Category: Zhouqin Burnikel

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
6. Place of business: Abbr. : MKT
Market (mkt.)

20. Company behind the Hula-Hoop craze : WHAM-O
Wham-O was founded in 1948, with the company’s first product being the Wham-O slingshot. Since then, Wham-O has market a string of hit toys including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip ‘N Slide, Silly String, the Hacky Sack and the Boogie Board.

21. Source of the line “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” : HOSEA
Hosea was one of the Twelve Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible.

25. Hungarian city : EGER
Eger is a city in the northeast of Hungary that is noted for its thermal baths and for its wine production. Back in Ireland, I would quite often drink “Bull’s Blood”, Hungary’s most famous red wine, which comes from the Eger wine region.

31. Mal de ___ (French woe) : TETE
“Mal de tête” is French for “headache”.

32. Pulitzer winner for “Seascape” : ALBEE
Edward Albee’s most famous play is “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Albee’s first play, a one-acter, was “The Zoo Story”.

34. Mystifying Geller : URI
Uri Geller’s most famous performance is perhaps his uncomfortable failure on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in 1973. Carson “hi-jacked” Geller on live television by providing him with spoons to bend and watches to start, none of which had been available to Geller before the show aired. Clever!

45. Actress Elke : SOMMER
Elke Sommer is a German-born actress who was at the height of her success on the silver screen in the sixties. Sommer won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for her role opposite Paul Newman in 1964’s “The Prize”. She also sings and has released several albums. Now Sommer focuses on painting, producing artwork that is strongly influenced by the work of Marc Chagall.

49. Three Stooges laugh sound : NYUK!
If you’ve seen a few of the films starring “The Three Stooges” you’ll have noticed that the line up changed over the years. The original trio was made up of Moe and Shemp Howard (two brothers) and Larry Fine (a good friend of the Howards). This line up was usually known as “Moe, Larry and Shemp”. Then Curly Howard replaced his brother when Shemp quit the act, creating the most famous trio, “Moe, Larry And Curly”. Shemp returned when Curly had a debilitating stroke in 1946, and Shemp stayed with the troupe until he died in 1955. Shemp was replaced by Joe Besser, and then “Curly-Joe” DeRita. When Larry Fine had a stroke in 1970, it effectively marked the end of the act.

51. Prefix with -morphism : ENDO-
The psychologist William Herbert Sheldon proposed a now-discredited theory that a person’s intelligence, future achievement and temperament could be associated with particular body types. Sheldon proposed three “somatotypes”, a classification that is still used today:

Ectomorphic: thin body build
Mesomorphic: muscular and sturdy body build
Endomorphic: heavy body build

52. How some stocks are sold : AT PAR
Stocks, and other financial vehicles, may be sold “at par”, meaning at the original price, neither discounted nor at a premium.

53. A piano has 36 of them : EBONIES
The traditional materials used for manufacture of piano keys were ebony (black) and ivory (white).

55. Inverse trig function : ARCSIN
The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. Each of these is a ratio, a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are secant, cosecant 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. For example, the arctangent can be read as “What angle is equivalent to the following ratio of opposite over adjacent?”

69. Bit of exercise, in Britain : PRESS-UP
On the other side of the pond, the exercise known as a push-up is sometimes referred to as a press-up.

72. Iranian pilgrimage city : QUM
Qom (also Qum) is a city in Iran located about 100 miles southwest of Tehran. Qom is a holy city in the Shi’a Islam tradition, and a pilgrimage destination.

73. Aid to Zen meditation : KOAN
The concept of the “koan” appears in the Zen Buddhist tradition. A koan is a story, question or perhaps a statement that is used as an aid to meditation. It often takes the form of a problem or riddle that has no logical solution and is intended to help the meditator break free of reason and develop intuition.

76. Flavor : SAPOR
“Sapor” is another word for a flavor, a quality that can be tasted. “Sapor” is the Latin word for “taste, flavor”.

78. Title TV character who was over 200 years old : ALF
“ALF” is a sitcom that aired in the late eighties. ALF is a hand-puppet, supposedly an alien from the planet Melmac that crash-landed in a suburban neighborhood. “ALF” stands for “alien life form”.

83. Venus : EVENING STAR
The planet Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky, after our Moon.

86. Shakespearean king : ALONSO
In William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, Alonso is the King of Naples. Alonso helps Antonio to depose his brother Prospero as Duke of Milan and set him adrift in a boat with Prospero’s young daughter Miranda.

89. Neutral shade : BEIGE
Our word “beige” comes from the Old French “bege”, a term that applied to the natural color of wool and cotton that was not dyed.

90. Indian bread : ROTI
In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is the unleavened cousin to naan.

91. Long-tailed monkey : TITI
Titis are monkeys found in much of South America. Totis have tails that are a little bit longer than the length of their heads and bodies.

94. That girl, in Genoa : ESSA
Genoa is a seaport in the very north of Italy, in the region known as Liguria. One of Genoa’s most famous sons was Christopher Columbus.

101. Atari 7800 competitor, briefly : NES
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was sold in North America from 1985 to to 1995. The NES was the biggest selling gaming console of the era.

102. Bridge writer Charles : GOREN
Charles Goren was a world champion bridge player from Philadelphia. Goren published many books on the subject, and had a daily bridge column that appeared in almost 200 newspapers. He even had a weekly column in “Sports Illustrated”. Goren introduced several techniques and systems that eventually became part of the modern Standard American bidding system that is used by many bridge players today (including me!).

107. Scruggs on a banjo : EARL
Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt are the musicians who founded the bluegrass band called the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1948.

109. Bass role in a Gilbert & Sullivan opera : MIKADO
“The Mikado” is a wonderful comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, set in the exotic location of Japan. “Mikado” is a former term for the “Emperor of Japan”. In the opera, Nanki-Poo is the Mikado’s son, who falls in love with Yum-Yum.

115. Product with a Lubrastrip : ATRA
Fortunately for crossword setters, the Atra razor was introduced by Gillette in 1977. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.

119. Plus-size model? : STATION WAGON
The style of automobile that we call “station wagon” here in North America, is known as “estate car” in the British Isles. Both names are really references to the vehicles utility in hauling baggage in the extra space provided in the rear. A station wagon could haul bags to the station, and an estate car could haul bags to one’s country estate!

128. Something grown – or eaten – in rows : EAR
Those would be ears of corn.

129. Powerhouse in African soccer : GHANA
Soccer was introduced into Ghana (when it was the Gold Coast) at the end of the 19th century, by merchants from Europe.

Down
2. Secretary of state under Reagan : HAIG
Alexander Haig was Secretary of State under President Reagan, and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Famously, Haig took over temporary control of the country immediately after President Reagan was shot in 1981. To do so was a pragmatic move, while waiting on Vice President Bush to arrive in Washington. There was much debate at the time about the legality of the steps taken, as the presidential line of succession called out in the US Constitution is President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the US Senate, and then Secretary of State.

4. Stars, in a motto : ASTRA
“Astra” is the Latin word for “stars”.

5. One way to complete an online purchase : PAYPAL
PayPal is an ecommerce business that has been around since the year 2000, born out of a merger of two older companies: Confinity and X.com. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors. The company was so successful that it was the first of the beleaguered dot.com companies to successfully complete an IPO after the attacks of 9/11. Then in 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for a whopping $1.5 billion. eBay announced in 2014 that PayPal will be spun off into a separate company.

6. “Candle in the Wind” dedicatee : MONROE
“Candle in the Wind” is a 1973 song written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin in honor of Marilyn Monroe, hence the lyric “Goodbye, Norma Jean”. Elton John rewrote some of the words in honor of Diana, Princess of Wales and performed it at the princess’s memorial service. The line most descriptive of Diana in the 1997 version is “Goodbye, English rose”.

9. Number two of 43 : CHENEY
In 2000, Dick Cheney was called upon by then-Governor George W. Bush to head up the search for a running mate for Bush in the presidential election. After a few months search, Bush turned things on their head by asking Cheney to join him on the ticket.

10. Den ___ (home of the International Criminal Court) : HAAG
Den Haag is the Dutch name for the city in the Netherlands that we know in English as The Hague. Even though The Hague is the seat of the Dutch parliament and is where Queen Beatrix resides, it is not the country’s capital city. That honor goes to Amsterdam.

13. Sharp pain : THROE
Our contemporary word “throe”, meaning a spasm of pain, has been around since the early 1600s. It is a different spelling of the word “throwe” that had been around since around 1200 AD and which meant pain, particularly a pang of childbirth or the agony of death. Pain, from cradle to grave …

14. Old man? : HOMO ERECTUS
Homo erectus is an extinct cousin of Homo sapiens, our human species.

15. Mideast grp. : ISIS
ISIS is an extremist Sunni rebel group, with the acronym standing for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Today, ISIS controls territory in Iraq, Syria, Sinai and eastern Libya and has declared it the Islamic State (IS).

24. Hedge fund pro : ARB
“Arb” is short for an arbitrageur, one who profits from the purchase of securities in one market and the subsequent sale in another, hence taking advantage of price discrepancies across markets.

30. Princess of Power : SHE-RA
“She-Ra: Princess of Power” is an animated television show, a spinoff of the very successful “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”. Both shows are aimed at young people, with “He-Man” targeted at boys and “She-Ra” at girls.

33. Pro wrestler Albano : LOU
Lou Albano was a professional wrestler from the New York area. That said, he was actually born in Italy as his father was studying there towards a medical degree. Lou was baptized in the Vatican.

38. Many a Seeing Eye dog : LABRADOR
The Labrador (Lab) breed of dog has been around at least since 1814, and the chocolate Labrador appeared over a century later in the 1930s.

43. Initialism on a bank door : FDIC
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), intended to be a temporary government corporation that provided insurance on deposits made by customers of qualified financial institutions. The first accounts to be covered, in 1934, had an insurance limit of $2,500. Since the financial crisis of 2008, that limit is $250,000.

48. Follower of 21-Across : JOEL
The Book of Joel in the Hebrew Bible is part of the collection known as the Twelve Minor Prophets. These books are referred to as “minor” as the texts are relatively short.

50. Big brand of dog food : KAL KAN
The brand name “Whiskas” has been used for cat food since 1988, but the product itself has been made in McLean, Virginia since 1936. For decades it was sold under the name “Kal Kan”.

53. Largest coastal city between San Francisco and Portland : EUREKA
Eureka, California is the largest city on West Coast between San Francisco and Portland. It is a port city lying on Humboldt Bay that was settled by Europeans in 1850. Gold was discovered nearby, and this led to the settlement taking the name “Eureka”, which means “I’ve found it!” in Greek.

58. Hula-Hoop, e.g. : TOY
Although hoops have been used as toys throughout history, the “hula hoop” was invented in 1958 by Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin, and marketed by Wham-O.

67. Drinking now, paying later : RUNNING A TAB
When we “run a tab” at a bar say, we are “running a tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

70. “___ tu” (Verdi aria) : ERI
The aria “Eri tu” is from Verdi’s opera “Un ballo in maschera” (A Masked Ball). The opera tells the story of the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden during a masked ball.

71. One of 10 in Exodus : PLAGUE
According to the biblical Book of Exodus, God inflicted ten plagues on Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage. For example, the eighth of these was a plague of locusts that consumed all the Egyptian crops.

74. Sunlit spaces : ATRIA
In modern architecture an atrium (plural “atria” or “atriums”) is a large open space usually in the center of a building and extending upwards to the roof. The original atrium was an open court in the center of an Ancient Roman house. One could access most of the enclosed rooms of the house from the atrium.

75. Big name in antiscience debunking : NYE
That would be “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. Bill’s show ran on Disney for 4 years from 1993-97. I was surprised to learn that Bill Nye was married briefly to Blair Tindall, the author of “Mozart in the Jungle”. That’s a great book, if anyone is interested …

77. Greetings of old : AVES
“Ave” is a Latin word meaning “hail” as in “Ave Maria”, which translates as “Hail Mary”. “Ave” can also be used to mean “goodbye”.

79. Bars of music? : FRETS
A fret is a metal strip embedded in the neck of a stringed instrument, like a guitar perhaps. The fingers press on the frets, shortening a string and hence changing the note played. The note increases by one semitone as a finger shortens a string by one fret.

80. Pie crust ingredient, maybe : LARD
Fat, when extracted from the carcass of an animal, is called “suet”. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be “rendered” or purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call “lard”. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as “tallow”.

82. Asian stew often eaten with a dipping sauce : HOT POT
The “hot pot” of East Asian cuisine is a stew that is cooked in the center of the table in a pot that is full of simmering stock. Often the cooking pot is sunk into a hole in the center of a special table.

93. Bit of fanfare : TANTARA
A tantara is a fanfare from a trumpet or a horn.

95. Kindle, e.g. : READER
I bought myself a Kindle Fire HD not that long ago. I’ve started reading e-books for the first time in my life, as well as enjoying other computing options available with the tablet device. I love it …

98. ___ Rebellion (event of 1676) : BACON’S
Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony. The uprising was remarkable in that poor whites and blacks united in opposition to the ruling class. The rebels were trying to drive Native Americans from Virginia.

103. “Swan Lake” figure : ODILE
“Swan Lake” is such a delightfully light and enjoyable ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. “Swan Lake” tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by a sorcerer. The ballet also features Odile, Odette’s “evil twin”. Odile is disguised to look like Odette with the goal of tricking the prince to fall in love with her. In the ballet, the roles of Odette and Odile are played by the same ballerina.

104. Milne young ‘un : ROO
Like most of the characters in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh”, Roo was inspired by on a stuffed toy belonging to Milne’s son Christopher Robin.

106. Author of “MS. Found in a Bottle,” for short : EA POE
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1833 short story “MS. Found in a Bottle” earned the author fifty dollars, a prize offered by the “Baltimore Saturday Visiter” in a writing contest.

Edgar Allan Poe lived a life of many firsts. Poe is considered to be the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He was also the first notable American author to make his living through his writing, something that didn’t really go too well for him as he was always financially strapped. In 1849 he was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious from either drugs or alcohol. Poe died a few days later in hospital at 39 years of age.

109. Window sticker fig. : MSRP
Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)

110. “Click ___ ticket” : IT OR
The national “Click It or Ticket” campaign started at the state level in 1993, when it was introduced in North Carolina. New York was the first state to introduce a mandatory seat belt use law, back in 1984. There is only one state in the US that does not require drivers to wear seat belts by law, and that is New Hampshire.

113. Ancient Greek contest : AGON
“Agon” is an Ancient Greek word meaning “struggle, contest”.

114. Coulee’s contents : LAVA
Several different types of landforms are called “coulees”, with the term coming from the French word “couler” meaning “to flow”. In the western US, coulees are protrusions of solidified lava that have formed something resembling a canyon.

117. “De ___” (“You’re welcome”: Fr.) : RIEN
“Nada” is the Spanish word for “nothing”. “De nada” translates literally from the Spanish as “of nothing”, and is used to mean “you’re welcome” or “don’t mention it”. The French have the same expression “de rien”, also translating to “of nothing” and used the same way.

118. Gershwin portrayer in “Rhapsody in Blue” : ALDA
Actor Robert Alda was the father of Alan Alda. Robert Alda’s most famous role was probably George Gershwin in the 1945 movie “Rhapsody in Blue”. Robert appeared twice in “M*A*S*H”, alongside his son.

122. Motley : RAGTAG
“Ragtag and bobtail” is a colorful phrase that’s used to describe the lowest classes, or the rabble. A “bobtail” is a horse that has had its tail cut short, a word that goes back as least as far as Shakespeare as he used it in “King Lear”. A “tag” is a piece of cloth that is torn and hanging, which was readily combined with “rag” in the original phrase “tag, rag and bobtail”. This idiom, perhaps originally quoted from Samuel Pepys in his diary in 1659, referred to the lower classes as “tag, rag and bobtail, dancing, singing and drinking”. The phrase evolved, giving us our contemporary word “ragtag” meaning ragged and unkempt.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Penny-pinching : CHEAP
6. Place of business: Abbr. : MKT
9. Shoot the breeze : CHIN
13. Mini revelation? : THIGH
18. Requests a table for one, say : EATS ALONE
20. Company behind the Hula-Hoop craze : WHAM-O
21. Source of the line “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” : HOSEA
22. Private things that are embarrassing : DIRTY LINEN
23. Moving in a nice way : HEARTWARMING
25. Hungarian city : EGER
26. Not caged : FREE-RANGE
28. Things in cages : ROOSTS
29. Regarding : AS TO
31. Mal de ___ (French woe) : TETE
32. Pulitzer winner for “Seascape” : ALBEE
34. Mystifying Geller : URI
37. Canine command : HEEL
39. Get hitched : SAY “I DO”
41. Disagreement : RIFT
45. Actress Elke : SOMMER
47. Stuck, after “in” : A JAM
49. Three Stooges laugh sound : NYUK!
51. Prefix with -morphism : ENDO-
52. How some stocks are sold : AT PAR
53. A piano has 36 of them : EBONIES
55. Inverse trig function : ARCSIN
57. Friendly : GOOD-NATURED
59. Warning just before a cutoff of service : FINAL NOTICE
62. Misdo something : ERR
63. Some grillings : ORALS
64. Quick cut : SNIP
65. Hair option : BUN
66. Was unfaithful : STRAYED
69. Bit of exercise, in Britain : PRESS-UP
72. Iranian pilgrimage city : QUM
73. Aid to Zen meditation : KOAN
76. Flavor : SAPOR
78. Title TV character who was over 200 years old : ALF
80. Celebratory event for a new company or product : LAUNCH PARTY
83. Venus : EVENING STAR
86. Shakespearean king : ALONSO
87. Changes the placement of in a tournament bracket : RESEEDS
89. Neutral shade : BEIGE
90. Indian bread : ROTI
91. Long-tailed monkey : TITI
94. That girl, in Genoa : ESSA
95. Tell on : RAT OUT
96. Graduation V.I.P. : DEAN
97. Ewe two? : BAA BAA
99. Yew, too : TREE
101. Atari 7800 competitor, briefly : NES
102. Bridge writer Charles : GOREN
105. Life ___ know it : AS WE
107. Scruggs on a banjo : EARL
109. Bass role in a Gilbert & Sullivan opera : MIKADO
112. Order at a Mexican grill : TACO SALAD
115. Product with a Lubrastrip : ATRA
119. Plus-size model? : STATION WAGON
121. Hard evidence a lawyer follows : PAPER TRAIL
123. Kind of pain : ROYAL
124. Prisoners’ wear : IRONS
125. Hammed it up : OVERACTED
126. Investigation : PROBE
127. Whups : TANS
128. Something grown – or eaten – in rows : EAR
129. Powerhouse in African soccer : GHANA

Down
1. Give up : CEDE
2. Secretary of state under Reagan : HAIG
3. Peut-___ (perhaps: Fr.) : ETRE
4. Stars, in a motto : ASTRA
5. One way to complete an online purchase : PAYPAL
6. “Candle in the Wind” dedicatee : MONROE
7. Place for a brace : KNEE
8. Part of a platform : TENET
9. Number two of 43 : CHENEY
10. Den ___ (home of the International Criminal Court) : HAAG
11. “Let’s do this thing” : I’M READY
12. Later : NOT NOW
13. Sharp pain : THROE
14. Old man? : HOMO ERECTUS
15. Mideast grp. : ISIS
16. Hat tipper, maybe : GENT
17. Some Halloween costumes : HAGS
19. Ending with shop or weight : -LIFTER
20. Question ending a riddle : WHAT AM I?
24. Hedge fund pro : ARB
27. Smooths over : RESANDS
30. Princess of Power : SHE-RA
33. Pro wrestler Albano : LOU
34. What an electric meter measures : USAGE
35. Fans have them : ROTORS
36. Certain trade barrier : IMPORT QUOTA
38. Many a Seeing Eye dog : LABRADOR
40. Living ___ : IN SIN
42. Sly suggestion : INSINUATION
43. Initialism on a bank door : FDIC
44. Muscle ___ : TONE
46. Lunatic : MAD MAN
48. Follower of 21-Across : JOEL
50. Big brand of dog food : KAL KAN
53. Largest coastal city between San Francisco and Portland : EUREKA
54. Poor grades : EFS
56. Holds up : ROBS
58. Hula-Hoop, e.g. : TOY
60. Went for, puppy-style : NIPPED AT
61. They come with strings attached : APRONS
67. Drinking now, paying later : RUNNING A TAB
68. Some movie theaters : AMCS
70. “___ tu” (Verdi aria) : ERI
71. One of 10 in Exodus : PLAGUE
74. Sunlit spaces : ATRIA
75. Big name in antiscience debunking : NYE
76. Fluctuates wildly : SEESAWS
77. Greetings of old : AVES
79. Bars of music? : FRETS
80. Pie crust ingredient, maybe : LARD
81. Staple of skin care : ALOE
82. Asian stew often eaten with a dipping sauce : HOT POT
84. Pro hoopster : NBAER
85. “Go” preceder : GET SET
88. TV units : SEASONS
92. “May ___ frank?” : I BE
93. Bit of fanfare : TANTARA
95. Kindle, e.g. : READER
98. ___ Rebellion (event of 1676) : BACON’S
100. Farm machine : REAPER
103. “Swan Lake” figure : ODILE
104. Milne young ‘un : ROO
106. Author of “MS. Found in a Bottle,” for short : EA POE
108. Conifer that loses its leaves in the fall : LARCH
109. Window sticker fig. : MSRP
110. “Click ___ ticket” : IT OR
111. Floor : KAYO
113. Ancient Greek contest : AGON
114. Coulee’s contents : LAVA
116. “S’long” : TATA
117. “De ___” (“You’re welcome”: Fr.) : RIEN
118. Gershwin portrayer in “Rhapsody in Blue” : ALDA
120. Dunderhead : NITWIT
122. Motley : RAGTAG

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