Tag: Endorsement from a brand’s account? crossword clue

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): A Tryst Twist, Perhaps?

Themed answers are common phrases with a TR-sound changed to a TW-sound:

• 19A Endorsement from a brand’s account? : COMPANY RETWEET (from “company retreat”)
• 24A Some Halloween candy discovered in February? : OLD BAG OF TWIX (from “old bag of tricks”)
• 40A When the whole clan gets their eyebrows done? : FAMILY TWEEZE (from “family trees”)
• 46A CliffsNotes version of “Huckleberry Finn”? : HIGH-SPEED TWAIN (from “high-speed train”)

… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 6m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Honey bunch? : COMB

Honeybees create a structure within their nests called a honeycomb that is used to contain their larvae and also to store honey and pollen. The honeycomb comprises hexagonal cells made from wax.

5 Sport that returned to the Summer Olympics in 2016 after a 112-year absence : GOLF

Even though the 2016 Olympic Games was a summer competition, it was held in Rio de Janeiro in winter. As Rio is in the southern hemisphere, the opening ceremony on 5th August 2016 fell in the local winter season. The 2016 games was also the first to be held in South America, and the first to be hosted by a Portuguese-speaking country.

9 Hodgepodge : HASH

“Hochepot” is an Old French word for stew or soup, and this gave rise to an Anglo-French legal term for a collection of property that was gathered prior to being divided up. This became our “hodgepodge” in the early 1400s.

13 Gemstone discovered on Mars in 2008 : OPAL

Mars missions have found evidence of opals on the surface of the planet. Also, trace amounts of fire opal were discovered in a Martian meteorite that landed on Earth in Egypt in 1911. That meteorite is thought to have wandered through the Solar System for an unknown period of time after being ejected from the Martian surface when a large body collided with Mars.

14 Justice Sotomayor : SONIA

Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic justice on the US Supreme Court, and the third female justice. Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace the retiring Justice David Souter.

15 Clay pot used for cooking : OLLA

An olla is a traditional clay pot used for the making of stews. “Olla” was the Latin word used in ancient Rome to describe a similar type of pot.

16 ___ vu : DEJA

“Déjà vu” is French for “already seen”.

17 Light purple : LILAC

The ornamental flowering plant known as lilac is native to the Balkans, and is a member of the olive family.

23 Posh : SWANKY

No one really knows the etymology of the word “posh”. The popular myth that “posh” is actually an acronym standing for “port out, starboard home” is completely untrue, and is a story that can actually be traced back to the 1968 movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. The myth is that wealthy British passengers travelling to and from India would book cabins on the port side for the outward journey and the starboard side for the home journey. This trick was supposedly designed to keep their cabins out of the direct sunlight.

24 Some Halloween candy discovered in February? : OLD BAG OF TWIX (from “old bag of tricks”)

I remember Twix bars from way back in 1967 when they were introduced in Britain and Ireland. Twix bars made it to the US over a decade later, in 1979. The name “Twix” is a portmanteau of “twin bix”, short for “twin biscuit”.

29 Virginia who wrote “Mrs. Dalloway” : WOOLF

Virginia Woolf was an English author who was active in the period between the two World Wars. Woolf’s most famous novels were “Mrs. Dalloway”, “To the Lighthouse” and “Orlando”. She also wrote a long essay entitled “A Room of One’s Own” in which she states “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

“Mrs. Dalloway” is a novel by Virginia Woolf that was first published in 1925. The story tells of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a day in which she is preparing for a party that she is hosting. The novel has been compared to “Ulysses” by James Joyce, a story about a day in the life of Leopold Bloom.

30 Measure of gold purity : KARAT

A karat (also “carat”, the spelling outside of North America) is a measure of the purity of gold alloys, with 24-karat representing pure gold.

34 ___ duck : LAME

The original usage of the term “lame duck” was on the London Stock Exchange where it referred to a broker who could not honor his debts. The idea was that a lame duck could not keep up with the rest of the flock and so was a target for predators. A lame duck in the world of politics is an incumbent who is nearing the end of his or her term, and who is deemed to have reduced influence as a result.

37 California’s second-busiest airport, after LAX : SFO

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) served as the main base of operations for Virgin America (sold to Alaska Airlines), and is also the maintenance hub for United Airlines.

38 Of the Vatican : PAPAL

Vatican City is a sovereign city-state that is walled off within the city of Rome. Vatican City is about 110 acres in area, and so is the smallest independent state in the world. With about 800 residents, it is also the smallest state in terms of population. Although the Holy See dates back to early Christianity, Vatican City only came into being in 1929. At that time, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini signed a treaty with the Holy See on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy that established the city-state.

40 When the whole clan gets their eyebrows done? : FAMILY TWEEZE (from “family trees”)

Tweezers are small metal pincers used in handling small objects. Back in the 1600s, “tweeze” was the name given to the case in which such an implement was kept, and over time the case gave its name to the device itself. “Tweeze” evolved from “etweese”, the plural of “etwee”, which in turn came from “étui “, the French word for “small case”.

46 CliffsNotes version of “Huckleberry Finn”? : HIGH-SPEED TWAIN (from “high-speed train”)

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain was first published in 1884, not here in the US but rather in England. The original launch planned for the US had to be delayed until the following year because some rascal had defaced the plate for one of the illustrations, making an obscene joke. Once the problem was spotted a new plate had to be made, and 30,000 copies already printed had to be reworked to cover up the obscenity.

CliffsNotes are student study guides here in the US. Publication of CliffsNotes started in 1958 under a licensing arrangement with a Canadian company that was already publishing similar texts called Coles Notes.

51 Sch. near Beverly Hills : UCLA

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) gets more applications from potential students than any other university in the country. UCLA also has more students enrolled than any other university in the state.

The city of Beverly Hills, California was named after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts and also after the hills in that part of California.

56 Jay Gatsby’s love in “The Great Gatsby” : DAISY

“The Great Gatsby” is a 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that tells of the prosperous life of Jay Gatsby during the Roaring 20s. Gatsby develops an obsessive love for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a girl he met while serving during WWI, and meets again some years later after he has improved his social standing.

58 Boutique : SHOP

“Boutique” is a French word describing a small shop.

59 Some volunteers at music festivals, for short : EMTS

Emergency medical technician (EMT)

Down

1 Cape ___, landing place of the Mayflower : COD

Cape Cod is indeed named after the fish. It was first called Cape Cod by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602 as his men caught so many fish there.

The pilgrims aboard the Mayflower were bound for the Colony of Virginia, but famously landed at the hook of Cape Cod after bad weather forced the ship to the north. The passengers decided to make their new home in what is now Massachusetts. As the new colonists would not now fall under the laws of the Colony of Virginia, a majority of adult males formulated and signed an agreement that defined basic rules of governance that would be used once the passengers disembarked the ship. The agreement came to be known as the Mayflower Compact.

2 Big oil cartel, in brief : OPEC

The OPEC cartel was formally established in 1960 and has been headquartered in Vienna since 1965. The US is actually the third largest oil producer in the world (after Russia and Saudi Arabia). One reason America isn’t in OPEC, even though we are a big producer, is that we import a lot more than we export. But we all probably knew that already …

A cartel is a group of independent businesses who cooperate to regulate production, pricing and marketing of their common product(s).

3 Chief butler : MAJORDOMO

A majordomo is a person in charge, or the senior person who might act in the absence of a boss. The term derives from the Latin “major domus” meaning “senior in the house”.

7 Pinocchio, e.g. : LIAR

“The Adventures of Pinocchio” is an 1883 children’s novel by Carlo Collodi. It is all about an animated puppet named Pinocchio and Geppetto, his poor woodcarver father. Pinocchio is prone to telling lies, the stress of which causes his short nose to become longer.

20 Edith who sang “La Vie en Rose” : PIAF

“La Môme Piaf” (the Little Sparrow) was the nickname of France’s most famous singer, Édith Piaf. What a voice this woman had, and what gorgeous ballads she sang. Édith Piaf lived a life that was not without controversy. She was raised by her mother in a brothel in Normandy, and had a pimp as a boyfriend in her teens. She had one child, while very young, born illegitimately and who died at 2-years-old from meningitis. Her singing career started when she was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée. Leplée was murdered soon after, and Piaf was accused of being an accessory to the murder but was later acquitted. During World War II she was branded a traitor by many as she frequently performed for the German occupying forces, although there are other reports of her supporting the resistance movement. Later in her life she was seriously injured in no less than three near-fatal car accidents, including one with her friend, Charles Aznavour. While recovering from her injuries she became addicted to pain medication, an addiction that lasted for the rest of her life. When she died in 1963 she was denied a Catholic funeral mass because of her lifestyle, but the crowds that turned out for her funeral procession managed to stop all traffic in Paris, the only time that has happened since the end of WWII.

The literal translation of the title to the French song “La Vie en rose” is “Life In Pink”, but a better translation would be “Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses”.

21 Complete fool : TWIT

“Twit” is a word not used very often here in America. It’s a slang term that used to be quite common in England where it was used for “someone foolish and idiotic”.

24 Birds that can turn their heads 270° in either direction : OWLS

Much of an owl’s diet consists of small mammals. As a result, humans have used owls for centuries to control rodent populations, usually by placing a nest box for owls on a property. Despite the fact that owls and humans live together in relative harmony, owls have been known to attack humans from time to time. Celebrated English bird photographer Eric Hosking lost an eye when attacked by a tawny owl that he was trying to photograph. Hosking wrote a 1970 autobiography with the wry title “An Eye for a Bird”.

26 African animal with striped hindquarters : OKAPI

The okapi is closely related to the giraffe, although it does have markings on its legs and haunches that resemble those of a zebra. The okapi’s tongue is long enough to reach back and wash its eyeballs, and can go back even further to clean its ears inside and out.

32 1998 DreamWorks film : ANTZ

“Antz” was the first feature movie released by Dreamworks SKG, the studio founded by Steven Spielberg and two partners in 1994. “Antz” came out in 1998, and has a stellar cast that includes Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman and many, many other big names. The cartoon is quite unique in that the facial features of the voice actors are reflected in the animated characters.

33 Eye affliction : STYE

A stye is a bacterial infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes, and is also known as a hordeolum.

35 “The Maltese Falcon” detective : SAM SPADE

Private detective Sam Spade is the main character in Dashiell Hammett’s novel “The Maltese Falcon”. Famously, Spade was played by Humphrey Bogart in the 1941 film adaptation directed by John Huston.

39 Texting equivalent of “This is just my opinion, but …” : FWIW …

For what it’s worth (FWIW)

43 Maker of digital cameras and printers : RICOH

Ricoh is a Japanese company that started out in 1936 and by the year 2000 was the biggest manufacturer of copiers in the world. The company is also well known as a supplier of cameras. The most successful of Ricoh’s lines of cameras is the compact model called a Caplio.

44 Arctic home : IGLOO

The Inuit word for “house” is “iglu”, which we usually write as “igloo”. The Greenlandic (yes, that’s a language) word for “house” is very similar, namely “igdlo”. The walls of igloos are tremendous insulators, due to the air pockets in the blocks of snow.

47 Mild yellow cheese : EDAM

Edam cheese takes its name from the Dutch town of Edam in North Holland. The cheese is famous for its coating of red paraffin wax, a layer of protection that helps Edam travel well and prevents spoiling. You might occasionally come across an Edam cheese that is coated in black wax. The black color indicates that the underlying cheese has been aged for a minimum of 17 weeks.

50 Eating pizza with a fork and knife, to New Yorkers : NO-NO

That was my Dad, ate everything with a knife and fork, including pizza when we forced it on him …