Tag: Blue reef fish crossword clue

Bill’s time: 10m 04s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 Stone measure : CARAT

The carat is a unit of mass equal to 200 mg (0.2 grams). It is used in sizing gemstones.

15 Modern-day home of Persepolis : IRAN

Persepolis is located in modern Iran, just northeast of the city of Shiraz. The earliest remains of the city date back to around 500 BC. Much of the city’s construction took place during the reign of King Xerxes the Great.

19 “Cheers” bartender Woody : BOYD

Woody Boyd is the lovable and naive bartender on several seasons of the sitcom “Cheers”. Woody is portrayed by Woody Harrelson. The Woody character replaced the bartender named “Coach” when actor Nicholas Colasanto passed away.

21 Baseball pitcher’s feat, informally : NO-NO

In baseball, a no-hitter (colloquially “no-no”) is a game in which one team fails to record even a single hit (and no runs). No-hitters are pretty rare, and only occur about twice a year in Major League Baseball. The related one-hitter is a game when one team records just one hit.

24 GOBI DESERT : GEOLOCATION (“G-O” location)

The Gobi, the large desert in Asia, lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. It is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s forward progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so-called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

29 Source of the Golden Fleece : RAM

The Golden Fleece was the fleece of a winged ram made from pure gold that was held by King Aeëtes in Colchis, a kingdom on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The fleece is central to the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, who set out on a quest to steal the fleece by order of King Pelias.

43 Game piece in Mastermind : PEG

Mastermind is a code breaking game that uses colored pegs on a decoding board. The “code maker” sets a hidden “code” of four colored pegs into one end of the board, and then the “code breaker” guesses the sequence of colors by laying four pegs into the decoding section of the same board. The code maker responds by revealing how many pegs are guessed correctly and in the right position, and how many are guessed correctly and in the wrong position. The codebreaker uses this information to break the code within a specified number of guesses.

46 Legislative subject of the 2020 miniseries “Mrs. America,” for short : ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was written by the American suffragist leader, Alice Paul. Although Paul was successful in her campaign to get passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution (guaranteeing voting rights regardless of sex), her 1923 Equal Rights Amendment didn’t make it to the Senate floor until 1972. The amendment was passed by the Senate, and then headed to the state legislatures for the required ratification. 38 states had to approve the legislation for the amendment to be adopted, but only 35 states voted in favor before the deadline. The amendment is still pending, although about half of the fifty states have adopted the ERA into their state constitutions.

The 2020 miniseries “Mrs. America” chronicles the (so far) unsuccessful campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. This historical drama has quite the cast, including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Tracy Ullman and Sarah Paulson. I haven’t seen this one yet, but it’s on my “Must See” list …

47 Spain’s longest river : EBRO

The Ebro is the longest river in Spain. It was known by the Romans as the Iber, and it is “Iber” that gives the “Iberian” Peninsula its name.

48 NEOLITH : ANY OLD THING (“N-E-” old thing)

A neolith is a stone tool that was produced during the Neolithic Era, the last part of the Stone Age.

55 Lassie’s owner on old TV : TIMMY

The canine character Lassie is the creation of Eric Knight, an author who wrote a short story that he expanded into a novel called “Lassie Come Home” published in 1940. “Lassie Come Home” was turned into a movie three years later, the first of a very successful franchise. The original Lassie (a female) was played by a long-haired collie called Pal (a male). In fact, all of the dogs that played Lassie over the years were males, because they looked better on camera, retaining a thick coat even during the summer months.

58 Troll’s lookalike : OGRE

“Troll” is a term that comes from Norse mythology. They are less-than-helpful creatures that tend to live on isolated mountains, in caves and under bridges.

62 Land that split from Zanzibar in 1861 : OMAN

Zanzibar is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean located just 20 miles or so off the east coast of Africa. The largest island in the group is Unguja, which is often referred to informally as “Zanzibar”. When Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964, the resulting state was named the United Republic of Tanzania, with “Tanzania” being a portmanteau of “Zanzibar” and “Tanganyika”. The islands of Zanzibar, along with Tanzania’s Mafia Island, are collectively referred to as the Spice Islands (not to be confused with the Spice Islands in Indonesia).

67 Something passed down the line : GENE

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

Down

1 Cold beverage popularized at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis : ICED TEA

The 1904 World’s Fair was actually called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, as it celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. There are many claims of “firsts” at the 1904 Fair, and among the list of real “firsts” are the introduction of Dr Pepper, the ice cream cone and Puffed Wheat! The fair, which ran for much of 1904, was the host for the 1904 Summer Olympic Games, the first to be held in the US.

2 Sleeveless top : CAMISOLE

A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undershirt worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English that ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

3 Small marching band? : ARMY ANTS

Army ants are a collection of over two hundred different species of ants. Each species is known for aggressively raiding a certain area en masse, foraging for food. Army ants also stay on the move, never building permanent nests.

5 Word that can precede or follow “player” : PIANO

A player piano is a piano that plays itself. The original Pianola, a brand introduced in the early 1900s, used a pneumatic mechanism to depress the keys. The tune itself was stored on a paper roll that had carefully positioned perforations.

6 Flynn of Hollywood’s Golden Age : ERROL

Actor Errol Flynn was born in 1909 in Tasmania, where he was raised. In his twenties, Flynn lived in the UK where he pursued his acting career. Around the same time he starred in an Australian film “In the Wake of the Bounty” and then appeared in a British film “Murder at Monte Carlo”. It was in the latter film that he was noticed by Warner Brothers who brought him to America. Flynn’s non-American heritage shone through even while he was living the American dream in California. He regularly played cricket, along with his friend David Niven, in the Hollywood Cricket Club.

7 41, to 43 : DAD

President George W. Bush (GWB) is named for his father, George H. W. Bush (GHWB). The “W” in the name of both father and son stands for “Walker”. Walker was the family name of President George H. W. Bush’s mother, Dorothy Walker.

22 Reproductive cell : GAMETE

A gamete is a reproductive cell that has half the full complement of genes needed to make a normal cell. In sexual reproduction, it takes two gametes, one from each parent, to fuse into one cell which then develops into a new organism. The female gamete is the ovum, and the male the sperm.

25 Lover of Euridice, in opera : ORFEO

“Orfeo ed Euridice” is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck that was first performed in 1762. It is perhaps Gluck’s most popular work.

33 Zippo : SQUAT

“Squat” is a slang term for “nothing”. “Squat” and the variant “Jack squat”, probably have a distasteful derivation that is related to a bodily function.

The use of the words “zip” and “zippo” to mean “nothing” dates back to the early 1900s, when it was student slang for being graded zero on a test.

37 About 2 1/2 pints of beer : YARD

A yard of ale is a very tall glass, one that is just under a yard (three feet) long. It holds about 60 fluid ounces of beer. I’ve tried drinking out of one, and it is extremely difficult. There is a bulb at the bottom of the glass. When you get towards the end of the drink, that bulb causes a kind of airlock and the remainder of the beer rushes to the top of the glass, splashing you in the face.

38 Catchphrase for moviedom’s “International Man of Mystery” : OH, BEHAVE

The Austin Powers character was created by the actor who plays him, namely Mike Myers. Apparently Myers came up with the idea for Powers while listening to the Burt Bacharach song “The Look of Love”.

39 Vikings, e.g. : NORSEMEN

The Vikings were a Germanic people from northern Europe who were noted as great seafarers. Key to the success of the Vikings was the design of their famous “longships”. Made from wood, the longship was long and narrow with a shallow hull, It was also light, so that the crew would actually carry it small distances over land and around obstacles. Longships were designed to be propelled by both sail and oars.

43 Buns : PATOOT

Back in the 1920s, the term “patootie” was used for a sweetheart, a very pretty girl. Somehow, the term has evolved into slang for the posterior, rear end.

50 University of North Carolina team, to fans : HEELS

“Tar Heel” is a nickname for anyone living in, or from, the state of North Carolina. As such, it is the nickname for an athlete of the University of North Carolina (UNC). No one seems to know for sure where the term “Tar Heel” originated, but it is thought to be related to the historical importance of the tar, pitch and turpentine industries that thrived in the state due to the presence of vast forests of pine trees.

51 Pastoral poems : IDYLS

An idyll (also “idyl”) is a short poem with a pastoral theme, usually depicting the scene in romantic and idealized terms. The word “idyl” comes from the Greek “eidyllion”, which literally translates to “little picture” but was a word describing a short poem with a rustic theme.

52 Keanu Reeves role : NEO

Neo is the character played by Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” series of films. One of Neo’s actions is to choose a red pill over a blue pill. The blue pill would have allowed him to remain in the Matrix, a fabricated reality. The red pill led to his escape into the real world, and a much more difficult life.

53 Stampeders in “The Lion King” : GNUS

The highly successful stage musical “The Lion King” started out life as a 1994 animated feature film of the same name from the Disney studio. The film is the highest earning traditionally-animated feature of all time. The animated film “Finding Nemo” has made more money, but it was created using computer animation.

60 Birthplace of bossa nova : RIO

Bossa nova is a style of music from Brazil that evolved from samba. The most famous piece of bossa nova is the song “The Girl from Ipanema”. The term “bossa nova” translates from Portuguese as “new trend”, or more colloquially as “new wave”.