Category: Katherine Xiong

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Image floating above the pyramid on a dollar bill : EYE

If you look at the back of a one-dollar bill there is an eye sitting above a pyramid. This is known as the Eye of Providence, and is similar to the Eye of Horus that we see so often in ancient Egyptian designs and hieroglyphs. The Eye of Providence is a common Christian emblem from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

9A Cook’s garment : APRON

In Old French, a “naperon” was a “small table-cloth”. The term was absorbed into English as “napron”, describing a cloth used to cover the front of a person at work. Over time, “a napron” was heard as “an apron”, giving us our contemporary noun “apron”.

17A Microwaveable breakfast staple : QUICK OATS

Oat cereals all start out as “groats”, toasted oat grains with the hull still intact:

• Steel-cut oats, sometimes called “Irish oats”, are groats that have been chopped into chunks about the size of sesame seeds.
• Stone-ground oats, sometimes called “Scottish oats”, have been ground into smaller pieces, about the size of poppy seeds.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats are made by first steaming the toasted groats, and then rolling them into flakes.
• Quick-cooking oats are similar to rolled oats, but thinner flakes.
• Instant oats have been chopped, rolled, pre-cooked, dehydrated and often have salt and sugar added.

20A Sephora competitor : ULTA

Ulta Beauty is an American chain of beauty stores that was founded in 1990 and headquartered in Bolingbrook, Illinois. I am not part of the company’s target demographic …

21A Uno + dos + tres : SEIS

In Spanish, “seis” (six) is “Uno + dos + tres” (one +two + three).

27A ___-Aid (drink whose mascot is a walking pitcher) : KOOL

The drink we know today as Kool-Aid was invented by Edward Perkins and his wife in Perkins’ mother’s kitchen in southwest Nebraska. Kool-Aid is now the Official Soft Drink of the state.

29A Dorm room meal in a cup : INSTANT RAMEN

Ramen is a noodle dish composed of Chinese-style wheat noodles in a meat or fish broth flavored with soy or miso sauce. Ramen is usually topped with sliced pork and dried seaweed. The term “ramen” is also used for precooked, instant noodles that come in single-serving, solid blocks.

34A Taste, metaphorically : PALATE

The roof of the mouth is known as the palate. The anterior part of the palate is very bony, and is called the hard palate. The posterior part is very fleshy and is called the soft palate. The soft palate is muscular and moves to close off the nasal passages while swallowing. We often use the term “palate” figuratively, to describe the sense of taste.

39A In ___ (unborn) : UTERO

“In utero” is a Latin term meaning “in the uterus”. The Latin “uterus” (plural “uteri”) translates as both “womb” and “belly”. “Uterys” comes from the Greek “hystera” that also means “womb”, which gives us the words “hysterectomy”, and “hysterical”.

40A Tree whose name comes phonetically between “tee” and “vee” : YEW

“Yew” sounds like “U”.

The family of trees and shrubs known as yews propagate by producing a seed surrounded by soft, sweet and brightly colored aril. Birds eat the fruit and then disperse the seed in their droppings. The birds leave the seed undamaged, and so are unharmed by the potent poisons taxane and taxol that are found within the seed. The seeds are highly toxic to humans.

47A Thick porridge referenced in “Yankee Doodle” : HASTY PUDDING

“Hasty pudding” is a traditional British dish made of wheat flour cooked in boiling milk or water. Over in the US, there are variants of hasty pudding that are based on wheat, oat and corn.

The song “Yankee Doodle” began as a British tune mocking colonial soldiers as simpletons. The key insult is in the line “stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni”. In the 18th century, “macaroni” wasn’t pasta but a slang term describing foppish dandy. The inference was that a colonial “doodle” (fool) would think a single feather was the height of style.

51A Baby announcement, as on some blue balloons : IT’S A BOY!

The association of the colors pink with girls and blue with boys is a relatively new concept, one that started to be established in the 1940s. One reason for the “fixing” of color associations with genders at that time was the invention of chemical dyes that could survive hot washes. Prior to this, baby clothes were made in white so that they could be washed frequently without fading.

55A Graceful bird in a pond : SWAN

An adult male swan is a cob and an adult female is a pen. Young swans are swanlings or cygnets.

61A Flower in a Chinese pond : LOTUS

The roots of the lotus plant penetrate into the bed of a lake or river, while the leaves float on the water’s surface. This behavior led to the use of the lotus as a symbol in the Buddhist tradition, as a symbol of purity of the body, speech and mind. The idea is that the lotus flower represents the pure body, speech and mind floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire.

66A Elephant tusk material : IVORY

The hard, white material called ivory has mainly been sourced from the tusks of elephants, although it can also be collected from the walrus, hippopotamus, killer whale, wart hog and others. The word “ivory” comes into English via Latin from the ancient Egyptian word for “elephant”.

69A Viral internet jokes : MEMES

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.

70A Helpful theorem, in math : LEMMA

A lemma is a helping theorem, a subsidiary proposition that helps prove some other proposition. A problem offering two equally acceptable (or unacceptable) possibilities might be described as a “double lemma”, and hence our term “dilemma”. To be on the horns of a dilemma is to be faced with two equally unattractive choices. The suggestion is that one is faced with a “horned” argument, meaning that if you avoid the horn of one choice, you will get impaled on the other.

71A ___ Lanka : SRI

The island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southeast coast of India. The name “Sri Lanka” translates from Sanskrit into English as “venerable island”. Before 1970, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, a name given to the country during British rule.

Down

1D Suffix with Kafka or Roman : -ESQUE

The suffix “-esque” came into English from Italian (“-esco”), which in turn derives from Latin (“-iscus”).

Franz Kafka was born in 1883 in Prague, then part of Bohemia and today the capital of the Czech Republic. Kafka is known as one of the greatest novelists who worked in the German language, and even has an adjective named after him. Something that is “kafkaesque” is senseless, disorienting and may have menacing complexity. As it was for many great artists, Kafka’s fame came after his death when much of his work was published.

Romanesque architecture is a style that was a precursor to Gothic architecture, and had its heyday in medieval Europe. Romanesque buildings are often quite massive, have thick walls, round arches and large towers. When compared to the ornate Gothic style, Romanesque is seen to be relatively simple and plain. A classic example of the style would be the Tower of London, especially the White Tower that sits at the center of the structure.

3D Like Stanford and Harvard : ELITE

Leland Stanford became a very successful businessman in California after moving there from New York during the Gold Rush. Stanford then served as governor of the state for two years, and later US Senator for California. He founded the Leland Stanford Junior University in memory of his teenage son who died of typhoid fever while the family was traveling in Italy in 1884. The university opened its doors for business in 1891, and the first student admitted was none other than Herbert Hoover, the man destined to become the 31st President of the US.

Harvard University was founded in 1636 as New College, the college at New Towne. The school was renamed three years later after John Harvard, a deceased clergyman and who donated books and money.

10D Spanish rice dish : PAELLA

Paella is sometimes referred to as the Spanish national dish, but not by Spaniards. In Spain, paella is regarded as a typical regional dish from Valencia. The name “paella” means “frying pan” in Valencian, and is a reference to the shallow vessel traditionally used to cook the dish over an open fire.

11D Bar mitzvah, e.g. : RITE

A Jewish girl becomes a bat mitzvah at 12 years of age, the age at which she becomes responsible for her actions. Boys become bar mitzvahs at 13. The terms translate into English as daughter and son of the commandments.

18D Eggs that can cost $1,000 per ounce : CAVIAR

Caviar is the roe of a large fish that has been salted and seasoned, and especially the roe of a sturgeon. Beluga caviar comes from the beluga sturgeon, which is found primarily in the Caspian Sea. It is the most expensive type of caviar in the world. 8 ounces of US-farmed beluga caviar can be purchased through Amazon.com for just over $850, in case you’re feeling peckish …

22D Explorer Hernando de ___ : SOTO

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish conquistador who led expeditions throughout the southeastern US. De Soto’s travels were unsuccessful in that he failed to bring gold or silver back to Spain, and he did not establish any colonies in the Spanish name. What de Soto did achieve was the exposure of local populations to devastating Eurasian diseases. De Soto was the first European to cross the Mississippi River, in 1541. The first European to see the Mississippi (but not cross it) was Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, in 1519.

25D All, for nothing, e.g. : ANTONYM

An antonym is an “anti-synonym”. A synonym is a word having the same sense as another, and an antonym the opposite. For example, “love” is an antonym of “hate”, and “stop” is an antonym of “go”.

26D China’s Mao ___-tung : TSE

Mao Zedong (also “Mao Tse-tung”) was born on December 16, 1893 in the Hunan Province of China. As Mao was the son of a peasant farmer, his prospects for education were limited. Indeed he left school at age 13 to work on the family farm but did eventually get to secondary school in Changsha, the provincial capital. In the years following, Mao continued his education in Beijing and actually turned down an opportunity to study in France.

31D The largest one in the U.S. is in Bloomington, Minn. : MALL

The Mall of America (MoA) is a huge shopping center located in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. It has received about 40 million visitors each year since opening in 1992, and that’s more visitors than any other shopping mall in North America.

36D Certain electric bulbs, in brief : LEDS

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a specialized form of semiconductor that when switched on releases photons (light). LEDs were used in early digital watches, and are getting more and more popular even though their use in electronic equipment is fading away. LEDs are used as replacements for the much less-efficient tungsten light bulbs. I replaced all of my tungsten Xmas lights many years ago and saved a lot on my electricity bill.

42D Smoothly, in music : LEGATO

Staccato (stac.) is a musical direction signifying that notes should be played in a disconnected form. The opposite of staccato would be legato, indicating long and continuous notes played very smoothly.

48D Assistant professor’s goal : TENURE

A job in a university that is described as “tenure-track” is one that can lead to a tenured position. A tenured position is a “job for life”. A person with tenure can only be dismissed for cause.

49D Chinese small plates : DIM SUM

Dim sum is a Chinese cuisine made up of small portions of various dishes. The tradition of serving dim sum is associated with the serving of tea, when small delicacies were offered to travelers and guests along with tea as a refreshment. The name “dim sum” translates as “touch the heart” implying that dim sum is not a main meal, just a snack “that touches the heart”.

53D More bizarre : ODDER

“Bizarre” is a French word, one with the same meaning in English. However, back in the 16th century, “bizarre” used to mean “handsome, brave” in French. I guess that’s what my wife means when she refers to me as “bizarre” or “bizarro” …

54D Nintendo dinosaur : YOSHI

Yoshi is a dinosaur-like character in some Nintendo video games. Yoshi first appeared as a sidekick to Mario and Luigi in the 1991 game called “Super Mario World”.

64D Scottish cap : TAM

A tam o’shanter is a man’s cap worn traditionally by Scotsmen. “Tams” were originally all blue (and called “blue bonnets”) but as more dyes became readily available they became more colorful. The name of the cap comes from the title character of the Robert Burns poem “Tam o’ Shanter”. A pom-pom adorning a tam is known as a toorie.

65D Miami’s home: Abbr. : FLA

The city of Miami in Florida takes its name from the nearby Miami River, which is itself named for the Mayaimi Native American people who lived around nearby Lake Okeechobee.