Tag: It goes from about 540 to 1700 crossword clue

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Constructed by: Bruce Haight
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Underwear for Pros

Themed answers are common phrases that have been reinterpreted as UNDERWEAR for particular sets of professionals:

• 17A. Underwear for judges? : LEGAL BRIEFS
• 24A. Underwear for Frisbee enthusiasts? : DISC JOCKEYS
• 34A. Underwear for beginners? : AMATEUR BOXERS
• 47A. Underwear for actors? : MOVIE SHORTS
• 55A. Underwear for tycoons? : CASH DRAWERS

Bill’s time: 5m 27s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14. Trunk of the body : TORSO

“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning the “trunk of a statue”, and is a term that we imported into English.

19. Ginger ___ (soft drink) : ALE

The brand most closely associated with ginger ale is Canada Dry. “Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale” was first formulated in 1904 by a Canadian chemist called John McLoughlin from Ontario. Prohibition in the United States helped sales of the drink as it was particularly effective in masking the taste of illegally-produced homemade liquor.

20. Singer Grande with the #1 albums “Yours Truly” and “My Everything” : ARIANA

Ariana Grande is a singer and actress from Boca Raton, Florida. Grande plays the role of Cat Valentine on the sitcom “Victorious” that aired for four season on Nickelodeon. Grande’s singing career took off with the release of the 2011 album “Victorious: Music from the Hit TV Show”.

22. The “O” of B.Y.O.B. : OWN

Bring Your Own Beer/Bottle/Booze (BYOB)

24. Underwear for Frisbee enthusiasts? : DISC JOCKEYS

The Frisbee concept started back in 1938 with a couple who had an upturned cake pan that they were tossing between each other on Santa Monica Beach in California. They were offered 25 cents for the pan on the spot, and as pans could be bought for 5 cents, the pair figured there was a living to be earned.

32. Who says “To be, or not to be: that is the question” : HAMLET

There has been centuries of debate about how one interprets Hamlet’s soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be …”. My favorite opinion is that Hamlet is weighing up the pros and cons of suicide (“to not be”).

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles …

39. Soap operas, e.g. : DRAMAS

The original soap operas were radio dramas back in the fifties. Given the structure of society back then, the daytime broadcasts were aimed at women working in the home as housewives. For some reason the sponsors of those radio shows, and the television shows that followed, were soap manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. And that’s how the “soap” opera got its name …

42. Belgian diamond center : ANTWERP

The port city of Antwerp is the second most populous urban area in Belgium after the capital Brussels. To most of the French-speaking population of the country, Antwerp is known as Anvers. The city’s economy is driven by the volume of traffic through the port, as well as trade in diamonds.

54. Nasty Amin : IDI

Idi Amin ruled Uganda as a dictator from 1971 until 1979. Amin started his professional career as a cook in the Colonial British Army. Amin seized power from President Milton Obote in a 1971 coup d’état. The former cook eventually gave himself the title “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular”.

55. Underwear for tycoons? : CASH DRAWERS

Our word “cash” comes from the Middle French “caisse” meaning “money box”.

60. Furry sitcom alien : ALF

“ALF” is a sitcom that aired in the late eighties. The title character is a hand-puppet, and supposedly an alien named Gordon Shumway from the planet Melmac. The alien crash-landed into the house of amateur radio enthusiast Willie Tanner. Tanner renamed the intruder “ALF”, standing for “alien life form”.

62. ___ Marie, singer of the 1985 hit “Lovergirl” : TEENA

Teena Marie was a very successful R&B singer who was born Mary Christine Brockert in Santa Monica, California.

63. Director Spike : LEE

Film director Spike Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia but has very much made New York City his home and place of work. Most of Lee’s films are set in New York City, including his first feature film, 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It”. That film was shot over two weeks with a budget of $175,000. “She’s Gotta Have It” grossed over $7 million at the US box office.

Down

1. Cardinals, on scoreboards : STL

The St. Louis Cardinals were originally called the “Brown Stockings”, changing their name to the “Perfectos” in 1899. That obviously didn’t go down well with the locals, as the owners changed it one year later to the Cardinals.

4. Romanov ruler : TSAR

The House of Romanov was the second and last imperial dynasty to rule over Russia, after the Rurik dynasty. The reign of the Romanovs ended when Emperor Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917. Famously, Nicholas II and his immediate family were murdered soon after he stepped down, and other members of the Romanov Dynasty were sent into exile by the Bolsheviks.

5. Opponent of stripes in billiards : SOLIDS

One side (player) in a game of pool uses the “solid” balls, the other the “stripes”.

6. Shore fliers : TERNS

Terns are a family of seabirds. They are similar to gulls, but more slender and more lightly built. Many species of tern are known for their long-distance migrations, with the Arctic tern migrating so far that it is believed to see more daylight in a year than any other animal.

7. Relating to part of the pelvis : ILIAC

The ilium is the upper portion of the hipbone.

8. Who wrote the line “Once upon a midnight dreary …” : POE

The first verse of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

9. Rating on a Coppertone bottle, for short : SPF

In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …

Coppertone is a brand of sunscreen that is owned by Bayer. There is a famous advertising campaign featuring the “Coppertone girl”, in which a little dog pulls at the bathing suit of a pig-tailed girl revealing a cheeky tanline. A 1965 TV version of the ad featured 3-year-old Jodie Foster in her first acting role.

21. Heart health evaluation, for short : EKG TEST

An EKG measures electrical activity in the heart. Back in my homeland of Ireland, an EKG is known as an ECG (for electrocardiogram). We use the German name in the US, Elektrokardiogramm, giving us EKG. Apparently the abbreviation EKG is preferred as ECG might be confused (if poorly handwritten, I guess) with EEG, the abbreviation for an electroencephalogram.

22. Extra periods, in brief : OTS

In some sports, a tied game or match is decided in overtime, with the winner being the first team or player to score a point or a goal. That game-winning score might be referred to as the “golden goal”.

25. Doorframe parts : JAMBS

A door or window jamb is the vertical portion of the frame. The term “jamb” comes from the French word “jambe” meaning “leg”.

26. Nobel Peace Prize city : OSLO

The Norwegian Nobel Institute was established in Oslo in 1904. The main task of the Institute is to assist the Norwegian Nobel Committee in selecting the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and to organize the annual Nobel event.

27. Cereal in a party mix : CHEX

Chex Mix is a party mix that includes Chex cereal as a major ingredient. The first recipe appeared on boxes of Chex cereal in 1952.

33. Notre Dame’s Parseghian : ARA

Ara Parseghian coached the Notre Dame football team from 1964 to 1974, a period known as “The Era of Ara”.

36. Distinctive features of Mr. Spock : EARS

Leonard Nimoy played the logical Mr. Spock in the original “Star Trek” television series. Spock has to be the most popular character on the show, and he kept popping up in “Star Trek” spin offs. Nimoy first worked alongside William Shatner (Captain Kirk) in an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (I loved that show as a kid!), with Nimoy playing a bad guy and Shatner playing an U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

37. Whistle blowers : REFEREES

Back in the early 17th century, a referee was someone who examined patent applications. We started using the same term for a person presiding over a sporting event in the 1820s. “Referee” is derivative of the verb “to refer”, and literally describes someone who has the authority to make a decision by “referring to” a book, archive etc.

38. Whole bunch : SLEW

Our usage of “slew” to mean “large number” has nothing to do with the verb “to slew” meaning “to turn, skid”. The noun “slew” come into English in the early 1800s from the Irish word “sluagh” meaning “host, crowd, multitude”.

42. It goes from about 540 to 1700 : AM DIAL

In telecommunications, a radio signal is transmitted using a sinusoidal carrier wave. Information is transmitted using this carrier wave in two main ways, by varying (modulating) the instantaneous amplitude (signal strength) of the carrier wave, and by modulating the instantaneous frequency of the carrier wave. The former is referred to as an AM signal (“amplitude modulation”), and the latter as an FM signal (“frequency modulation”).

44. Laura vis-à-vis Rob Petrie, on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” : TV WIFE

“The Dick Van Dyke Show” is a sitcom that ran from 1961 to 1966 starring Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob and Laura Petrie. This classic show was created by the great Carl Reiner, who also had a supporting role on screen.

45. Use a swizzle stick : STIR

I drank a rum swizzle or two on the island of Bermuda many years ago, and very nice they were too. They are so popular on Bermuda that the swizzle is often called the island’s national drink. The drink also gave the name to the “swizzle stick”, which was introduced in cocktails in 1933.

48. Actor Milo : O’SHEA

Milo O’Shea was a great Irish character actor from Dublin who has appeared in everything from “Romeo and Juliet” to “The West Wing”. O’Shea passed away in 2013, in New York City.

55. Corp. money honcho : CFO

Chief financial officer (CFO)

“Honcho” is a slang term used for a leader. The word comes to us from Japanese, in which language a “hancho” is a squad (han) leader (cho).

58. Genetic stuff : RNA

The two most common nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which play crucial roles in genetics. The DNA contains the genetic instructions used to keep living organisms functioning, and RNA is used to transcribe that information from the DNA to protein “generators” called ribosomes.

59. Second word of “The Star-Spangled Banner” : SAY

“The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key was adopted as the US national anthem in 1931. The song had been used officially by the US Navy since 1889, and was played when raising the flag.