Category: Byron Walden

Bill’s time: 40m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16 Competitor on “MasterChef” : HOME COOK

“MasterChef” is a cooking competition TV show franchise that originated on the BBC in the UK in 1990. There are now versions of MasterChef made all over the world, from Albania to Vietnam. I quite enjoy the US version of the “MasterChef Junior” manifestation of the show. But, I have no time for host Gordan Ramsay …

17 Can’t they all just git along? : DOGIES

“Dogie” (sometimes “dogy”) is cowboy slang for a motherless calf in a herd.

20 Eponymous Milwaukee brewer Frederick : PABST

Frederick Pabst was a brewer from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area who had immigrated to the US from Prussia with his parents. Pabst bought himself into his father-in-law’s small brewery and over the years grew the enterprise into a public company. The most famous beer from Pabst is Pabst Blue Ribbon.

23 Deep shade of blue : LAPIS

Lapis lazuli is a blue, semi-precious stone mined mainly in Afghanistan. “Lapis Lazuli” is Latin for “stone of Lazhward”, referring to the Persian name for the location where the stone was mined. Our word “azure”, a shade of blue, has the same root.

24 Something that many people share : MEME

A meme (from “mineme”) is a cultural practice or idea that is passed on verbally or by repetition from one person to another. The term lends itself very well to the online world where links, emails, files etc. are so easily propagated.

25 Dodgers’ foes, for short : IRS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.

26 Film with the tagline “In space, no one can hear you clean” : WALL-E

“WALL-E” is a very cute Pixar movie that was released in 2008. The hero of the piece is a robot named WALL-E, who loves his “Hello Dolly”, and who also falls in love with a robot named EVE.

32 Option for claustrophobic patients : OPEN MRI

MRI scans can be daunting for many people as they usually involve the patient lying inside a tube with the imaging magnet surrounding the body. Additionally, the scan can take up to 40 minutes in some cases. There are some open MRI scanners available that help prevent a feeling of claustrophobia. However, the images produced by open scanners are of lower quality as they operate at lower magnetic fields.

47 ___ table : CRAPS

If one considers earlier versions of craps, then the game has been around for a very long time and probably dates back to the Crusades. It may have been derived from an old English game called “hazard” also played with two dice, which was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” from the 1300s. The American version of the game came here courtesy of the French and first set root in New Orleans where it was given the name “crapaud”, a French word meaning “toad”.

48 Flowers that are a source of the anti-inflammatory drug colchicine : CROCI

The crocus (plural “croci”) is a plant genus in the iris family. The term “crocus” ultimately derives from the Sanskrit word for “saffron”. Saffron spice comes from Crocus sativus, the “saffron crocus”.

49 Afghan region whose name means “black cave” : TORA BORA

The famous cave that almost certainly housed Osama Bin Laden for a while was in Tora Bora in eastern Pakistan. Tora Bora is not far (~ 30 mi) from what used to be an even more famous spot, the Khyber Pass. “Tora Bora” is a Pashto name which translates to “black dust”.

53 Cold weather outerwear : ANORAK

Anoraks really aren’t very popular over here in America. Everyone has one in Ireland! An anorak is a heavy jacket with a hood, often lined with fur (or fake fur), and is an invention of the Inuit people.

54 Longtime name in Top 40 radio : SEACREST

Radio and television personality Ryan Seacrest is best known as the host of the talent show “American Idol”. He also started hosting “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” on ABC in 2005, and co-hosting “Live with Kelly and Ryan” in 2017. As a producer, Seacrest is the man behind the show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” (so, he has a lot to answer for …).

55 Stereotypical beatnik accessories : BERETS

The term “beatnik” was coined by journalist Herb Caen in 1958 when he used it to describe the stereotypical young person of the “beat generation”, which is oft associated with the writer Jack Kerouac. That stereotypical beatnik would be playing the bongos, rolling his or her own cigarettes. Male beatniks tended to sport goatees and wear berets.

Down

2 Onetime treat with chocolate creme and vanilla cookies : UH-OH! OREO

Uh-Oh! Oreo is a variant of the Oreo cookie, the reverse of the original in that the outside is made of vanilla wafers, and the filling is chocolate cream. The name was changed to Golden Chocolate Creme Oreo in 2007. Must admit, I’ve never had one …

3 Cinderella’s calling card : BIG UPSET

In the world of sports, a Cinderella story is a situation in which a competitor or team is far more successful than is reasonably expected. The term is a reference to the “Cinderella” fairy tale.

5 Winemaking sediment : LEES

The dregs in wine, the sediment that settles during fermentation (and sometimes in the bottle), are also called “lees”.

7 For a song : CHEAPLY

Something that goes “for a song” is sold very cheaply. The first known use of the phrase in print is in William Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well”.

Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the
ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his
teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of
melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song.

8 Pictures where people are headscarfed? : ZOMBIE MOVIES

A zombie is a corpse that has been brought back to life by some mystical means. Our modern use of the term largely stems from the undead creatures featured in the 1968 horror movie called “Night of the Living Dead”. Now that film I haven’t seen, and probably never will …

To snarf down is to gobble up, to eat voraciously. “Snarf” is a slang term that is probably related to “scarf”, which has the same meaning.

10 “Take Me or Leave Me” musical : RENT

The musical “Rent” by Jonathan Larson is based on the Puccini opera “La bohème”. “Rent” tells the story of struggling artists and musicians living in the Lower East Side of New York, and is set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic. We saw “Rent” on Broadway quite a few years ago, and were very disappointed …

11 Off : ICE

To ice, to off, to whack, to knock off, to murder.

12 “Death Be Not Proud,” for one : SONNET

I don’t know about here in America, but at school in Ireland we all had to learn John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet X”, also known as “Death, Be Not Proud”.

27 Philosophy profession : CREDO

A creed or credo is a profession of faith, or a system of belief or principles. “Credo” is Latin for “I believe”.

30 Pieces of punditry : OP-EDS

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

34 Mac, for example : RAINCOAT

When I was growing up in Ireland, we had to take our macs to school in case it rained (and it usually did!). “Mac” is short for “macintosh”, a waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric. The coat was named after its inventor, Scotsman Charles Macintosh.

38 Show stopper? : HIATUS

A hiatus is a break or opening in a material object, or an interruption in time. “Hiatus” is Latin for “opening”.

40 Black heart? : SHORT A

The heart of the word “black” is a short letter A.

44 Didgeridoo sound : DRONE

The didgeridoo is a wind instrument that was developed in northern Australia over a thousand years ago by the indigenous people. Despite the instrument’s origins, the name “didgeridoo” is not aboriginal, and is thought perhaps to be onomatopoetic and imitative of the sound made.

45 Recipient of the inaugural Mark Twain Prize for American Humor : PRYOR

Richard Pryor was a stand-up comedian and actor from Peoria, Illinois. Pryor had a rough childhood. He was the son of a prostitute and was raised in his grandmother’s brothel after his mother abandoned him at the age of ten years. He was regularly beaten by his grandmother, and was molested as a child. Pryor grew up to become the comedian’s comedian, one who was much respected by his peers. Jerry Seinfeld once referred to Pryor as “the Picasso of our profession”.

The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor has been awarded annually since 1998 by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The first recipient of the award was Richard Pryor. George Carlin won in 2008, and was the only person to be awarded posthumously.

47 Many a ten-code user : CB’ER

A CB’er is someone who operates a Citizens Band (CB) radio. In 1945, the FCC set aside certain radio frequencies for the personal use of citizens. The use of the Citizens Band increased throughout the seventies as advances in electronics brought down the size of transceivers and their cost. There aren’t many CB radios sold these days though, as they have largely been replaced by cell phones.

There is a set of “ten-codes” that were developed in 1937 for the use of law enforcement departments. As of 2006, the US federal government is recommending that they be replaced by plain language due to a lack of standardization in ten-codes. Examples of ten-codes are:

• 10-1 meaning “bad reception”
• 10-4 meaning “understood”
• 10-9 meaning “say again”
• 10-33 meaning “emergency, all units stand by”

50 Azimuth, e.g. : ARC

When pinpointing an object in the sky, its position can be documented using the altitude and azimuth. The altitude is the angle of the object above the horizon. The azimuth is the angle on the horizon between north and the object.