Category: Scott Hogan

Bill’s time: 15m 45s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Slathered in sauce, in restaurant-speak : WET

Diner lingo, the verbal slang used by the staff, can be very colorful. Here are a few examples:

• Adam & Eve on a raft: two poached eggs on toast
• Adam & Eve on a raft and wreck ’em: two scrambled eggs on toast
• Burn one: put a hamburger on the grill
• Burn one, take it through the garden and pin a rose on it: hamburger with lettuce, tomato and onion
• Down: on toast
• Whiskey down: on rye toast
• Cluck and grunt: ham and eggs

8 Letters on security camera footage : CCTV

Closed-circuit television (CCTV)

18 “Pet” you wouldn’t take to the vet : CHIA

Chia is a flowering plant in the mint family. Chia seeds are an excellent food source and are often added to breakfast cereals and energy bars. There is also the famous Chia Pet, an invention of a San Francisco company. Chia Pets are terra-cotta figurines to which moistened chia seeds are applied. The seeds sprout and the seedlings become the “fur” of the Chia Pet.

19 Cosecant’s reciprocal : SINE

The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent (abbreviated to “sin, cos and tan”). Each of these is a ratio: a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are cosecant, secant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent. These inverted ratios should not be confused with the “inverse” trigonometric functions e.g. arcsine, arccosine and arctangent. These inverse functions are the reverse of the sine, cosine and tangent.

20 Cookie with its name on it : OREO

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.

21 One of four on a diamond : UMPIRE

Back in the 15th century, “an umpire” was referred to as “a noumpere”, which was misheard and hence causing the dropping of the initial letter N. The term “noumpere” came from Old French “nonper” meaning “not even, odd number”. The idea was that the original umpire was a third person called on to arbitrate between two, providing that “odd number” needed to decide the dispute.

26 Club assistant : CADDIE

“Caddie” is a Scottish word, as one might expect given the history of the game of golf. It is a local word derived from the French “cadet” that describes a younger son or brother, or a student officer in the military. The variant spelling “caddy” is quite common.

30 Partner of Hoda on “Today” : JENNA

“Today with Hoda & Jenna” is a talk-show segment of NBC’s morning show “Today”. The spot has been hosted by Hoda Kotb since 2007, and by Jenna Bush Hager since 2019.

35 “The greatest as well as the most elegant of Roman philosophers,” per Voltaire : CICERO

Cicero was a very influential senator in ancient Rome,in part due to his renowned ability to deliver a persuasive speech. His full name was Marcus Tullius Cicero.

38 Rob in Hollywood : REINER

The great director and actor Rob Reiner first came to prominence playing “Meathead”, Archie and Edith Bunker’s son-in-law in “All in the Family”. Since then, Reiner has directed a long string of hit movies including, “The Princess Bride”, “Stand by Me”, “This Is Spinal Tap”, “When Harry Met Sally …”, “Misery” and “A Few Good Men”.

41 Revealing word : VOILA!

The French word “voilà” means “there it is”, and “voici” means “here it is”. The terms come from “voi là” meaning “see there” and “voi ici” meaning “see here”.

51 Otis of elevator fame : ELISHA

Elevators (simple hoists) have been around for a long time. What Elisha Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”, a design that he showcased at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. At the Fair, Otis would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this demonstration, the orders came rolling in.

57 Sorry ass? : EEYORE

Eeyore is the donkey character in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”. Eeyore is very lovable, but has a gloomy and pessimistic outlook on life.

67 Alternative to foil or saber : EPEE

There are three fencing events in the modern Olympics, with each distinguished by the weapon used:

• Foil
• Épée
• Sabre

76 Home of the 123-story Lotte World Tower : SEOUL

Seoul is the capital city of South Korea. The Seoul National Capital Area is home to over 25 million people and is the second largest metropolitan area in the world, second only to Tokyo, Japan.

77 Natural decorations on some bookshelves : GEODES

A geode is a rock in which there is a cavity that is lined or filled with crystal formations. The crystals inside a geode form when mineral-rich water seeps into a cavity in a rock, leaving behind dissolved minerals that gradually build up over time. Some of the largest geodes ever discovered have been as big as a room and can take millions of years to form.

82 Lovelace of early computer programming : 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.

84 California wine valley : SONOMA

Did you know that there are far more wine grapes produced in Sonoma than Napa? Within Sonoma County some of the more well-known appellations are Chalk Hill, Anderson Valley and Russian River Valley. Personally, when I want to visit the wine country, I head for the Russian River Valley as it’s far less crowded and much more fun than Napa Valley.

98 Soul seller : KIA

The Kia Soul is a compact car produced in South Korea, although it was designed by Kia here in the US, in Irvine, California. Yep, the Kia Soul is made in Seoul …

100 Change positions, as in volleyball : ROTATE

Indoor volleyball was invented in 1895 and was originally called “mintonette”, a reference to the related game of “badminton”. The variant called beach volleyball originated in 1915 on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, but was popularized on the beaches of Santa Monica starting in 1920.

118 Prenatal tests, in brief : AMNIOS

Amniocentesis (“amnio” for short) is the prenatal test which involves the removal of a small amount of the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus using a hypodermic needle. The fluid naturally contains some fetal cells, the DNA of which can then be tested to determine the sex of the child and to check for the presence of genetic abnormalities.

120 I visited the podiatrist and now I … : … STAND CORRECTED

Podiatry is a branch of medicine dealing with the foot, ankle and lower extremities.

126 O, in hangman : HEAD

The word-guessing game Hangman seems to have been played first in Victorian England. At one time it was known as “Birds, Beasts and Fishes” as the words to be guessed had to be types of animal.

129 Cribbage marker : PEG

Cribbage is a great card game that originated in 17th-century England. It was a creation of the poet Sir John Suckling. One of the unique features of the game is that a cribbage board with pegs is used to keep score. Here in the US, cribbage is very much associated with the submarine service, as it is a favorite game of submariners of all ranks.

Down

1 Rock band with a slash (but not Slash) : AC/DC

The Heavy Metal band known as AC/DC was formed by two brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in Australia. Malcolm and Angus chose the name “AC/DC” after their sister Margaret noticed them on a sewing machine (the abbreviation for alternating current/direct current). The group is usually called “Acca Dacca” down under.

The punctuation mark “/” has been around for a long time, and has been known by several names including “oblique”, “stroke” and “virgule”. The name “slash” is relatively new, arising in the very early 1960s and gaining popularity with the proliferation of computers.

2 Like much of Iran : SHIA

The Islamic sects of Sunni and Shia Muslims differ in the belief of who should have taken over leadership of the Muslim faithful after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Followers of the Sunni tradition agree with the decision that the Prophet Muhammad’s confidante Abu Bakr was the right choice to become the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. Followers of the Shia tradition believe that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet Muhammad’s own family, and favored the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali.

3 Sue Monk ___, author of “The Secret Life of Bees” : KIDD

Sue Monk Kidd’s first novel is probably her most famous, namely “The Secret Life of Bees”, published in 2002. Said novel was adapted into a 2008 movie of the same name starring Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning. Kidd also wrote a 2020 novel titled “The Book of Longings” that tells the story of a woman who marries Jesus Christ.

5 GameCube successor : WII

The Nintendo GameCube video game console was the successor to the Nintendo 64, and the predecessor to the Nintendo Wii.

7 Actress Thompson of “Creed” : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

“Creed” is a 2015 boxing movie, the seventh in the “Rocky” franchise. Sylvester Stallone returns as Rocky Balboa, but this time as a trainer. Rocky trains Apollo Creed’s son Adonis. Stallone was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in the film. It was the first Academy Award nomination he had received since the first “Rocky” film, which was released almost forty years earlier.

9 Step in origami : CREASE

Origami is the traditional Japanese art form of paper folding. The best-known example of the craft is the paper crane (“orizuru“). The word “origami” is derived from “ori“ (folding) and “kami” (paper).

14 Setting for some post-run refreshments? : APRES-SKI

“Après-ski” is a French term meaning “after skiing”. It refers to the good times to be had after coming off the slopes.

15 ___ Barbarino, John Travolta’s role on “Welcome Back, Kotter” : VINNIE

Actor, dancer and singer John Travolta got his first break playing student Vinnie Barbarino in the sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter” in the seventies. While still on the TV show, Travolta showed off his dancing skills on two fabulous musical films: “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) and “Grease” (1978). His career then took a bit of a dip, before resurging again with his role in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino blockbuster “Pulp Fiction”.

“Welcome Back, Kotter” is a sitcom from the late seventies. The title character is a teacher at Buchanan High, one Gabe Kotter who himself had attended the school as a student. Kotter teaches a remedial class of students who call themselves the Sweathogs. In fact, Kotter had himself been a founder of the Sweathogs, when he was a student in the same class. Kotter was played by Gabe Kaplan. One of the prominent students in his class Vinnie Barbarino played by a young John Travolta, a role that launched his film career. In recent years you might have seen Gabe Kaplan as co-host of the popular show “High Stakes Poker” on GSN.

17 Car that Brits call a “saloon” : SEDAN

The American sedan car is the equivalent of the British and Irish saloon car. By definition, a sedan car has two rows of seating and a separate trunk (boot in Britain and Ireland), although in some models the engine can be at the rear of the car.

23 Proctor’s pronouncement : TIME

A proctor is a supervisor, and especially a person overseeing a school examination or a dormitory. The word “proctor” originated in the late 1500s, and is a contraction of the word “procurator”, the name given to an official agent of a church.

24 ___ Lingus : AER

Aer Lingus is the flag carrier airline of Ireland. It was founded in 1936 by the Irish government to provide air service between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The airline’s name means “air fleet” in Irish. In the 1950s, Aer Lingus became the first airline in the world to introduce a duty-free shopping service on board its flights.

29 The “Do” in “Do-Re-Mi” : DEER

The famous song that starts off with “Doe, a deer …” is a show tune from the 1959 musical “The Sound of Music”, by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The correct name of the song is “Do-Re-Mi”.

33 Asia’s disappearing ___ Sea : ARAL

The former Soviet Union decided to divert the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea in order to irrigate food and cotton crops. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea began to shrink dramatically in the 1960s due to the loss of water. Today, the Aral Sea is no more. Instead, there are two relatively small bodies of water labeled as the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea.

34 Old yeller? : CRIER

Town criers make public announcements on the streets, usually shouting “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” to attract attention. The term “oyez” derives from the Anglo-Norman word for “listen” and is used in this instance to me “Hear ye!”

36 Having two equal sides : ISOSCELES

An isosceles triangle is one that has two sides of equal length.

37 Behaved like the lion in Oz : COWERED

The Cowardly Lion in L. Frank Baum’s “Land of Oz” books was portrayed by Bert Lahr in the celebrated 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”. The costume that Lahr wore in the film was made from real lion fur, and weighed a whopping 60 pounds.

42 Long quest : ODYSSEY

“Odyssey” is one of two epic poems from ancient Greece that are attributed to Homer. It is largely a sequel to Homer’s other epic “Iliad”. “Odyssey” centers on the heroic figure Odysseus, and his adventures on his journey home to Greece following the fall of Troy. We now use the term “odyssey” to describe any long series of adventures.

43 Roth ___ : IRA

Roth Individual Retirement Accounts (Roth IRAs) were introduced in 1997 under a bill sponsored by Senator William Roth of Delaware, hence the name.

48 Hint to the number of ingredients in Triscuits : TRI

Triscuit snack crackers were introduced in 1903. The name “Triscuit” was chosen as a portmanteau of “electricity” and “biscuit”, the idea being that Triscuits were the only cracker “Baked by Electricity” back then.

49 Web page code : HTML

The initialism “HTML” stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the language used to write most Internet web pages (including this one).

58 U.S. fair-hiring inits. : EEO

“Equal Employment Opportunity” (EEO) is a term that has been around since 1964 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was set up by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin or religion.

60 Eleven, in El Salvador : ONCE

El Salvador is a country in Central America, the smallest country in the region. The capital of El Salvador is the city of San Salvador. “El Salvador” is derived from the name given to the land by the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century: “Provincia De Nuestro Señor Jesucristo, El Salvador Del Mundo”, which translates as “Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World”.

64 Olive ___ of “Popeye” : OYL

E. C. Segar’s cartoon character Olive Oyl had quite a large family. Her mother is Nana Oyl, and her father Cole Oyl. Olive’s brother is Castor Oyl, and she has uncles named Otto Oyl and Lubry Kent Oyl (my favorite!).

66 Pack of dogs? : WIENERS

What we call a wiener in this country is known as a Vienna sausage in Germany. It was first produced by a butcher from Frankfurt who was living in Vienna, hence the name “Wiener”, which is German for “of Vienna”. Paradoxically, the same sausage is called a Frankfurter in Vienna, as it was created by someone from Frankfurt. It’s all very confusing …

71 Bean variety : MUNG

Mung beans are native to India and are used in both savory and sweet dishes in many Asian cuisines.

82 ___ Max, singer of the 2018 hit “Sweet but Psycho” : AVA

Singer-songwriter Ava Max’s birth name is Amanda Ava Koci. She was born in Milwaukee to Albanian immigrants. Max has music in her blood, as her mother was an opera singer and her father a pianist. Her debut single “Sweet but Psycho” was released in 2018 and became a global hit.

83 Neighbor of Md. : DEL

The state of Delaware takes its name from Virginia’s first colonial governor, Englishman Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Delaware is known as “the First State” as it was the first to ratify the US Constitution, in 1787.

93 “SportsCenter” anchor Linda : COHN

Linda Cohn is a sportscaster who started anchoring ESPN’s “SportsCenter” in 1992. When Cohn was in high school, she played hockey on the boys team.

95 Knocking onomatopoeia : RAT-A-TAT

Onomatopoeia is the naming of something by vocally imitating the sound associated with it. Examples of onomatopoeia are “chirp”, “clash”, “click” and “hiccups”.

98 Like a comeuppance, perhaps : KARMIC

Karma is a religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, one’s future life, or one’s afterlife. And, bad deeds have bad consequences.

101 Ancient Greek area north of Thessaly : THRACE

Thrace is a historical and geographic region of southeast Europe, largely lying in southeastern Bulgaria. The region took its name from the Thracian people, an ancient race that used to inhabit the area. Included in the region is the European side of the city of Istanbul.

The region of Greece known as Thessaly used to be called Aeolia, and appears in Homer’s “Odyssey” under the latter name.

103 Color-blending technique : OMBRE

The adjective “ombré” describes a color or tone that is a blend of one into another. “Ombré” is French for “shaded”. A softer and more gradual shading of one color into the other is referred to as “sombré”.

107 Anxiety condition, for short : OCD

Apparently, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the fourth most commonly diagnosed mental disorder, making it about as prevalent as asthma.

108 Open, as a toothpaste tube : UNCAP

The first toothpaste in a tube was introduced by Johnson & Johnson, in 1889. Back then, toothpaste tubes were made from tin, zinc or lead.

109 Garden statuette : GNOME

In English folklore, the fairy’s anti-hero is the diminutive gnome, an evil ugly character. Although the charastics of gnomes vary in folklore, typically they are described as diminutive humanoids who live underground. Over the centuries, the gnome has become more lovable. We now have garden gnomes, and even the Travelocity Gnome.

115 Express lane unit : ITEM

I say avoid any express checkout lane in a market that is labeled “10 items or less”. It should be “10 items or fewer”. I know, I know … I should calm down … and get a life …

119 ___ vs. ___ (Mad strip) : SPY

“Spy vs. Spy” is a comic strip that has run in “MAD” magazine continuously since 1961. It was drawn by Antonio Prohias, a refugee from Cuba, until his retirement. The early storyline was very fitting for the times, a statement about the futility of the arms race, detente and the Cold War.