Tag: Devices for keyless entry crossword clue

Bill’s time: 6m 32s

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A “Mamma Mia” group : ABBA

“Mamma Mia” is a popular song by the Swedish pop group ABBA, released in 1975. It was not originally intended to be a single, but rather a track on ABBA’s self-titled album. However, after the group performed the song on a television special, it became so popular that it was released as a single and went on to become one of ABBA’s biggest hits. The song is used as the title of the incredibly successful Broadway musical and a feature film “Mamma Mia!” (with an exclamation mark).

14A Author Joyce Carol ___ : OATES

Joyce Carol Oates is a remarkable writer, not just for the quality of her work (her 1969 novel “them” won a National Book Award, for example) but also for how prolific her output is. She published her first book in 1963 and since then has published over fifty novels as well as many other written works.

15A Devices for keyless entry : FOBS

A fob is attached to an object to make it easier to access. And so, a key fob is a chain attached to a key so that it can be retrieved easily. There are also watch fobs, and the pocket in a vest in which a watch can be placed is called a fob. In fact, the original use of the term “fob” was for a small pocket in which one could carry valuables.

16A Amo, amas, ___ : AMAT

“Amo, amas, amat” translates from Latin as “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”.

17A “Sleepless in Seattle” or “Legally Blonde,” informally : CHICK FLICK

I am not sure that I agree …

“Sleepless in Seattle” is a lovely romantic comedy directed and co-written by Nora Ephron, released in 1993. The film’s storyline is based on the excellent 1957 movie “An Affair to Remember”, and there are numerous direct references to the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr classic throughout the “remake”. The lead roles in “Sleepless …” are played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

“LEGALLY blonde” is a 2001 comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon as a girlish sorority president who heads to Harvard to earn a law degree. “LEGALLY blonde” was successful enough to warrant two sequels as well as a spin-off musical that played most successfully in London’s West End (for 974 performances).

19A Actress Dunham or Waithe : LENA

Lena Dunham is a co-star in the HBO series “Girls”, and is also the show’s creator. Dunham garnered a lot of attention for herself during the 2012 US Presidential election cycle as she starred in an ad focused on getting out the youth vote. In the spot, she compared voting for the first time with having sex for the first time.

Lena Waithe’s break as an actress came with a supporting role in the comedy-drama show “Master of None” starting in 2015. The same show brought her significant success as a writer, winning a Primetime Emmy for co-writing the “Thanksgiving” episode with the show’s creator Aziz Ansari. Waithe also serves as executive producer for the horror-drama anthology series “Them”.

20A Call from an ump : OUT!

Back in the 15th century, “an umpire” was referred to as “a noumpere”, which was misheard, amd hence caused 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 the “odd number” needed to decide the dispute.

21A Group of connected PCs : LAN

You may have a Local Area Network (LAN) in your house. If you’ve got a computer and a router or switch, likely attached to some modem, then you have a LAN.

22A Like some columns and bonds : IONIC

The Ionic was one of the three classical orders of architecture, the others being the Doric and Corinthian. An Ionic column is relatively ornate. It usually has grooves running up and down its length and at the top there is a “scroll” design called a “volute”. The scroll motif makes Ionic columns popular for the design of academic buildings. The term “Ionic” means “pertaining to Ionia”, with Ionia being an ancient territory that is located in modern-day Turkey.

An ionic bond is formed between two oppositely-charged ions. A common example is the bond between positively-charged sodium ions and negatively-charged chlorine ions to form table salt (NaCl). A covalent bond, on the other hand, is formed when two atoms share electrons. Atoms sharing electrons tend to be stable, so they prefer to stay together rather than apart.

30A Sidney who directed “12 Angry Men” and “The Wiz” : LUMET

As a movie director, Sidney Lumet had a great string of celebrated films to his name including “12 Angry Men”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Network” and “The Verdict”. Although nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for each of these films, he never won an individual Oscar. However, the Academy gave Lumet the recognition he deserved in 2005 by presenting him with an Honorary Award.

The powerful 1957 movie “12 Angry Men” was directed by Sidney Lumet, and has a stellar cast of “jury members” including Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman and Ed Begley. If ever there is a movie that clearly was based on a play, it’s this one. Practically the whole film takes place on one set, the jury room.

“The Wiz”, the 1974 musical, was written by Charlie Smalls and is an African American adaptation of Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. The film version of the stage show was released in 1978, starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow. I haven’t seen it, though. “The Wizard of Oz” scares me, as the flying monkeys creep me out. There, I’ve admitted it in public …

31A Japanese camera giant : NIKON

The Japanese company Nikon was founded in 1917 with the merger of three manufacturers of various optical devices. After the merger, Nikon’s main output was lenses (including the first lenses for Canon cameras, before Canon made its own). During the war, Nikon sales grew rapidly as the company focused on (pun!) equipment for the military including periscopes and bomb sights.

32A “The Lion King” villain : SCAR

In the 1994 movie “The Lion King”, the protagonist is Simba, a lion cub born to Mufasa and Sarabi. The main antagonist is Scar, Simba’s uncle and Mufasa’s brother. Simba is voiced by Matthew Broderick, and Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons. “Simba” is Swahili for “lion”.

34A Soph., jr. and sr. : YRS

The term “sophomore” has been used since the 1680s for a student in the second year of university. The original meaning of the word was “arguer”. The term has Greek roots, from two Greek words that have been artificially combined in English. The Greek “sophos” means “wise”, and “moros” means “foolish”.

37A Slogan encouraging the use of seatbelts : CLICK IT OR TICKET

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.

43A New England state with the slogan “The Way Life Should Be” : MAINE

Maine is the least-densely populated state east of the Mississippi, with almost 90% of its land covered with forests. Perhaps that’s why the state’s nickname is “The Pine Tree State” …

47A Shaggy hairstyle : MOP-TOP

The classic Beatles haircut is called a mop top. Apparently John Lennon and Paul McCartney saw someone wearing the style in Hamburg, and they liked it. The pair hitchhiked from Hamburg to Paris, and when they arrived at their destination, they had their hair cut that way for the first time.

52A Improvise, as a speech : AD-LIB

“Ad libitum” is a Latin phrase meaning “at one’s pleasure”. In common usage, the phrase is usually shortened to “ad-lib”. On the stage, the concept of an ad-lib is very familiar.

63A Tradition for many high school seniors : PROM

A prom is a formal dance held upon graduation from high school (we call them “formals” over in Ireland). The term “prom” is short for “promenade”, the name given to a type of dance or ball.

64A Fasten, as a ship’s rope : BELAY

One belays a rope or line by securing around a cleat. That’s the nautical use of “belay”. The term has been adopted by climbers, who use it to mean “secure at the end of a rope”.

Down

1D 2017 Pixar film set in Mexico : COCO

“Coco” is a 2017 Pixar movie about a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who ends up in the land of the dead by accident. There, he seeks out the help of the great-great-grandfather to get back to his family in the land of the living.

2D Third-largest Hawaiian island : OAHU

Oahu has been called “The Gathering Place”, although the word “O’ahu” has no translation in Hawaiian. It seems that “O’ahu” is simply the name of the island. One story is that it is named after the son of the Polynesian navigator who first found the islands. The island is made up of two volcanoes, Wai’anae and Ko’olau, joined together by a broad valley, the O’ahu Plain.

4D Part of a min. : SEC

We use base-10, the decimal system for our numbers. Base-60, the sexagesimal system, was used by the ancient Babylonians. This ancient usage gives rise to our 60 seconds in a minute, and 360 (6 x 60) degrees in a circle.

6D Insurance company whose mascot is a duck : AFLAC

In 1999, Aflac (American Family Life Assurance Company) was huge in the world of insurance but it wasn’t a household name, so a New York advertising agency was given the task of making the Aflac brand more memorable. One of the agency’s art directors, while walking around Central Park one lunchtime, heard a duck quacking and in his mind linked it with “Aflac”, and that duck has been “Aflacking” ever since …

8D Eng. channel : BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the world’s oldest national broadcasting organization and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It was founded in 1922 and initially broadcast radio only, with television broadcasting beginning in 1932.

10D Aplenty : GALORE

Our word “galore”, meaning “in great numbers”, comes from the Irish phrase “go leór” that translates as “sufficiently, enough”.

12D Feel a suddenly overwhelming fear : PANIC

In Greek mythology, Pan was a lecherous god who was part-man and part-goat, and one who fell in love with Echo the mountain nymph. Echo refused Pan’s advances so that he became very angry. Pan’s anger created a “panic” (a word derived from the name “Pan”) and a group of shepherds were driven to kill Echo.

22D Tech giant founded in 1911 : IBM

Tech giant IBM was founded as the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. The company changed its name to the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) in 1911 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1916. The name “International Business Machines” (IBM) was given first to the company’s Canadian subsidiary, and then to its South American subsidiary. In 1924, it was decided to adopt the International Business Machines name for the whole company. Good choice …

26D Traditional circular dwelling : YURT

A yurt is a wood-framed dwelling that is used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. Although a yurt is a substantial structure, it is also extremely portable.

27D Ancient Peruvian : INCA

The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. They developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Túpac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.

29D Plays hooky : SKIPS CLASS

Apparently the term “hooky” comes from “hoekje”, the Dutch name for the game hide-and-seek. To play hooky is to shirk one’s responsibility, as in a schoolkid taking a day off without permission.

35D Nevada city near Lake Tahoe : RENO

Reno, Nevada was named in honor of Major General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer killed in the Civil War. The city has a famous “Reno Arch”, a structure that stands over the main street. The arch was erected in 1926 to promote an exposition planned for the following year. After the expo, the city council decided to keep the arch and held a competition to decide what wording should be displayed, and the winner was “The Biggest Little City in the World”.

46D Spot for three men in a nursery rhyme : TUB

The nursery rhyme “Rub-a-Dub-Dub” dates back to at least 1798 when it was first published in London:

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
They all jumped out of a rotten potato,
‘Twas enough to make a man stare.

47D Exam for a future doc : MCAT

Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)

48D Culinary personality Lakshmi : PADMA

Padma Lakshmi is a model from India. She is very much into cooking and has published an award-winning cookbook. Lakshmi hosted the American TV show “Top Chef” from 2006 until 2023.

50D Wyoming’s Grand ___ National Park : TETON

Grand Teton National Park (NP) is located just south of Yellowstone NP, and a must-see if you are visiting the latter. The park is named after the tallest peak in the magnificent Teton Range known as Grand Teton. The origins of the name “Teton” are not very clear, although one story is that it was named by French trappers, as the word “tetons” in French is a slang term meaning “breasts”.

55D Smoothie “superfood” : ACAI

We hear the word “superfood” a lot these days. I think it’s important that we realize that our friends in marketing coined the term to promote foods that have supposed health benefits, even though there’s no obligation to prove those health benefits exist. Since 2007, the European Union (EU) has banned the use of the term “superfood” in marketing of foodstuffs unless there is credible scientific research to back up any health claim. Good for the EU …

56D Scottish terrier breed : SKYE

The Skye terrier is a breed of dog that is under threat of extinction. Some years ago, there were only 30 Skye terriers born in the breed’s native land of the UK. The breed was named for the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

60D Network for “Succession” and “The Wire” : HBO

“Succession” is a very popular dark comedy-drama series that premiered in 2018. It’s about a family-owned, global media company. The “succession” in question is who will get to run the empire after the passing of the ailing family patriarch. The marvelous Scottish actor Brian Cox plays the head of the company Logan Roy. Great stuff, albeit quite depressing and terrifying …

I didn’t watch the HBO series called “The Wire” when it first aired. We ended up buying all five series on DVD and we watched the whole thing many years ago. It is a great drama series, and I thoroughly recommend it.