Category: Hanh Huynh

Bill’s time: 6m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Cursed look : EVIL EYE

The evil eye is a curse that is cast by giving a malicious glare.

8A Kia sedan renamed the K5 in 2020 : OPTIMA

The Kia Optima was sold for a while in Canada and Europe as the Kia Magentis. In 2019, the name was changed to “K5” in all markets.

14A Typically the biggest players on a football team : LINEMEN

In American football, linemen specialize in playing in the line of scrimmage. RT stands for Right Tackle. That’s about all I know, and even that I am unsure about …

15A Major arteries : AORTAS

The aorta is the largest artery in the human body. It carries oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Even though it is a single vessel, it is divided into four main sections: the ascending aorta, the aortic arch, the thoracic aorta, and the abdominal aorta.

18A Dances to a Chubby Checker song, say : TWISTS

The twist is a dance that was born in the sixties, inspired by the Chubby Checker hit of 1960 called “The Twist”. Checker sang the song live in front of a crowd in Deland, Florida in October 2012. About 40,000 people danced along to the music, setting a new Guinness World Record for the most people “twisting” at the same time.

22A Bit of gear for an entomologist : NET

Entomology is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of insects. The etymology(!) of “entomology” is the Greek “entomon” (meaning “insect”) and “logia” (meaning “study of”). In turn, the Greek word “entomos” for insect is a literal translation into Greek of “having a notch or cut”, in deference to the observation by Aristotle that insects have segmented bodies.

23A ___ Lingus : AER

Aer Lingus is my favorite airline! Well, the service isn’t that great, but when I get on board an Aer Lingus plane I feel like I am back in Ireland. Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland, with “Aer Lingus” being a phonetic spelling of the Irish “aer-loingeas” meaning “air fleet”. These days Aer Lingus can only lay claim to the title of Ireland’s oldest airline as it is no longer the biggest. That honor goes to the controversial budget airline Ryanair.

24A “Please turn up the thermostat!” : BRR!

The suffix “-stat” comes from the Greek “statos” meaning “standing, stationary”. It was first used in the mid-1700s in the term “heliostat”, which described an instrument that made the sun appear stationary. We still use “-stat” in the name of devices that stabilize or regulate. For example, a thermostat controls temperature and a rheostat uses resistance to control current flow in an electrical circuit.

25A City at the center of “Moonraker,” informally : RIO

“Moonraker” is the third of Ian Fleming’s “James Bond” novels, and was first published in 1955. It is unique in the series in that it is the only one in which all of the action takes place entirely in Britain. The title “Moonraker” was used for the eleventh in the series of “James Bonds” movies, but the film’s plot was very different from that of the book, with the action taking place across the globe, and even in space.

27A Winners of Super Bowl III (and no other Super Bowls since then) : JETS

Super Bowl I was played in January 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers emerged victorious in a game with a score of 35-10. That game was officially known as the AFL-NFL Championship Game, as the name “Super Bowl” wasn’t applied until two seasons later. That “first” Super Bowl is now known as Super Bowl III and was played between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts. The Jets came out on top.

30A Tally mark : NOTCH

Back in the mid-1600s, a tally was a stick marked with notches that tracked how much one owed or paid. The term “tally” came from the Latin “talea” meaning “stick, rod”. The act of “scoring” the stick with notches gave rise to our word “score” for the number in a tally.

35A Part of the Disney logo : CASTLE

The castle at the center of the original Disneyland is Sleeping Beauty Castle. A modified and larger version of Sleeping Beauty Castle is also central to Disneyland Paris. If you visit the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland, you can tour Cinderella Castle.

38A ___ tide : NEAP

Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans. At neap tide, the smaller gravitational effect of the sun cancels out some of the moon’s effect. At spring tide, the sun and the moon’s gravitational forces act in concert causing more extreme movement of the oceans.

40A Green eggs go-with : HAM

Dr. Seuss’s famous children’s book “Green Eggs and Ham” was first published in 1960. “Green Eggs and Ham” now ranks twelfth in the list of top selling children’s books. By the way, “Harry Potter” books hold the top four slots in that list. The text of “Green Eggs and Ham” has a lot of “I am” going on. It starts with:

I am Sam
I am Sam
Sam I am

and ends with:

I do so like
green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Sam-I-am

42A Provide backup for, as a weightlifter or gymnast : SPOT

People at the gym who are doing weight-training will often “spot” for each other. This means that the person who is “spotting” assists in the lift, allowing the lifter to work with more weight than usual.

43A Suckers : SAPS

“Sap” is slang for “fool, someone easily scammed”. The term arose in the early 1800s in Britain when it was used in “saphead” and “sapskull”. All these words are derived from “sapwood”, which is the softwood found in tree trunks between the bark and the heartwood at the center.

45A Chewie’s “Star Wars” buddy : HAN

Han Solo is the space smuggler in “Star Wars” played by Harrison Ford. Ford was originally hired by George Lucas just to read lines for actors during auditions for “Star Wars”, but over time Lucas became convinced that Ford was right for the pivotal role of Han Solo.

Wookiees are a biped race featured in “Star Wars”. The most notable Wookiee is Chewbacca (aka “Chewie”), the loyal friend and associate of Han Solo who serves as co-pilot on the Millennium Falcon spaceship.

46A One of just two original Monopoly tokens still made today : HAT

The tokens included with a game of Monopoly have changed over the years. Two of the more interesting tokens are the battleship and cannon. These were created by Hasbro for a board game called Conflict. When Conflict failed in the market, the excess tokens were recycled and included with Monopoly.

54A Beethoven’s Third : EROICA

Beethoven originally dedicated his “Symphony No. 3” to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution and as such respected Bonaparte who was “born” out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution so he changed the name of his new symphony from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica”, meaning “heroic, valiant”.

60A Fjords and firths : INLETS

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, and both are formed as sea levels rise. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

“Firth” is a word used in England and Scotland for an inlet. It tends to be used in the same way as “fjord” is in Scandinavia.

Down

1D “Frozen” queen : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Elsa was originally intended to be a villain, a malicious and power-hungry character. By the final version of the film, Elsa had transformed from a one-dimensional villain into a fully fleshed-out protagonist.

2D Six-stringed instrument similar to a cello : VIOL

The viola da gamba (also called simply “viol”) is a bass instrument in what is known as the viol family, with a tonal range that about matches that of the modern-day cello. It is the second largest of all the viols, so it is played resting on the floor between the legs. In fact, “viola da gamba” is Italian translating into “viol for the leg”.

6D Hurl, in modern lingo : YEET

In contemporary slang, to yeet is to throw away, discard. “To yeet” usually implies the use of force and a general disregard for what is being discarded. As in, “I really want to yeet the word ‘yeet’ …”

8D Quaker ___ : OATS

The Quaker Oats Company was founded in 1901 when four oat mills merged, including the Quaker Mill Company of Ravenna, Ohio. Quaker Mill’s owner Henry Parsons Crowell played the key role in creating the new company and remained at the helm until 1943.

24D Peter Pan transport : BUS

Peter Pan Bus Lines is an intercity bus company headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts that operates services across the Northeastern US. The company was founded in 1933 by Peter Carmine Picknelly, who named it after his son’s favorite storybook, “Peter Pan”.

27D Japanese martial art : JUDO

Judo is a martial art from Japan that developed relatively recently, in 1882. The name “judo” translates as “gentle way”. Practitioners of judo proceed through a series of proficiency grades known as the kyu-dan system. At each progression, a different colored belt is awarded.

28D Actor Morales of “Ozark” : ESAI

Esai Morales is not only a successful actor, he is also a trained martial artist, having studied the Korean martial art of taekwondo since he was a teenager.

“Ozark” is an excellent TV crime show starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as a married couple who relocate from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks. The couple fall foul of a Mexican drug lord after a money laundering scheme goes awry. The show is set at a lake resort in the Ozarks, although filming actually takes place at lakes in the Atlanta area in order to take advantage of tax breaks offered by the State of Georgia.

37D Tahoe or Cherokee, in brief : SUV

The Chevrolet Tahoe SUV was introduced in 1994. It is based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, and it shares many of its components. The Tahoe is sold under the Silverado badge in Mexico.

The Jeep Cherokee is an SUV with some legs. The original SJ series Jeep Cherokee was produced from 1974 until 1983, and derivative models are very much alive today.

39D Proterozoic, for one : EON

The Earth’s Proterozoic eon lasted from about 2,500 to 540 million years ago. The eon started with the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, and ended just before complex life began to proliferate.

48D Original Monopoly token discontinued in 2013 : IRON

The iron token was one of the original eight Monopoly game pieces introduced by Parker Brothers in 1937. It was retired in 2013 after a public vote, and was replaced with the cat.

51D Singer Del Rey : LANA

“Lana Del Rey” is the stage name of singer/songwriter Elizabeth Grant. Del Rey calls herself a “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra”. Nice …

52D Actress Rae of “American Fiction” : ISSA

Issa Rae rose to prominence with her highly popular web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl”, which premiered in 2011. This led to her co-creating and starring in the acclaimed HBO comedy series “Insecure”, which garnered her multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. She’s also expanded into film roles and has her own media company, Hoorae.

“American Fiction” is a 2023 comedy-drama movie based on a 2023 novel by Percival Everett titled “Erasure”. Jeffrey Wright plays a black writer whose publishers reject his latest story as not being “black enough”. The writer reacts to his lack of success by submitting a satirical novel that panders to black stereotypes. To his surprise, and dismay, the book is a great success.

55D “I Like ___” : IKE

“I Like Ike” was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.

57D Baby grizzly : CUB

The North American brown bear is usually referred to as the grizzly bear. The name “grizzly” was given to the bear by Lewis and Clark. The term “grizzly” might mean “with gray-tipped hair”, or “fear-inspiring”. Both definitions seem to be apt …