Tag: Dolly Parton vis-à-vis Dollywood crossword clue

Bill’s time: 8m 36s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A “No seats” sign : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

4A Dolly Parton vis-à-vis Dollywood : THEME

Dollywood is a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee that is owned by country singer Dolly Parton. The park opened in 1961 under the name Rebel Railroad. That name was changed to Goldrush Junction in 1970, Goldrush in 1976, Silver Dollar City Tennessee in 1977 and finally to Dollywood in 1986 when Parton became a co-owner.

16A Curry complements : ROTIS

In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is an unleavened cousin of naan.

17A Call to cruisers, for short : APB

An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

A police car is often referred to by the slang term “black-and-white”, a reference to the vehicle’s common paint scheme.

20A Staunchly loyal : TRUE-BLUE

The use of “true blue” to mean loyal and constant has been around since the days of Chaucer, but no one seems to know its etymology.

28A Event-planning platform : EVITE

Evite.com is a website launched in 1998 that is used to create, send and manage “evites”, online invitations.

31A Team with a stadium on the Ohio River : REDS

Great American Ball Park is named after the Great American Insurance Group. It seems a pity to me that the name was chosen for a sponsor, as it is such a grand name for a field dedicated to America’s pastime. Oh, and it is home to the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.

46A B.C. neighbor : ALB

Alberta is a big province, one about the size of Texas. It is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Princess Louise also donated her name to Lake Louise, the large glacial lake in the province, now within the bounds of Banff National Park.

48A Macs and wellies, e.g. : RAIN GEAR

When I was growing up in Ireland, we had to take our macs to school in case it rained (and it usually did!). “Mac” is short for “macintosh”, a waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric. The coat was named after its inventor, Scotsman Charles Macintosh.

Wellington boots are waterproof footwear made of rubber. The name “Wellington” comes from Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who fought successfully at the Battle of Waterloo and twice served as UK Prime Minister. He was fond of the boot and popularized its use among the British aristocracy.

53A Aquaman’s domain : ATLANTIS

The legendary city of Atlantis was first referred to in writing by the Greek philosopher Plato. The story is that a navy from Atlantis attempted to invade Athens but failed, and as a result the city of Atlantis sank into the ocean.

Aquaman is a comic book superhero who first appeared in 1941. His human alias is “Arthur Curry”, and he is the son of the queen of Atlantis and a human lighthouse keeper.

57A Like the descendants of some dinosaurs : AVIAN

The Mesozoic Era is also known as “the Age of the Dinosaurs” and “the Age of Reptiles”. Most dinosaurs developed during that time and the era ended with the extinction of all dinosaurs (except the avian species, which developed into our modern birds). The Mesozoic Era started with another cataclysmic event, the so-called “Great Dying”, the largest mass extinction in the history of our planet. During the “Great Dying” over 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species died off.

58A In Rio, janeiro starts it : ANO

In Portuguese, the “ano” (year) starts with the month of “janeiro” (January).

60A Expression de gratitude : MERCI

“Thank you” translates to “merci” in French, “gracias” in Spanish, and “danke” in German.

61A Abbr. on a box for an air conditioner : BTU

British Thermal Unit (BTU)

62A Bygone company whose website has been revived as satire : ENRON

After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received six years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved and she was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

64A Lush : SOT

“Lush” is a slang term for a heavy drinker. Back in the 1700s, “lush” was slang for “liquor”.

Down

10D E-cigarette claim : NO TAR

The partially-combusted particulate matter that is produced as a cigarette burns forms a resinous material called “tar”. Cigarette tar is different from the tar used on roads, but it is still very toxic. Marijuana smoke produces a very similar tar to cigarette smoke, and is just as dangerous.

12D Shin guards protect them : TIBIAE

The tibia is the shinbone, and is the larger of the two bones right below the knee. It is the second-strongest weight-bearing bone in the human body (after the femur). “Tibia” is the Roman name for a Greek flute and it is thought that the shinbone was given the same name because flutes were often fashioned out of the shinbones of animals.

25D Musical artist with the fastest video to reach one billion views on YouTube : ADELE

“Adele” is the stage name of English singer Adele Adkins. Adele’s debut album is “19”, named after the age she was during the album’s production. Her second album was even more successful than the first. Called “21”, the second album was released three years after the first, when Adele was three years older. Her third studio album “25”, released in 2015, broke the first-week sales records in both the UK and the US. “30” followed in 2021.

26D Helped through a rough patch, with “over” : TIDED …

Something is said to tide one over if it (often money) will see one through a rough patch. The idea behind the verb phrase “to tide over” is that a swelling tide can carry one over an obstacle without effort, as perhaps a reserve fund might keep the lenders from one’s door. The use of “tide” in this sense might come from some famous lines spoken by Brutus in the play “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare:

There is a Tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the Flood, leads on to Fortune

27D Peck or parsec : UNIT

A peck is a dry measure of volume equal to a quarter of a bushel. The term can be used figuratively to mean a considerable quantity in general, as in the phrase “a peck of trouble”.

A parsec is a measure of length or distance used in astronomy. One parsec is equal to about 19.2 trillion miles.

32D Patterned fabric : TOILE

Toile fabric can be used as upholstery, as wallpaper, or even as a fabric for clothing. The name “toile” comes from the French word for “canvas, linen cloth”.

33D Afro-Cuban dance : RUMBA

The rumba (sometimes “rhumba”) is a Cuban dance, with influences brought by African slaves and Spanish colonists. The name “rumba” comes from “rumbo”, the Spanish word for “party, spree”.

37D Regalia for some queens : DRAG

The etymology of the term “drag”, as used in the cross-dressing world, seems to be unclear. It perhaps relates to the tendency of a cross-dresser’s skirts to drag along the ground in days of old (although why they just didn’t hitch up their skirts is beyond me!).

38D Monitor closely, with “on” : KEEP TABS …

To keep tabs on someone is to watch them carefully. Back in the late 1800s, the phrase was written as “keep a tab on”, with “tab” being short for “tablet”, in the sense of a writing tablet. By the way, the name of the diet soda “Tab” was chosen as the drink’s target market was those trying to keep “tabs” on their weight.

43D Pinup icon Betty : GRABLE

The actress Betty Grable was the biggest earner for 20th Century-Fox in 1943, and in 1947 was the highest-paid entertainer in the whole country. It was said that Grable had the most beautiful legs in Hollywood. A famous photograph of her in a bathing suit made her the most popular pin-up girl of WWII.

45D Close lookalike : RINGER

A ringer was originally a fast horse that was substituted surreptitiously into a race for a slower one. The term was derived from the verb “to ring in”, meaning “to substitute”. We use the phrase “dead ringer” to describe an exact duplicate.

47D Singer Morissette with the 1995 #1 album “Jagged Little Pill” : ALANIS

Alanis Morissette is a Canadian singer-songwriter. After releasing two pop albums in Canada, in 1995 she recorded her first album to be distributed internationally. Called “Jagged Little Pill”, it is a collection of songs with more of a rock influence. The album was a huge success, the highest-selling album of the 1990s, and the highest-selling international debut album by any artist at any time (selling over 30 million units).