Tag: Immature high score initials on an arcade game crossword clue

Bill’s time: 8m 02s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Sahara-esque : ARID

The name “Sahara” means “desert” in Arabic. The Sahara is just that, a great desert covering almost 4 million square miles of Northern Africa. That’s almost the size of the United States.

5A Exams for high school jrs. : PSATS

Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

10A Private sleeping accommodations? : COTS

The lowest military rank of soldier is often private (pvt.). The term “private” comes from the Middle Ages when “private soldiers” were hired or conscripted by noblemen to form a “private army”. The more generic usage of “private” started in the 1700s.

17A “___ She Lovely” (Stevie Wonder hit) : ISN’T

“Isn’t She Lovely” is a Stevie Wonder song that he released in 1976. The song refers to Wonder’s daughter Aisha Morris, who was born in the prior year.

20A Natural pillow filling : GOOSE FEATHERS (gooseberry)

You don’t see gooseberries very much over here in the US, but they grew wild in Britain and Ireland when I was growing up. Gooseberry pies and jams were very popular.

23A Graffiti, to some : ART

Graffiti is the plural of “graffito”, the Italian for “scribbling”. The word was first used to describe ancient inscriptions on the walls in the ruins of Pompeii.

25A Quinceañeras, e.g. : RITES

“Quinceañera” is a celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday, and is an event common in many parts of Latin America.

37A ___ Minor : URSA

Ursa Minor (Latin for “Smaller Bear”) sits right beside the constellation Draco (Latin for “Dragon”). Ursa Minor used to be considered the wing of Draco, and was once called “Dragon’s Wing”. The tail of the “Smaller Bear” might also be considered as the handle of a ladle, and so the constellation is often referred to as the Little Dipper.

38A Unofficial vote : STRAW POLL (strawberry)

A straw poll is an unofficial vote used to gauge popular opinion. The term “straw poll” may allude to holding up a thin stalk of a plant to determine wind direction, to see where the wind blows.

Like so many fruits and nuts, it seems, strawberries are really misnamed, as they aren’t a berry at all. Botanically speaking, they are aggregate accessory fruits, meaning their fleshy red bodies develop from the flower’s receptacle rather than its ovaries. And, what most of us think of as seeds, the yellow specks scattered across their surface are not actually seeds, but individual microscopic fruits called achenes, each housing a single seed inside.

41A President who was a heavyweight wrestling champion in college : TAFT

William Howard Taft may have been the 27th President of the United States, but his lifelong ambition was to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The future president had served as dean and professor at the Cincinnati Law School. President Taft was able to realize that dream in 1921, eight years after losing his bid for re-election as president. As Chief Justice, this former US President swore in two new presidents: Calvin Coolidge (in 1925) and Herbert Hoover (in 1929). William Howard Taft is also remembered as the most obese president. In the last year of his presidency, he weighed about 340 pounds (he was 5 feet 11 inches tall). Twelve months after leaving the White House, President Taft had dropped 80 pounds and substantially lowered his blood pressure.

48A Old West outlaw who left behind poetic messages after some robberies : BLACK BART (blackberry)

Raspberries are perennial plants in the rose family. Raspberries and blackberries are close cousins, with the fruit looking very similar other than the color. One defining difference between the two fruits is noted when the fruit is picked. The stem (torus) of the fruit remains with the blackberry when it is picked, whereas the stem stays with the plant when the raspberry is picked, leaving the fruit “hollow”.

53A Mount ___ Health System : SINAI

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York is a large teaching hospital, one of the oldest in the country. It was opened in 1852 and originally called the Jews’ Hospital in the City of New York, with the remit of serving the city’s rapidly growing Jewish immigrant community.

54A Immature high score initials on an arcade game : ASS

Our word “arcade” comes from the Latin “arcus” meaning “arc”. The first arcades were passages made from a series of arches. This could be an avenue of trees, and eventually any covered avenue. I remember arcades lined with shops and stores when I was growing up on the other side of the Atlantic. Arcades came to be lined with lots of amusements, resulting in amusement arcades and video game arcades.

57A Hides one’s central point, in a way … with a doubly homophonic hint to 20-, 30-, 38- and 48-Across : BURIES THE LEDE (sounds like “berry’s the lead”)

The opening paragraph in any work of literature is often just called “the lead”. In the world of journalism, this is usually referred to as “the lede”. The derivative phrase “bury the lede” means to fail to stress the most important aspect of a story.

67A 2008 film about a solitary trash-compacting robot : WALL-E

“WALL-E” is a very cute Pixar movie that was released in 2008. The hero of the piece is a robot named WALL-E, who loves his “Hello Dolly”, and who also falls in love with a robot named EVE.

68A Semiaquatic relative of a weasel : MINK

There are two species of mink extant: the European Mink and the American Mink. There used to be a Sea Mink which was much larger than its two cousins, but it was hunted to extinction (for its fur) in the late 1800s. American Minks are farmed over in Europe for fur, and animal rights activists have released many of these animals into the wild when raiding mink farms. As a result the European Mink population has declined due to the presence of its larger and more adaptable American cousin.

Down

1D Female friends from Fuenlabrada : AMIGAS

In Spanish, an “amigo” is a male friend, and an “amiga” a female friend.

4D Top three sights in Fiji? : DOTS

A tittle is a small diacritical mark used in writing. Examples are the cedilla and tilde used in some languages, and the dot over the lowercase letters i and j in English.

7D ___ Minor : ASIA

Asia Minor is also known as Anatolia. It is the geographic part of Asia that protrudes out into the west, towards Europe, and is roughly equivalent to modern-day Turkey.

9D “Family Guy” creator MacFarlane : SETH

Seth MacFarlane is best known for creating the very successful (although they don’t get my vote!) animated TV shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad!”. My kids love ’em …

10D Set of courses offered : CURRICULUM

A curriculum (plural “curricula”) is a set of courses offered by a teaching establishment. “Curriculum” is Latin for “running, course”, and comes from “currere” meaning “to run”.

27D Neptune’s territory : SEA

Neptune was a Roman god, of both the sea and of freshwater. He was sometimes known as “Neptunus Equester” as he was also the god of horses and patron of horse-racing.

33D North Carolina university : ELON

Elon is a town in the Piedmont region of North Carolina located close to the city of Burlington. Elon University is a private liberal arts school founded in 1889.

35D Chicago paper, with “the” : TRIB

“The Chicago Tribune” was first published in 1847. The most famous edition of “The Trib” was probably in 1948 when the headline was “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”, on the occasion of that year’s presidential election. When it turned out that Truman had actually won, the victor picked up the paper with the erroneous headline and posed for photographs with it … a famous, famous photo, that must have stuck in the craw of the editor at the time.

39D ___ Max, singer of the 2018 hit “Sweet but Psycho” : AVA

Singer-songwriter Ava Max’s birth name is Amanda Ava Koci. She was born in Milwaukee to Albanian immigrants. Max has music in her blood, as her mother was an opera singer and her father a pianist. Her debut single “Sweet but Psycho” was released in 2018 and became a global hit.

42D 2001 biopic starring Will Smith : ALI

“Ali” is a 2001 biographical movie about Muhammad Ali, with Will Smith in the title role. Among other things, the film is noted for its realistic fight scenes. The scenes were realistic because Smith was really being hit, as hard as his opponents could manage.

43D The “Beyhive” for Beyoncé, e.g. : FAN BASE

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”.

46D Country bordering Chad and Benin : NIGERIA

Nigeria is in West Africa, and it takes its name from the Niger River that flows through the country. Nigeria is the most populous country on the continent, with over 180 million inhabitants. It is also the most populous member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The landlocked African country called Chad takes its name from the second largest wetland on the continent, which is known as Lake Chad.

The Republic of Benin is a country in West Africa. Benin used to be a French colony, and was known as Dahomey. Dahomey gained independence in 1960. In 1975, the nation changed its name to the People’s Republic of Benin, after the Bight of Benin, the body of water on which the country lies.

49D ___ royale (Champagne cocktail) : KIR

Kir is a French cocktail made by adding a teaspoon or so of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) to a glass, and then topping it off with white wine. The drink is named after Felix Kir, the Mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, who used to offer the drink to his guests. My wife is particularly fond of a variant called a kir royale, in which the white wine is replaced with champagne.

50D Rat (on) : TATTLE

Something described as tattletale is revealing, it gives away a secret. The term is a combination of “tattle” and “tale”, and is probably patterned on the similar word “telltale”. “To tattle” means “to tell secrets”, and the noun “tattletale” applies to someone who tells secrets and informs.

58D Part of the Corn Belt : IOWA

The Corn Belt (sometimes “Grain Belt”) is a region in the Midwest where, since the mid-1800s, corn has been the major crop. Geographically, the Corn Belt covers Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and parts of Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Missouri. About 40% of the world’s corn production comes from the region, and most of that production is used for the feeding of livestock.

60D The word “salary” derives from the Latin for this : SALT

It has been suggested that our term “salary” comes from the Latin “sal” meaning “salt”. The idea is that a Roman soldier’s “salarium” might have been an allowance to purchase salt.

62D Bouncy part of a trampoline : BED

The first modern trampoline was developed in 1936. The apparatus was given its name from the Spanish “trampolín” meaning “diving board”. Trampolines were used during WWII in the training of pilots, to give them exposure to some spatial orientations that would be encountered during flight. Trampolines were also used by astronauts training in the space flight program. The sport of trampolining became an Olympic event starting in the 2000 Games.

63D “A drop of golden sun,” in song : RAY

The famous song that starts off with “Doe, a deer …” is a show tune from the 1959 musical “The Sound of Music”, by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The correct name of the song is “Do-Re-Mi”.