Tag: Look for people to scam online crossword clue

Bill’s time: 17m 27s

Bill’s errors: 2

• ARMATA (Arsata)
• I’M SO MAD (I’m so sad … because I got this so wrong)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Direct kind of fight : MANO A MANO

“Mano a mano” is Spanish for “hand-to-hand”, and is used in English to mean “face-to-face”.

18 Burton who hosted “Reading Rainbow” : LEVAR

Actor LeVar Burton is very much associated with two iconic roles on television, i.e. young Kunta Kinte in “Roots” and Geordi La Forge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Burton also hosted the children’s PBS show “Reading Rainbow” for many years. His portrayal of Kunta Kinte in 1977 was Burton’s first acting job. Indeed, Burton’s audition for the part was the first in his professional career!

19 Dating app blurb : BIO

The use of the word “blurb”, to describe a publicity notice on a book jacket, dates back to 1907 when it was used by American humorist Gelett Burgess. Burgess used a picture of a fictitious young woman named Miss Belinda Blurb on the dust jacket of a limited run of his 1906 book “Are You a Bromide?” That jacket proclaimed “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’!” The term persists to this day, without the young damsel.

25 1/768 of a gal. : TSP

Teaspoon (tsp.)

30 ___ Flakes (old Post cereal) : OAT

C. W. Post decided to get into the cereal business after visiting the Battle Creek Sanitarium operated by John Harvey Kellogg. Post was interested in the chemistry of digestion and was inspired by the dietary products offered by Kellogg at his sanitarium. The first breakfast cereal Post introduced was Grape-Nuts, way back in 1897.

40 Look for people to scam online : PHISH

Phishing is the online practice of stealing usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a site that deceptively looks reliable and trustworthy. Phishers often send out safe-looking emails or instant messages that direct someone to an equally safe-looking website where the person might inadvertently enter sensitive information. “Phishing” is a play on the word “fishing”, as in “fishing for passwords, PINs, etc.”

46 Obituary word : NEE

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

50 Round-bottomed vessel : WOK

“Wok” is a Cantonese word, and is the name for the frying pan now used in many Asian cuisines.

52 Batik artist, e.g. : DYER

Genuine batik cloth is produced by applying wax to the parts of the cloth that are not to be dyed. After the cloth has been dyed, it is dried and then dipped in a solvent that dissolves the wax. Although wax-resist dyeing of fabric has existed in various parts of the world for centuries, it is most closely associated historically with the island of Java in Indonesia.

53 Shirt protector : BIB

The word “bib” comes from the Latin “bibere” meaning “to drink”, as does our word “imbibe”. So, maybe a bib is less about spilling the food, and more about soaking up the booze …

54 Beckett title character : GODOT

“Waiting for Godot” is a play by novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett that premiered in 1953. Irishman Beckett actually wrote the piece in French, under the title “En attendant Godot”. He then translated the play into English himself.

57 Hwy. through St. Paul, Minn. : US-TEN

US Route 10 is a highway that used to run from Detroit, Michigan to Seattle, Washington. Dating back to 1926, interstates have replaced some of its length, so that now US-10 runs from Bay City, Michigan to West Fargo, North Dakota. There’s a ferry service connecting Ludington, Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin across Lake Michigan. That ferry service is an officially designated section of US-10.

63 Locale of the Île de la Cité : SEINE

There are two famous “îles” (islands) in the middle of the River Seine in Paris, one being the Île de la Cité, and the other Île Saint-Louis. Île de la Cité is the most renowned of the two, as it is home to the cathedral of Notre Dame.

66 They provide a clearer picture : HD SCREENS

High-definition (HD)

Down

2 Printed cotton fabrics : CALICOES

In North America, calico is a brightly printed cloth made from cotton material. Over on the other side of the Atlantic, calico is a plain white cotton cloth.

4 Mo. for Guy Fawkes Day : NOV

Even when I was a kid living in England in the 1960s, we would make up an effigy of Guy Fawkes to parade around the streets in the runup to Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th. Guy Fawkes was the man who led the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British king and Parliament on November 5, 1605. We kids would use the effigy to raise money from strangers by approaching them with the phrase “penny for the guy”. The money collected was used to buy fireworks that we’d shoot off on Bonfire Night, the name given to the evening of Guy Fawkes Day. The effigy known as “the guy” gave rise in the UK to the use of “guy” to describe a poorly-dressed man. By the mid-1800s, the term “guy” was adopted into American-English to mean simply “fellow”.

5 Astronaut Jemison : MAE

Mae Jemison was a crew member on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a 1992 mission, and as such became the first African-American woman to travel in space. She is also a big fan of “Star Trek” and appeared on an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. That made Jemison the first real astronaut to appear on any of the “Star Trek” shows.

6 Boomer at a concert : AMP

An electric guitar, for example, needs an amplifier (amp) to take the weak signal created by the vibration of the strings and turn it into a signal powerful enough for a loudspeaker.

12 Where Colin Kaepernick played college football : NEVADA

Colin Kaepernick was the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. In high school, Kaepernick was known as a baseball pitcher rather than a football player. He was a two-time California all-state baseball player and received several offers of baseball scholarships. Kaepernick finally received an offer of a football scholarship by the University of Nevada, Reno.

31 Mimicking : A LA

The phrase “in the style of” can be translated as “alla” in Italian and “à la” in French.

38 Zero : NARY A ONE

The adjective “nary” means “not one”, as in “nary a soul” or even “nary a one”.

43 Prez with the same initials as an N.Y.C. landmark : GW BUSH

President George W. Bush (GWB) is named for his father, George H. W. Bush. The “W” in the name of both father and son stands for “Walker”. Walker was the family name of President George H. W. Bush’s mother, Dorothy Walker.

New York City’s George Washington Bridge (GWB) spans the Hudson River and links the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan with Fort Lee in New Jersey. When the bridge was opened in 1931 it had one deck, allowing six lanes of traffic to traverse the river. The bridge’s designer allowed for the construction of a second deck under the first, and this was added in 1946. Today, the bridge carries 14 lanes of traffic, which is more than any other suspension bridge anywhere. As a result, the GWB is the world’s busiest vehicular bridge. Some locals refer to that second deck as “Martha”, a reference to the president’s wife.

49 ___ Scott College, one of the Seven Sisters of the South : AGNES

Agnes Scott College is a private school in Decatur, Georgia. It is a liberal arts women’s college.

51 Tribe that traditionally spoke Chiwere : OTOES

Chiwere is a Siouan language spoken by the Otoe people, as well as by the Missouria and Iowa.

55 Trade gossip : DISH

To dish the dirt is to talk about someone or something without regard to veracity. The phrase comes from “dish” (in the sense of dishing out food) and “dirt” (in the sense of negative information). To be dishy is to be given to gossip.

58 Period, with “the” : … END

The punctuation mark used to terminate a sentence is called a “period” in American English, and a “full stop” in British English. The same punctuation mark has no symbol in Morse code, so the word STOP is used instead in telegraphy.

60 Japanese electronics giant : NEC

“NEC” is the name that the Nippon Electric Company chose for itself outside of Japan after a rebranding exercise in 1983.

61 Y.M.C.A. course : CPR

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has for decades involved the simultaneous compression of the chest to pump blood using the heart, and artificial respiration by blowing air into the lungs. Nowadays emergency services are placing more emphasis on heart compressions, and less on artificial respiration.

The YMCA (the Y) is a worldwide movement that has its roots in London, England. There, in 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded with the intent of promoting Christian principles through the development of “a healthy spirit, mind and body”. The founder, George Williams, saw the need to create YMCA facilities for young men who were flocking to the cities as the Industrial Revolution flourished. He saw that these men were frequenting taverns and brothels, and wanted to offer a more wholesome alternative.

62 Norma McCorvey’s alias in a famous court case : ROE

Roe v. Wade was decided in a US District Court in Texas in 1970, and reached the Supreme Court on appeal. The basic decision by the Supreme Court was that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy applied to an abortion, but that this right had to be balanced with a state’s interest in protecting an unborn child and a mother’s health. The Court further defined that the state’s interest became stronger with each trimester of a pregnancy. So, in the first trimester the woman’s right to privacy outweighed any state interest. In the second trimester the state’s interest in maternal health was deemed to be strong enough to allow state regulation of abortion for the sake of the mother. In the third trimester the viability of the fetus dictated that the state’s interest in the unborn child came into play, so states could regulate or prohibit abortions, except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger. I’m no lawyer, but that’s my understanding of the initial Supreme Court decision …