Tag: One cutting corners crossword clue

Bill’s time: 20m 00s

Bill’s errors: 2

• OUT OF DISK SPACE (out of desk space!!!)
• TCI (TCE)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Apple TV comedy that received 20 Emmy nominations for its first season : TED LASSO

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikis first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

14A In which baby spiders develop : EGG SAC

An egg sac is a case made of silk that contains the eggs of a female spider.

20A Home of Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas” : PRADO

The Museo del Prado is in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and has one of the finest art collections in the world. The gallery’s most famous work is “Las Meninas” by Velázquez.

22A Makeshift replacement for a Kleenex : SLEEVE

Even though “Kleenex” is sometimes used today as a generic term for a tissue, it is a brand name owned by Kimberly-Clark. Kleenex facial tissues came about after WW1. The material used in the tissue had been developed as a replacement for cotton that was in high demand as surgical tissue during the war. The material developed was called “Cellucotton” and was used in gas mask filters. It was first sold as a facial tissue under the name “Kleenex” in 1924.

25A Triangular sail : LATEEN

A lateen rig is a triangular sail mounted on a spar that is attached at an angle to the mast.

26A Food court pizzeria : SBARRO

The Sbarro chain of pizza restaurants was founded by Italian immigrants, Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro.

27A Some M.I.T. grads, for short : EES

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

30A Bob who hosted “America’s Funniest Home Videos” : SAGET

Bob Saget was a real enigma to me. He made a name for himself playing very sugary roles in TV shows like “Full House” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, and yet in the world of stand-up comedy Saget was known for very blue and raunchy routines.

31A A noble gas : NEON

The noble gases (also “rare gases”) are those elements on the extreme right of the Periodic Table. Because of their “full” complement of electrons, noble gases are very unreactive. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.

38A Private investigator, informally : TEC

“Tec” is a slang term meaning “private detective” or “private investigator” (PI).

41A Cheese in a wax coating : 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.

45A Persian Gulf nation : IRAQ

Iraq is often called the “Cradle of Civilization” as it was home to Sumer, which was the earliest known civilization on the planet. By 5000 BC the Sumerian people were practicing year-round agriculture and had a specialized labor force. For the first time, a whole race was able to settle in one place by storing food, instead of having to migrate in a pattern dictated by crops and grazing land.

47A Sneaker brand that popularized cantilever heels : AVIA

The Avia brand name for athletic shoes was chosen as “avia” is the Latin word for “to fly”, and suggests the concept of aviation. Avia was founded in Oregon in 1979.

50A Actress Edebiri of “The Bear” : AYO

Actor, comedian and television writer Ayo Edebiri gained prominence for her role as Sydney Adamu, the young sous-chef in the very successful Hulu series “The Bear”.

58A The planets in our solar system, e.g. : OCTET

Pluto was discovered in 1930, and was welcomed as the ninth planet in our solar system. It is relatively small in size, just one fifth of the mass of our own moon. In the seventies, astronomers began to discover more large objects in the solar system, including Eris, a “scattered disc object” at the outer reaches. Given that Eris is actually bigger than Pluto, and other objects really aren’t that much smaller, Pluto’s status as a planet was drawn into question. In 2006 there was a scientific definition for a “planet” agreed for the first time, resulting in Pluto being relegated to the status of “dwarf planet”, along with Eris. This relegation led to the word “pluto” being used as a verb meaning “give a less important position than before”.

59A Sci-fi princess : LEIA

The full name of the character played by Carrie Fisher in the “Star Wars” series of films is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and later Leia Organa Solo. Leia is the twin sister of Luke Skywalker, and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker (aka “Darth Vader”) and Padmé Amidala. Leia is raised by her adoptive parents Bail and Breha Organa. She eventually marries Han Solo.

60A Stretchy material : LYCRA

What we call spandex in the US is known as lycra in Britain and Ireland. “Spandex” was chosen as the name for the elastic fiber as it is an anagram of “expands”.

62A Freight barge : SCOW

A scow is a flat-bottomed boat with squared-off ends that’s often used for transportation, usually pushed or pulled by a tugboat. Often, a scow can be seen carrying junk or garbage.

65A La Città Eterna : ROMA

In Italian, Rome is known as “La Città Eterna” (The Eternal City).

75A Group of humpbacks : POD

The males of the humpback whale species are known particularly for their song. This song can last up to 20 minutes and can be repeated for hours at a time. It is usually assumed that the song is part of a mating ritual.

76A ___ Bora (embattled Afghan region) : TORA

The famous cave that almost certainly housed Osama Bin Laden for a while was in Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. Tora Bora is not far (~ 30 mi) from what used to be an even more famous spot: the Khyber Pass. “Tora Bora” is a Pashto name which translates to “black dust”.

77A Tel ___ : AVIV

The full name of Israel’s second largest city is Tel Aviv-Yafo. “Tel Aviv” translates into “Spring Mound”, and is a name that was chosen in 1910. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a housing development outside the port city of Jaffa. Tel Aviv and Jaffa merged in 1950.

78A Designer Saint Laurent : YVES

Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) was an Algerian-born French fashion designer. Saint Laurent started off working as an assistant to Christian Dior at the age of 17. Dior died just four years later, and as a very young man Saint-Laurent was named head of the House of Dior. In 1960, Saint Laurent was conscripted into the French Army and ended up in a military hospital after suffering a mental breakdown from the hazing inflicted on him by his fellow soldiers. His treatment included electroshock therapy and administration of sedatives and psychoactive drugs. He was released from hospital, managed to pull his life back together and started his own fashion house. A remarkable story …

79A Little bits of energy : ERGS

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, with one joule comprising 10 million ergs. It has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

81A New Zealanders, familiarly : KIWIS

Unlike many nicknames for people of a particular country, the name “Kiwi” for a New Zealander isn’t offensive at all. The term comes from the flightless bird called the kiwi, which is endemic to New Zealand and is the country’s national symbol. “Kiwi” is a Maori word, and the plural (when referring to the bird) is simply “kiwi”. However, when you have two or more New Zealanders with you, they are Kiwis (note the “s”, and indeed the capital “K”!).

95A Part of a bouquet, in Bogotá : FLOR

In Spanish, a “flor” (flower) might be a “violeta o rosa” (violet or rose).

Bogotá is the capital city of Colombia. Noted for having many libraries and universities, Bogotá is sometimes referred to as “The Athens of South America”.

98A “Your emery board will never fit in this tiny toiletry bag” : FILE TOO LARGE!

Emery is a very hard type of rock that is crushed for use as an abrasive. Emery paper is made by gluing small particles of emery to paper. Emery boards are just emery paper with a cardboard backing. And emery boards are primarily used for filing nails.

105A Word found in all but four state constitutions, but not the U.S. Constitution : GOD

The phrase “(wall of) separation of church and state” is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, as he used it in an 1802 letter that he wrote to a group of Baptists from Danbury, Connecticut. Jefferson was referring to concepts called out in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The text of that amendment is:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I’ve heard the argument made that separation of church and state is not called out in the Constitution, citing the fact that the phrase isn’t there. It’s true, the words “separation of church and state” aren’t used, but the First Amendment is still there.

106A Part of M.O. : OPERANDI

“Modus operandi” (plural “modi operandi”) is the Latin for “mode of operating”, a term we’ve been using since the mid-1600s. It’s often used by the police when referring to the methods typically employed by a particular perpetrator of a crime, and is usually abbreviated to “M.O.”

107A Symbol of transformation in “The Silence of the Lambs” : MOTH

“The Silence of the Lambs” is a 1991 psychological drama based on a novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. Jodie Foster plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling, and Anthony Hopkins plays the creepy cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter. “The Silence of the Lambs” swept the Big Five Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay) for that year, being only the third movie ever to do so. The other two so honored were “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975).

111A Large flightless birds : RHEAS

The rhea is a flightless bird that is native to South America. It takes its name from the Greek Titan Rhea. That’s an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word meaning “ground”.

112A National Poetry Mo. : APR

April was chosen as National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets in 1996.

116A Beverage brewed outside using natural heat : SUN TEA

Sun tea is tea that is made simply by dropping tea into water and letting it “brew” in the sun for a few hours, and then adding ice. A blog reader has kindly pointed out that he was told by a doctor that sun tea has the potential to be dangerous. The sun-heated brew is warm enough and sits long enough to incubate any bacterial contamination that may be present. I think I’ll stick to my regular iced tea that is speedily brewed at high temperature …

120A ___ beef : CORNED

Corned beef is beef that has been cured with salt. “Corn” is a term describing a grain of salt, giving the dish its name. Corned beef is also known as “salt beef”, and “bully beef” if stored in cans (from the French “bouilli” meaning “boiled”).

128A Jane who received a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award : FONDA

Jane Fonda is the daughter of Henry Fonda, sister of Peter Fonda, and aunt of Bridget Fonda, making the Fondas quite the acting family. Jane Fonda had many memorable screen performances, but is equally memorable for her anti-war activism. Most famously she was outspoken against the Vietnam War, going so far as to visit North Vietnam during the height of the conflict in 1972, posing for photographs and making radio broadcasts denouncing American leaders as “war criminals”. For her stance, Fonda was nicknamed “Hanoi Jane”.

Down

1D Major N.Y.S.E. events : IPOS

An initial public offering (IPO) is the very first offer of stock for sale by a company on the open market. In other words, an IPO marks the first time that a company is traded on a public exchange. Companies have an IPO to raise capital to expand (usually).

2D Beat handily : DRUB

A drubbing is a beating, one given either literally or figuratively. The term “drub” dates back in English to the 17th century when it was imported from the Arabic word for a beating, i.e. “darb”.

6D Cable co. that was purchased by AT&T in 1999 : TCI

Tele-Communications, Inc (TCI) was the largest provider of cable television service in the US for a while. The company was founded in 1968 and was headquartered in Denver. TCI was bought by AT&T in 1999.

14D Fluency-building subj. : ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL)

15D Prosthetic facial feature of Peter Falk : GLASS EYE

Peter Falk was an actor from New York City who became most associated with the title role in the cop show “Columbo”. In addition to his abilities as an actor, Falk was known for his squint. This squint was the result of a glass eye that he wore from the age of three. The young Falk developed a form of cancer that necessitated the original eye’s removal.

17D Pete who co-wrote “If I Had a Hammer” : SEEGER

“If I Had a Hammer” is a song written in 1949 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. The song has been released by many artists, but my guess would be that the most famous recordings are by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962, and by Trini Lopez in 1963.

18D Skin care company : AVEENO

Aveeno is a manufacturer of skincare and haircare products that was founded in 1945. The name Aveeno comes from the Latin name for the common oat, i.e. Avena sativa.

32D Kind of orange : NAVEL

Navel oranges are the ones with the small second fruit that grows at the base, at the “navel”. The navel orange has been traced back to a single mutation that took place in an orange tree in Brazil many years ago. The mutation also rendered the fruit seedless and hence sterile, so it is propagated using grafts.

35D Silicon Valley giant : INTEL

Intel used to be the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips, but has faced challenges in recent years, apparently “missing” the AI boom. The company was founded in 1968, and the name “Intel” is derived from the term “int(egrated) el(ectronics)”. Recognition of the Intel brand has been greatly helped by the success of the “Intel Inside” campaign that started back in 1991.

38D Pioneering DVR brand : TIVO

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) that revolutionized the way we watch television. The first TiVo devices were installed in homes in 1999, when they were the first consumer DVRs to hit the market. TiVo was originally marketed as a way to “pause live TV.” It quickly became known for its ability to record TV shows and movies, allowing viewers to watch them at their convenience.

39D George Orwell’s first name at birth : ERIC

“George Orwell” was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, the famous British author of the classics “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm”.

40D Purchase for the Atari 2600 : CARTRIDGE

Kids today probably don’t realize that we had a video game console back in the seventies, and it wasn’t a Nintendo nor was it a PlayStation. The Atari 2600 game system introduced the idea of separating out computing hardware (the console) from the game code (a cartridge). The same concept persists to this day, although cartridges have been displaced by discs and downloads.

42D One cutting corners : MITER SAW

A miter joint is one in which two pieces of wood are joined, usually at ninety degrees with the ends of each individual piece of wood cut at 45 degrees. The four joints in the corners of a picture frame are often miter joints.

61D V-shaped designs : CHEVRONS

A chevron is a band that is shaped like an inverted “V”. One example of a chevron is the insignia that indicates rank on a military uniform.

66D Mathematician Lovelace : ADA

Ada Lovelace’s real name and title was Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. Lovelace was fascinated by mathematics and wrote about the work done by Charles Babbage in building his groundbreaking mechanical computer. In some of her notes, she proposed an algorithm for Babbage’s machine to compute Bernoulli numbers. This algorithm is recognized by many as the world’s first computer program and so Lovelace is sometimes called the first “computer programmer”. There is a computer language called “Ada” that was named in her honor. The Ada language was developed from 1977 to 1983 for the US Department of Defense.

68D Human organ with the ability to regenerate itself : LIVER

The human liver has many functions, one of which is to store vital substances. The list of substances stored in the liver includes glucose (as glycogen), vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin K, iron and copper. Another function of the liver is to produce bile, a substance stored in the gallbladder that aids in the digestion of fats.

71D Court order : WRIT

A writ is an order issued by some formal body (these days, usually a court) with the order being in “written” form. Warrants and subpoenas are examples of writs.

72D With, in Oise : AVEC

The department in northern France known as Oise is named for the River Oise. The river rises in Belgium and joins up with the River Seine just outside Paris.

74D N.H.L. team with the longest Stanley Cup drought, familiarly : LEAFS

The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team was founded way back in 1917. As members of the National Hockey League, the Maple Leafs have won the Stanley Cup championships thirteen times, the second best record in the league. Having said that, the last championship the team won was in 1967, and the resulting “drought” is the longest in the NHL.

75D Smallest Canadian prov. : PEI

Prince Edward Island (PEI) is a maritime Canadian province. The island at the center of the province was named for Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III and the father of Queen Victoria. PEI is the smallest Canadian province, both in terms of land area and population.

82D Mallorca, por ejemplo : ISLA

The Island of Majorca (“Isla Mallorca” in Spanish) is Spain’s largest island, and is located in the Mediterranean Sea. The population of the island ballooned over the past few decades as Majorca became a mecca for tourists from all over Europe.

85D Anatomical appendage that only humans and gorillas have : UVULA

The uvula is a conical fleshy projection hanging down at the back of the soft palate that plays an important role in human speech, particularly in the making of “guttural” sounds. The Latin word for “grape” is “uva”, so “uvula” is a “little grape”.

87D Modern “seize the day” : YOLO

You only live once (YOLO)

“Carpe diem” is a quotation from Horace, one of ancient Rome’s leading lyric poets. “Carpe diem” translates from Latin as “seize the day” or “enjoy the day”. The satirical motto of a procrastinator is “carpe mañana”, “translating” as “seize tomorrow”.

92D Ship that transported the Golden Fleece : ARGO

The Golden Fleece was the fleece of a winged ram made from pure gold that was held by King Aeëtes in Colchis, a kingdom on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The fleece is central to the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, who set out on a quest to steal the fleece by order of King Pelias.

99D Tech debut of 2007 : IPHONE

Apple started development of the iPhone in 2004 in collaboration with Cingular Wireless (now AT&T Mobility). The confidential program was given the name “Project Purple”, and took thirty months to complete at a cost of about $150 million. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 at the Macworld convention in San Francisco.

101D ___ Mae Brown (Whoopi’s role in “Ghost”) : ODA

Oda Mae Brown is the psychic medium in the movie “Ghost”, and is played by Whoopi Goldberg.

The fabulous film “Ghost” was the highest-grossing movie at the box office in 1990, bringing in over $500 million, despite only costing $21 million to make. Stars of the film are Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. You might get a chance to check out the stage musical adaptation “Ghost The Musical”, which debuted in 2011 and toured the UK and US.

102D World’s most-produced organic compound : ETHENE

Ethylene (also called “ethene”) has a gazillion uses, including as an anesthetic and an aid to hastening the ripening of fruit. Ethylene’s most common use is as a major raw material in the manufacture of plastics (like polyethylene).

108D Property of curium, but not cerium : HARD C

The word “curium” starts with a hard letter C.

110D Eavesdrop, e.g. : SNOOP

To eavesdrop is to listen in on someone else’s conversation without being invited to do so. The term comes from the practice of spies loitering in the area just outside the walls of a house, particularly in the “eavesdrip”, the ground close to a house that catches the drips of rainwater falling from the eaves of the roof.

113D Surrealist Magritte : RENE

Belgian artist René Magritte was a surrealist. His most recognized work may be “The Son of Man”, a painting he created as a self-portrait. It is the work that shows a man in a bowler hat with his face covered by an apple. The image features prominently in a great movie, the 1999 remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

The cultural movement known as Surrealism emerged in the 1920s, and grew out of the Dada activities that were a response to WWI. The term “surrealist” was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire, when he used it in the preface of his play “Les Mamelles de Tirésias”.

117D Fish in niçoise salad : TUNA

A Niçoise salad is known as a “salade niçoise” in its native France, where it was named for the city of Nice in the south of the country. The original contains no cooked vegetables, but here in North America there are almost always included some boiled potatoes.

119D Actor Brody of “The O.C.” : ADAM

Actor Adam Brody’s big break came with a recurring role (Seth Cohen) on the drama TV show “The O.C.” Brody married actress and model Leighton Meester in 2014.

“The O.C.” is a teen drama that aired for four seasons on Fox finishing up in 2007. I never watched it, but I understand that it is set in Newport Beach in Southern California. And, “O.C.” stands for “Orange County”.

121D “Spring forward” hrs. : DST

On the other side of the Atlantic, daylight saving time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring (“spring forward”), and backwards in the fall (“fall back”) so that afternoons have more daylight. Here in the US, DST starts on the second Sunday of March, and ends on the first Sunday of November.