Tag: Dismissive cry crossword clue

Bill’s time: 19m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 “Here’s looking at you, kid” or “You can’t handle the truth!,” famously : 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.

“Here’s looking at you, kid” is a line spoken in “Casablanca” by Rick (Humphrey Bogart) to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman).

The line, “You can’t handle the truth!” is spoken by Jack Nicholson’s character in the superb 1992 movie “A Few Good Men”. The line was voted the 29th greatest American movie quote of all time in the AFI’s 2005 list (“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” was at the number-one spot).

6 Jane Goodall subject : CHIMP

Jane Goodall is a British anthropologist famous for studying wild chimpanzees in Africa for 45 years. Working at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall made many discoveries. She was the first to see chimps constructing and using tools, an activity thought to be limited to the human species. She also found out that chimpanzees are vegetarians.

11 Platform for Mega Man, for short : NES

“Mega Man” is a series of video games created by the Japanese company Capcom.

17 Jim who sang “Time in a Bottle” : CROCE

“Time in a Bottle” is a song written by Jim Croce in 1970 and recorded by him in 1972. The song was released as a single in 1973, soon after Croce died in a plane crash. It was to be Croce’s last number-one hit.

18 Scintillae : TRACES

A scintilla is a small amount. The term “scintilla” can also be used to describe a spark or a flash (as in “to scintillate”). The term came into English from Latin, in which language it means “spark, particle of fire, atom”.

21 Record book? : HIGH FIDELITY

“High Fidelity” is a 2000 comedy-drama film starring John Cusack. “High Fidelity” is based on a novel of the same name by English novelist Nick Hornby (who also wrote the books that inspired the movies “About a Boy” and “Fever Pitch”).

23 Home to Cedar Point : OHIO

Cedar Point is an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio and is the second-oldest such park in the country that is still operating (the oldest is Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut, which opened in 1846). Cedar Point specializes in roller coasters.

24 Sugar ending : -OSE

Sugars are usually named using the “-ose” suffix e.g., glucose, fructose, sucrose.

25 ___ Air (carrier to Taiwan) : EVA

EVA Airlines is an international airline based in Taipei, Taiwan that was founded in 1989. The intended name for the company was Evergreen Airways, but this was changed to EVA to avoid a potential conflict with another business.

27 Composted material : FOOD WASTE

Composting is the process of decomposing organic matter to make the soil conditioner known as “compost”. The term “compost” ultimately comes from the Latin “com” (together) and “ponere” (to place). Compost is best made by “putting together” green waste that is rich in nitrogen, with brown waste that is rich in carbon, all in the presence of water and air.

29 Altima alternative : SENTRA

The Nissan Sentra is sold as the Nissan Sunny back in Japan.

31 Spell book? : MERRIAM-WEBSTER

George and Charles Merriam founded their publishing company in 1831, and in 1843 purchased the rights to Noah Webster’s dictionary a few months after his death. Merriam-Webster has been publishing mainly dictionaries and reference books ever since.

37 FAQ consulters : USERS

Most websites have a page listing answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Even this blog has one!

38 Group of conferences, for short : NCAA

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

43 Pack ‘N Play and stroller, for a traveling parent : GEAR

The baby carriages that we know as “strollers” over here in North America are more usually referred to as “pushchairs” or “buggies” in Britain and Ireland.

46 Green book? : THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Adam Smith was a pioneer in the field of “political economy”, an original term used for the study of production and trade and their relationship with law, government and the distribution of wealth. Adam Smith’s great work is called “The Wealth of Nations” that was published in 1776. The book was a big hit within his own lifetime and went a long way to earning him the reputation as the father of modern economics and capitalism. Smith coined the phrase “the invisible hand of the market”, describing his assertion that a marketplace tends to self-regulate.

51 Placed on a peg : TEED

A tee is a small device on which, say, a golf ball is placed before striking it. The term “tee” comes from the Scottish “teaz”, which described little heaps of sand used to elevate a golf ball for the purpose of getting a clean hit with a club.

57 Musical finales : CODAS

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

59 Kunis of “Black Swan” : MILA

Mila Kunis is a Ukrainian-born, American actress who plays Jackie Burkhart on “That ’70s Show”. Fans of the cartoon series “Family Guy” might recognize her voicing the Meg Griffin character. In ”Black Swan”, Kunis plays a rival ballet dancer to the character played by Natalie Portman. In her personal life, Kunis dated Macaulay Culkin for 8 years, but married Ashton Kutcher, her co-star from “That 70s Show”, in 2015.

64 Lost-at-sea plea : SOS

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.

65 Logbook? : THE GIVING TREE

Author Shel Silverstein had a varied career and did a lot more than write books. He was a poet, composer, cartoonist and screenwriter among other things. One of his successful children’s books is “The Giving Tree”, which was first published in 1964. “The Giving Tree” tells of a young boy who has a special relationship with a tree in a forest. The message of the book seems to be that the tree provides the little boy with everything he needs.

The word “logbook” dates back to the days when the captain of a ship kept a daily record of the vessel’s speed, progress etc. using a “log”. A log was a wooden float on a knotted line that was dropped overboard to measure speed through the water.

69 Most of van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” : SKY

“The Starry Night” (“La Nuit Étoilée” in French) is a Van Gogh masterpiece depicting what the artist could see from the window of his room in a sanitarium near the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. It is a lovely piece, and was acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941 …

70 Perfunctory : PRO FORMA

The Latin term “pro forma” translates as “as a matter of form”, and is used in English to describe actions or documents that are considered merely a formality. In the world of accounting, a pro forma financial statement indicates hypothetical figures based on previous operations, and are as estimates before actual results become available.

73 Mother of Perseus : DANAE

In Greek mythology, Danaë was the mortal mother of the heroic slayer of monsters Perseus, with the father being Zeus. Danaë herself was the daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and his wife Queen Eurydice.

75 “The Clan of the Cave Bear” heroine : AYLA

Ayla is a little Cro-Magnon girl who is orphaned and then adopted by a Neanderthal tribe, as told in “The Clan of the Cave Bear”, the first of a series of novels written by Jean Auel that set in prehistoric times. I haven’t read any of Auel’s books myself, but they are on my reading to-do list as my wife recommends them. They sound interesting …

76 Sebastian the ___, University of Miami mascot : IBIS

The Hurricanes (also “Canes”) are the athletics teams of the University of Miami. The school’s mascot is Sebastian the Ibis. “The Ibis” was chosen as the name of the school’s yearbook in 1926, and was adopted as the mascot decades later in the eighties. The ibis was selected by the Hurricanes as the bird is known for its bravery when a hurricane approaches.

81 John who married Pocahontas : ROLFE

John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers in America. He is perhaps best remembered for marrying the Native American Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan. For a few months before her death, Pocahontas lived with Rolfe in England. The couple had actually boarded a ship to return them to Virginia when Pocahontas became ill and had to be brought ashore on the south coast of England, where she soon passed away.

83 Yearbook? : NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

The action in George Orwell’s 1949 novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” takes place in the intercontinental superstate of Oceania. Orwell also created two other superstates, one called Eurasia and the other Eastasia.

88 Member of the original “S.N.L.” cast : RADNER

Gilda Radner was a comedian and actress, and one of the original cast members of the hit television show “Saturday Night Live”. Radner left her first husband to marry comedic actor Gene Wilder, whom she met while they were both filming the Sidney Poitier movie “Hanky Panky”.

93 Bad buy : LEMON

Long before we associated the term “lemon” with a defective car, it was used to describe defective items in general.

95 Where the chair of St. Peter sits in St. Peter’s Basilica : APSE

The Basilica of St. Peter in Rome was built during the late Renaissance and has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, capable of holding 60,000 people. There is a popular misconception that St. Peter’s is the cathedral of Rome, but actually it isn’t, and instead is a papal basilica. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral church of Rome.

97 Rule book? : A GAME OF THRONES

“A Game of Thrones” is the first novel in the series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin titled “A Song of Ice and Fire”. That first novel’s title gives its name to “Game of Thrones”, the incredibly popular HBO television series that uses the storyline from the whole series of books.

110 Diagnostic tool, in brief : MRI

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

111 Org. that administers the G.R.E. : ETS

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) was founded in 1947, and produces standardized tests for students from kindergarten through college. Perhaps most famously, ETS operates the SAT testing process.

113 Scrapbook? : FRANKENSTEIN

Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel has the full title of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. The subtitle underscores one of the themes of the book, i.e. a warning about the expansion into the Industrial Revolution.

116 Four Corners native : UTE

The Four Corners region of the US surrounds the meeting point of the four states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only point in the US that is shared by four states.

118 Late-night host who once wrote for “The Simpsons” : O’BRIEN

Before Conan O’Brien came to fame as a late night talk show host, he was a writer. He wrote for both “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons”. While attending Harvard, O’Brien was president of “The Harvard Lampoon”.

Down

3 2017 film about Wolverine : LOGAN

“Logan” is a 2017 movie that is the tenth (yes, tenth) installment of the “X-Men” series of films. It is also the third movie to center on the character Wolverine (aka “Logan”), who is played by Hugh Jackman. This one was very, very successful at the box office. Anyone interested in a retro-style “Logan” might want to look for the black-and-white version of the film that’s available under the title “Logan Noir”.

7 Bailey of 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” : HALLE

Singer and actress Halle Bailey started her singing career as a young girl on a YouTube channel with her sister, performing cover songs as “Chloe x Halle”. In 2019, Halle was given her first lead role as an actress, playing Ariel in the 2023 live-action remake of 1989’s “The Little Mermaid”.

10 Liberal arts major: Abbr. : PSY

The term “liberal arts” dates back to classical antiquity. The liberal arts were those subjects deemed essential to master for a citizen to take an active part in civil life. “Citizens” were “free people”, hence the use of the term “liberal arts”. The list of subjects studied in olden times were generally sevenfold: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy/astrology.

14 Suddenly stopped texting : GHOSTED

A rather insensitive person might break off a relationship simply by cutting off all communication with his or her partner, without any warning. Such a move is referred to as “ghosting” in modern parlance, particularly when the relationship relies heavily on online interaction.

27 Fawcett who played one of Charlie’s Angels : FARRAH

Farrah Fawcett’s first big role was that of Jill Monroe, one of the famous “Charlie’s Angels”. Fawcett’s life off-screen was just as celebrated as her performances on television. Fawcett was married to actor Lee Majors (“The Six Million Dollar Man”) for nine years, and then spent fifteen years with actor Ryan O’Neal.

In the fun TV show from the late seventies and early eighties, “Charlie’s Angels”, Farrah Fawcett-Majors played Jill Munroe. When Fawcett-Majors decided to move on from the show, a new character was introduced to fill her spot, her younger sister, Kris Munroe, played by Cheryl Ladd.

33 It’s opposite Oman on the Gulf of Oman : IRAN

The Gulf of Oman isn’t actually a gulf, and rather is a strait. It connects the Arabian Sea to the Strait of Hormuz and hence to the Persian Gulf.

39 Plant also known as coffeeweed : CHICORY

Chicory root, when ground and roasted, tastes much like coffee. It is sometimes used as a caffeine-free substitute for coffee, or as a beverage in its own right.

40 Nebulizer’s output : AEROSOL

Strictly speaking, the term “aerosol” defines a suspension of either liquid droplets or solid particles in a gas. A good example of an aerosol is smoke. We tend to use the “aerosol” to describe what comes out of a spray can, even though the liquid droplets usually fall out of the gas and don’t stay suspended.

42 Cell service inits. : LTE

In the world of telecommunications, the initialism LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution, and is wireless broadband communication standard. In general terms, LTE improves broadband speeds. As I understand it, LTE technology allows a 3G network to perform almost as well as a true 4G network, and so LTE is sometimes marketed as 4G LTE, even though it’s really “3G plus”.

43 Big name in chocolate : GODIVA

Godiva is a brand of chocolates that was founded in Brussels, Belgium in 1926. The founder chose the brand name in honor of the legend of Lady Godiva.

44 Instrument with as many as 21 strings : SITAR

The sitar has been around since the Middle Ages. It is a stringed instrument that is played by plucking, and is used most often in Hindustani classical music. In the West we have been exposed to the instrument largely through the performances of Ravi Shankar and some music by George Harrison of the Beatles, a onetime student of Shankar.

47 Lyre-plucking Muse : ERATO

In Greek mythology, Erato was the Muse of lyric poetry. She is often depicted with a wreath of myrtle and roses, and playing a lyre.

48 Lead-in to sphere : HEMI-

Ever wonder what the difference is between the prefixes “hemi-”, “demi-” and “semi-”, all of which mean “half”? Well, the general observation is that words using the “demi-” prefix date back to the days of Norman influence over the English language. As a result, “demi-” turns up in the world of period costume and coats of arms. Words using “hemi-” tend to have Greek roots, and are prevalent in the world of the sciences and the medical field. Words with “semi-” tend to have Latin roots, and are most often found in music and the arts, and mathematics.

49 Pinball game ender : TILT

Our modern game of pinball evolved from an earlier table game called bagatelle that used balls, pins and holes (and I remember playing bagatelle as a boy in a pub in Ireland). The first pinball machine was made by a British inventor who settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. He modified the game of bagatelle, adding a coiled spring and a plunger to introduce balls at the end of the table, a device that is still in use today. From there, manufacturers developed coin-operated versions of pinball, which became popular during the depression as they provided a little entertainment for a few pennies. One distributor of the coin-operated pinball machines started manufacturing them himself as he couldn’t source new games fast enough. He called his pinball game Ballyhoo, and eventually named his company Bally, a brand name well known in the gambling industry to this day.

61 Some poles : ANODES

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

68 Halliwell of the Spice Girls : GERI

Geri Halliwell was nicknamed Ginger Spice when she was with the Spice Girls, because of her red hair. Halliwell was quite a bit older than the rest of the group and so sometimes she was less charitably referred to as “Old Spice”. After launching her solo career, Halliwell released a fabulous 2001 version of the song “It’s Raining Men”, which was originally recorded by the Weather Girls in 1982. Great song …

71 The Beyhive and the Swifties, for two : FANDOMS

Beyoncé Knowles established herself in the entertainment industry as the lead singer with the R&B group Destiny’s Child. She launched her solo singing career in 2002, after making her first appearance as an actor. In 2006 she played the lead in the very successful movie adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls”. Beyoncé is married to rap star Jay-Z. She is also referred to affectionately as “Queen Bey”, a play on the phrase “the queen bee”. Her fan base goes by the name “Beyhive”.

A swiftie is a fan of singer Taylor Swift. In 2017, the singer trademarked the term “Swifties”. She has also trademarked the term “Swiftmas”.

79 A Tyrannosaurus rex’s was nearly 17 inches long : EGG

The largest and best-preserved dinosaur fossil ever found can be seen on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The fossil is a Tyrannosaurus rex that is thought to have weighed over 7 tons when alive. It was discovered in South Dakota in 1990 by paleontologist Sue Hendrickson. The specimen is nicknamed “Sue” after Hendrickson.

86 Film character who becomes trapped in a dentist’s office : NEMO

In the movie “Finding Nemo”, the title character finds himself in a fish tank in the office of a dentist in Australia. The collection of fish that he encounters in the aquarium is known as the Tank Gang.

88 Crew meet : REGATTA

The word “regatta” is Venetian dialect and was originally used to describe boat races among the gondoliers of Venice on the Grand Canal back in the mid-1600s.

94 “The Great” pope : ST LEO

The first pope named Leo is now known as Pope Saint Leo the Great. Leo I is famous for meeting with the feared Attila the Hun and persuading him to turn back his invading force that was threatening to overrun Western Europe.

101 Hudson of the “Ghostbusters” movies : ERNIE

Actor Ernie Hudson is perhaps best known for playing the “fourth” member of the “Ghostbusters” team in the original 1984 movie.

1984’s “Ghostbusters” really is an entertaining movie. It stars Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, and was directed by Ivan Reitman (a trio that also worked together on 1981’s “Stripes”). The first draft of the screenplay was written by another star of the movie, Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd originally envisioned “Ghostbusters” as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi, but sadly Belushi passed away before the project could be realized.

102 Listings on a Japanese menu, maybe : SAKES

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

105 Writer Jong : ERICA

Author Erica Jong’s most famous work is her first: “Fear of Flying”, a novel published in 1973. Over twenty years later, Jong wrote “Fear of Fifty: a midlife memoir”, published in 1994.

109 Title for Sanders: Abbr. : SEN

Bernie Sanders has served as a US Senator from Vermont since 2007. Sanders often describes himself as a democratic socialist, and used to appear on the ballot as an independent. Prior to joining the Democratic Party in 2015, Sanders had been the longest-serving independent in the history of the US Congress.