Category: Geoffrey Schorkopf

Bill’s time: 7m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Pointed end of a pen : NIB

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning “beak of a bird”. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” describing the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

12A Cookies with their name embossed on them : OREOS

If you take a close look at the embossed design on the front and back of an Oreo cookie, you’ll spot the main elements of the Nabisco logo. Those elements are an oval with a cross on top, a cross with two bars. Usually the company name “Nabisco” is inside the oval, but for the cookie it’s the brand name “Oreo”. The current embossed design was introduced in 1952.

14A Prefix with -metric : ISO-

The word “isometric” comes from Greek, and means “having equal measurement”. Isometric exercise is a resistance exercise in which the muscle does not change in length (and the joint angle stays the same). The alternative would be dynamic exercises, ones using the joint’s full range of motion.

17A Something to wave with pride? : LGBTQ FLAG

The best-known rainbow flag is the one representing gay pride. Such usage of the rainbow flag was popularized in 1978 by artist Gilbert Baker. The varying colors of the flag represent the diversity of the gay community.

19A Sardinia, e.g., to Sardinians : ISOLA

In Italian, “Sicilia” (Sicily) and “Sardegna” (Sardinia) are “isole” (islands).

Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy, and an island in the Mediterranean off the west coast of the country. It lies to the south of the French island of Corsica. Sardinia is the second largest island in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea (Sicily is the largest).

20A “Absolument!” : OUI, OUI!

“Absolument” is French for “absolutely”.

23A “Nothing but ___!” (reaction to a swish) : NET

“Nothing but net” is a phrase used in basketball to describe a “clean basket”. A clean basket is a score in which the ball doesn’t touch the backboard or even the rim, and touches only the net.

26A Brand of cooler named for a mythical beast : YETI

YETI is a manufacturer of coolers and related products that is based in Austin, Texas. There was a kerfuffle between YETI and the National Rifle Association in 2018, when YETI removed the NRA from its membership discount program. That kerfuffle got quite public when some NRA members published videos of themselves destroying their own YETI products in protest.

36A Flashy cycling maneuvers : BMX TRICKS

“BMX” stands for “Bicycle Motocross”. It’s the sport where folks on bicycles race around what is in effect a regular motocross track. Medals were awarded for BMX for the first time at the Beijing Olympics, with a Latvian winning for the men, and a Française winning for the women.

39A What a new hire might learn, with “the” : … ROPES

As one might expect perhaps, the phrase “learning the ropes” is nautical in origin. A new recruit on a sailing vessel would have to learn how to tie the appropriate knots and learn which rope controlled which sail or spar.

43A Floating markers : BUOYS

A buoy is a floating device with many, many uses. The term “buoy” still provides the most difficult pronunciation challenge to me, as a native Irishman living in the US. I still find myself saying “boy” and “boyed” instead of “boo-ee” and “boo-eed” …

50A Psychic’s alleged ability, for short : ESP

The so-called sixth sense is extrasensory perception (ESP). It is also referred to as second sight.

53A They’re pulled to garner media attention, informally : PR STUNTS

Public relations (PR)

57A Music’s Run the Jewels or Rae Sremmurd, e.g. : RAP DUO

Rae Sremmurd is a hip hop act consisting of two brothers from Tupelo, Mississippi: Khalif “Swae Lee” Brown and Aaquil “Slim Jxmmi” Brown. The pair used to perform as Dem Outta St8 Boyz, with the brothers using the names Kid Krunk and Caliboy, along with a third brother known as Lil Pantz. The name “Rae Sremmurd” is a backward spelling of the words making up “EarDrummers”, which is the name of the production company that signed the duo.

60A Spend money on “Wheel of Fortune” … which won’t help much for solving 17-, 21-, 36-, 41- and 53-Across! : BUY A VOWEL

Contestants have been spinning the “Wheel of Fortune” since the game show first aired in 1975.

Down

7D 4 on a par 3, e.g. : BOGEY

The golfing term “bogey” originated at the Great Yarmouth Golf Club in England in 1890, and was used to indicate a total round that was one-over-par (and not one-over-par on a particular hole, as it is today). The name “bogey” came from a music hall song of the time “Here Comes the Bogeyman”. In the following years it became popular for players trying to stay at par to be “playing against Colonel Bogey”. Then, during WWI, the marching tune “Colonel Bogey” was written and named after the golfing term. If you don’t recognize the name of the tune, it’s the one that’s whistled by the soldiers marching in the great movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.

11D “To thine own ___ be true” : SELF

Polonius is an important character in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. Polonius is eventually killed by Hamlet, albeit in a case of mistaken identity. Polonius has several memorable lines in the play that are oft-quoted today, including “To thine own self be true”, “Brevity is the soul of wit”, and “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”.

13D Sudden, powerful gust of wind : SQUALL

A squall line is a line of thunderstorms that sometimes precedes a cold front.

18D Athleisure brand originally from Italy : FILA

Fila was originally an Italian company, founded in 1911 and now based in South Korea. It was started in Piedmont by the Fila brothers, primarily to make underwear that they sold to people living in the Italian Alps. The company started to focus on sportswear in the seventies, using tennis-great Bjorn Borg as their major endorser.

25D ___ Day (April observance) : ARBOR

Arbor Day is a holiday each year in which people traditionally plant and care for trees. The first Arbor Day was held way back in 1872.

27D Climactic fight in a video game : BOSS BATTLE

In the world of video gaming, a significantly strong computer-controlled opponent is referred to as a boss. A fight against a boss is a boss battle or boss fight.

31D Fashion inits. in Manhattan : DKNY

Donna Karan is an American fashion designer, creator of the Donna Karan New York (DKNY) clothing label. Karan was very much raised in the fashion industry, as her mother was a model and her stepfather a tailor.

34D Yokel : RUBE

A rube is a person lacking sophistication, someone often described as a country bumpkin. The term derives from the masculine name “Reuben”, which was considered back in the early 1800s to be a typical name used in rural areas.

35D Apex predator of the ocean : ORCA

An apex predator is at the top of a food chain, and has no other natural predators. Examples are the orca (“killer whale”) in the oceans, the lion in Africa, and the Tyrannosaurus in the days of the dinosaurs.

37D Marks, as a ballot square : XES IN

Today, a ballot is a piece of paper or equivalent used to cast a vote. Back in the 1500s, a “ballot” was a small “ball” used in the process of voting.

39D “The Thinker” sculptor : RODIN

Rodin’s famous sculpture known as “The Thinker” has been reproduced many times. Rodin’s original version of “The Thinker” is actually a detail in a much larger work known as “The Gates of Hell”. The original plaster version of “The Gates of Hell” can be seen at the magnificent Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

46D ___ Sea (arm of the Arctic Ocean) : KARA

The Kara Sea is an arm of the Arctic Ocean located north of Siberia. The sea takes its name from the Kara River, and the river in turn takes its name from a Nenets word meaning “hummocked ice”. According to the Russian government, the Kara Sea is home to a substantial cache of nuclear waste dumped by the former Soviet Union authorities. The waste comprises at least six nuclear submarine reactors and ten nuclear power plant reactors, most of which had suffered some kind of accident.

50D Scientist Hubble with a telescope named after him : EDWIN

Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who is perhaps most associated with the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honor. Hubble made several important discoveries. For example, he showed that several spiral “nebulae” were not in fact gaseous bodies within our galaxy, and rather were spiral “galaxies” that existed beyond the bounds of our own Milky Way galaxy.

51D Fuzzy-feeling leather : SUEDE

Suede is leather made from the underside of an animal’s skin, usually the skin from a lamb. As such it is very soft, although not as durable as leather made from the exterior skin. The soft leather was, and is still used for making gloves. Back in 1859 these gloves were called “gants de Suede” in France, or “gloves of Sweden”. So, the name “suede” comes from the French word for Sweden.

53D Nightwear, informally : PJS

“PJs” is the shortened form of “pajamas” (or “pyjamas” in British English). The word “pajama” itself comes to English from Hindi, derived from the Persian “pāē-jāma”, meaning “leg garment”.

54D Oblong tomato type : ROMA

The Roma tomato isn’t considered an heirloom variety but it is very popular with home gardeners, especially those gardeners that don’t have a lot of space. It is a bush type (as opposed to vine type) and needs very little room to provide a lot of tomatoes.

58D Casual collared shirt : POLO

René Lacoste was a French tennis player who went into the clothing business, and came up with a more comfortable shirt that players could use. This became known as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted for use in the sport of polo, the shirts also became known as “polo shirts”. The “golf shirt” is basically the same thing. The Lacoste line of clothing features a crocodile logo, because René was nicknamed “The Crocodile”.

61D Desire : YEN

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.