21 Some M.I.T. grads, for short : EES

Electrical engineer (EE)

24 Hairstyle associated with punk culture : MOHAWK

Here is another example of a difference in terminology on either side of the Atlantic. What we call the Mohawk hairstyle in the US is known as a Mohican in Britain and Ireland. The Mohawk hairstyle is named after the Mohawk nation, who wore their hair in the same fashion. The Mohawk style has been around for a long time elsewhere in the world. There was a well-preserved male body found in a bog near Dublin in Ireland in 2003. The body is about 2,000 years old, and has a Mohawk haircut.

27 Hillenbrand who wrote “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” : LAURA

The 2003 hit movie “Seabiscuit” is based on a best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand called “Seabiscuit: An American Legend”. The horse Seabiscuit was sired by a horse called Hard Tack, and “hard tack” is type of biscuit eaten by sailors at sea in days of yore. “Hard Tack” … “Seabiscuit”, get it …?

29 Oscar ___, portrayer of Duke Atreides in “Dune” : ISAAC

Oscar Isaac is an actor from Guatemala who was raised in Miami. Before acting, Isaac played lead guitar in his own band called the Blinking Underdogs. Isaac portrayed X-wing pilot Poe Dameron in several of the “Star Wars” movies.

32 Disney princess with a tail : ARIEL

“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton. Her best friend is Flounder, who despite his name is not a flounder at all and is actually a tropical fish. Ariel is also friends with Sebastian, a red Jamaican crab whose full name is Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian.

33 Nut that’s a stimulant : BETEL

A betel nut is a type of nut that is chewed, especially in parts of Asia. “Betel nut” is a bit of a misnomer, as the nut in question is actually an areca nut from the Areca palm. For chewing, the areca nut is wrapped in betel leaves and the whole thing is called a “betel nut”.

49 Number of legs on a crab : TEN

Decapods are an order of crustaceans that includes crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp. Even though decapods can have perhaps over 30 appendages, only ten of these are considered legs, hence the name “decapod”.

51 Letters before Q, sometimes : LGBT

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ)

53 Common patio furniture wood : TEAK

Teak is a hardwood tree in the mint family that is commonly found in monsoon forests of Asia. Teak’s tight grain and high oil content make it very suitable for constructing outdoor furniture, where weather resistance is valued. For the same reason, teak is the wood of choice for wooden decks on boats.

54 Alleged offender, to a cop : PERP

In cop-speak, a “perp” (perpetrator) might prey on a “vic” (victim).

55 Maker of bricks that weigh less than an ounce : LEGO

Lego produces some wonderful specialized sets with which you can build models of celebrated structures, including:

• The Statue of Liberty (2,882 pieces)
• The Sydney Opera House (2,989 pieces)
• The Eiffel Tower (3,428 pieces)
• Tower Bridge (4,295 pieces)
• The Taj Mahal (5,922 pieces)

59 Compound in some trendy oils : CBD

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical extracted from cannabis plants that is used as a herbal drug. It does not contain the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for the marijuana “high”.

60 Rose or fuchsia : HUE

The colors fuchsia and magenta are identical when used on the Web. The name “magenta” comes from an aniline dye that was patented in 1859 in France and called “fuchsine”. The dye was renamed in honor of a victory against the Austrians in the Battle of Magenta of 1859, which was fought near the northern Italian town of Magenta.