Category: Malaika Handa

Bill’s time: 8m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Grindr and Tinder, for two : APPS

Grindr is a social networking app aimed at gay and bisexual men. Subscribers locate potential partners using the geolocation capabilities of smartphones. A user in a particular location can view a grid showing pictures of fellow subscribers arranged by proximity.

Tinder is a matchmaking app that uses Facebook profiles. Users “swipe” photos of potential matches, either to the right (“like”) or to the left (“not interested”). Users who “match” each other can then chat within the app.

14 Vicinity : AREA

A vicinity is an area surrounding a place. The term “vicinity” ultimately comes from the Latin “vicus” meaning “group of houses, village”.

16 Pub projectile : DART

Darts is a game that’s often played in English and Irish pubs, even over here in America. The scoring in a traditional game of darts is difficult to describe in a sentence or two, but the game of darts called “Round the Clock” is simply hitting the numbers 1 through 20 on the dartboard in sequence.

20 Cheesy chip : NACHO

The dish known as “nachos” was supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

22 “Happiness ___ Warm Puppy” (classic “Peanuts” book) : IS A

The characters in the cartoon series “Peanuts” were largely drawn from Charles Schultz’s own life, with shy and withdrawn Charlie Brown representing Schultz himself.

25 Milky Way component : CARAMEL

Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I find the Mars Bar to be the most perplexing of candies! The original Mars Bar is a British confection (and delicious) that was first manufactured in 1932. The US version of the original Mars Bar is called a Milky Way. But there is a candy bar called a Milky Way that is also produced in the UK, and it is completely different to its US cousin, being more like an American “3 Musketeers”. And then there is an American confection called a Mars Bar, something different again. No wonder I try not to eat candy bars …

28 Author Brown : DAN

Dan Brown is a somewhat controversial author who is best known for his 2003 novel “The Da Vinci Code”. I’ve read all of Brown’s books and must say that his early ones are awful (“Digital Fortress” and “Deception Point”). Having said that, I loved “Angels and Demons”, and found “The Da Vinci Code” to be a great read.

32 Suni of Team USA gymnastics : LEE

Suni Lee is an American gymnast who won the women’s artistic individual all-around event at the 2020 Olympics. A few weeks after her victory in Tokyo, Lee competed in the 30th season of “Dancing with the Stars”, finishing in 5th place.

33 Leonardo da ___ : VINCI

Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most diversely talented person who ever contributed to society. He was a gifted painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer and writer. Da Vinci’s mural “The Last Supper” is the most reproduced work of art in the world.

34 Shapiro of NPR : ARI

Ari Shapiro served very ably as White House correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) for several years. He then became a co-host of the network’s drive-time program “All Things Considered” in 2015. When he’s not working, Shapiro likes to sing. He appears regularly as a guest singer with the group Pink Martini, and has appeared on several of the band’s albums.

41 Punctuation missing from “Let’s eat Grandma”? : COMMA

“Let’s eat, Grandma”, and not “Let’s eat Grandma”.

43 Oui’s opposite : NON

In French, “oui” (yes) or “non” (no) might be responses to “un questionnaire” (a questionnaire).

44 *Epithet for Aretha Franklin : QUEEN OF SOUL

I think that Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul”, had a tough life. Franklin had her first son when she was just 13-years-old, and her second at 15. In 2008, “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked Franklin as number one on its list of the greatest singers of all time.

48 Femur site : LEG

The thigh bone, the femur, is the longest and strongest bone in the human body.

51 Remove from its husk, as a peanut : UNSHELL

I have to say it, because it drives me crazy. Peanuts aren’t nuts. They’re legumes, a plant in the bean and pea family. The flowers of the peanut plant last only one day and then wither. The fertilized ovary develops an elongated “peg” that grows downwards, pushing the ovary down into the soil. The ovary develops underground into a mature peanut pod containing between one and four seeds, which we call “nuts”. But they aren’t nuts. Did I say that already …?

52 Brunch cocktail that might be bottomless : MIMOSA

Where I come from, the cocktail known in North America as a mimosa is called a buck’s fizz, with the latter named for Buck’s Club in London where it was introduced in 1921. The mimosa came along a few years later, apparently first being served in the Paris Ritz. If you want to make a mimosa, it’s a 50-50 mix of champagne and orange juice, and it is very tasty …

Our word “brunch” is a portmanteau of “breakfast” and “lunch”. The term was coined as student slang in Oxford, England in the late 1890s. However, “brunch” described a combined meal closer to the breakfast hour, and the term “blunch” was used for a meal closer to lunchtime.

54 Cards handed to a bouncer : IDS

Identity document (ID)

59 Robert Frost took one that was less traveled : ROAD

Robert Frost had a poem published in 1916 in which he describes the road he took in the last lines:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Because of these last lines, the poem is often assumed to be titled “The Road Less Traveled”. In fact, the poem’s correct name is “The Road Not Taken”. Quite interesting …

61 Feature of “Alien,” “Mulan” or “Clueless” … or what the answer to each starred clue has? : FEMALE LEAD

Ellen Ripley is the protagonist in the “Alien” movie franchise, and is played by actress Sigourney Weaver. Weaver’s casting as Ripley for 1979’s “Alien” marked her first lead role in a film, and indeed her career breakthrough. English actress Veronica Cartwright was initially cast as Ripley, but she was recast as navigator Joan Lambert when Weaver was brought on board.

“Mulan” is a 1998 animated feature film made by Walt Disney studios. The film is based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, a woman who takes the place of her father in the army and serves with distinction for twelve years without reward. Disney’s lead character was given the name Fa Mulan. Donny Osmond provided the singing voice for one of the lead characters, after which his sons remarked that he had finally made it in show business as he was in a Disney film.

The 1995 movie “Clueless” is apparently based on Jane Austen’s “Emma”, which is a favorite novel of mine. As a result, I am going to have to check out the film …

63 Many an M.I.T. graduate: Abbr. : ENGR

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and first offered classes in 1865, in the Mercantile building in Boston. Today’s magnificent campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge opened in 1916.

67 English county with three swords on its flag : ESSEX

Essex is a county in England that is referred to as one of the “home counties”. The home counties are those that surround the city of London, outside of London itself. “Home county” is not an official designation but has been in popular use since the 1800s. The list of home counties usually comprises Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

68 Person from the Big Apple, informally : NYER

Apparently, the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.

Over ten years later, the term “big apple” was used as a nickname for racetracks in and around New York City. However, the concerted effort to “brand” the city as the Big Apple had to wait until the seventies and was the work of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Down

1 Flattered excessively, with “over” : FAWNED …

The verb “to fawn” has a different etymology to that of the noun “fawn”. The Old English “faegnian” meant “to rejoice, be glad”. In particular, the Old English verb applied to a dog wagging its tail. From there, “to fawn” came to mean “to court favor, to grovel”.

2 Singer Grande : ARIANA

Ariana Grande is a singer and actress from Boca Raton, Florida. Grande plays the role of Cat Valentine on the sitcom “Victorious” that aired for four seasons on Nickelodeon. Grande’s singing career took off with the release of the 2011 album “Victorious: Music from the Hit TV Show”.

3 Literary device that revises a previously established narrative, for short : RETCON

Authors will often use a device called “retroactive continuity” (retcon) to add new information to facts that have already been established in the narrative.

4 ___ Picchu (ancient Inca citadel) : MACHU

Machu Picchu is known as “The Lost City of the Incas”, and it can be visited on a mountain ridge in Peru, 50 miles northwest of the city of Cuzco in the southeast of the country. The name Machu Picchu means “old peak”. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu originates about 50 miles from Cusco on the Urubamba River in Peru. It can take travelers about 5 days to trek the full length of the trail, passing through many Incan ruins before reaching the Sun Gate on Machu Picchu mountain. The trail was becoming greatly overused, forcing the Peruvian government to limit the number of people on the trail each day to 500. Book early …

10 Programmer Lovelace : ADA

Ada Lovelace’s real name and title was Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. Lovelace was fascinated by mathematics and wrote about the work done by Charles Babbage in building his groundbreaking mechanical computer. In some of her notes, she proposed an algorithm for Babbage’s machine to compute Bernoulli numbers. This algorithm is recognized by many as the world’s first computer program and so Lovelace is sometimes called the first “computer programmer”. There is a computer language called “Ada” that was named in her honor. The Ada language was developed from 1977 to 1983 for the US Department of Defense.

11 Payment after a split between unmarried partners : PALIMONY

Palimony is a portmanteau of “pal” and “alimony” and describes the division of assets and property at the termination of a relationship between two persons who are not legally married. The term was coined in 1977 in a lawsuit filed by actress Michelle Triola Marvin, who had cohabited for five years with actor Lee Marvin.

12 Italian sparkling wine : PROSECCO

Prosecco still and sparkling wines are named for the village of Prosecco in the province of Trieste in northeastern Italy.

24 Hindu spring festival : HOLI

Holi is a Hindu festival, one celebrated in spring, that is also known as the Festival of Colours.

26 Reply “yes,” “no” or “maybe,” maybe : RSVP

“RSVP” stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “answer, please”.

27 Comedian Wong : ALI

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian from San Francisco who is a protégé of Chris Rock. She made two very successful Netflix stand-up specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife”. She also worked as a writer for the hit sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat”.

30 The “D” of R&D: Abbr. : DEV

Research and development (R&D)

37 Copenhagen resident : DANE

Copenhagen is the largest city and the capital of Denmark. I haven’t had the privilege of visiting Copenhagen, but I hear it is a wonderful metropolis with a marvelous quality of life. The city is also very environmentally friendly, with over a third of its population commuting to work by bicycle.

39 E pluribus ___ : UNUM

From 1776, “E pluribus unum” was the unofficial motto of the United States. The phrase translates from Latin as “Out of many, one”. It was pushed aside in 1956 when an Act of Congress designated “In God We Trust” as the country’s official motto. “In God We Trust” had appeared on US coins since 1864, but was only introduced on paper currency in 1957.

46 Philadelphia hockey team : FLYERS

The Philadelphia Flyers hockey team was founded in 1967. The team’s name was chosen using a “name-the-team” fan contest.

47 Margarita garnish : LIME

No one seems to know for sure who first created the margarita cocktail. The most plausible and oft-quoted is that it was invented in 1941 in Ensenada, Mexico. The barman mixed the drink for an important visitor, the daughter of the German ambassador. The daughter’s name was Margarita Henkel, and she lent her name to the new drink. The basic recipe for a margarita is a mixture of tequila, orange-flavored liqueur (like Cointreau) and lime juice.

50 Queer feeling? : GAYDAR

Gaydar is a portmanteau of “gay” and “radar”, and describes the supposed ability to assess someone’s sexual orientation.

53 City that’s home to “The Last Supper” : MILAN

Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural “The Last Supper” can be seen on an end wall of the dining hall in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. If you want to see the painting in person, you have to make a reservation ahead of time. And once you get there, you’re only allowed 15 minutes of viewing time. It’s very popular …

56 Reddit Q&As : AMAS

Reddit.com is a networking and news website that started up in 2005. It is essentially a bulletin board system with posts that are voted up and down by users, which determines the ranking of posts. The name “Reddit” is a play on “read it”, as in “I read it on Reddit”. One popular feature of the Reddit site is an online forum that is similar to a press conference. Known as an AMA (for “ask me anything”), participants have included the likes of President Barack Obama, Madonna, Bill Gates, Stephen Colbert and Gordon Ramsay. President Obama’s AMA was so popular that the high level of traffic brought down many parts of the Reddit site.

60 Some O.R. staff : DRS

An operating room (OR) is somewhere one might find a medical doctor (MD).

62 ___ Luthor (DC Comics villain) : LEX

Lex Luthor is the nemesis of Superman in comics. Luthor has been portrayed in a number of guises in the comic world as well in movies and on the small screen. For example, he appeared as Atom Man in the 1950 film series “Atom Man vs. Superman”, and was played by actor Lyle Talbot, opposite Kirk Alyn’s Superman.