Tag: Sex work crossword clue

Bill’s time: 10m 27s

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Withholding something? : TAX

Tax withholding is the process of deducting income tax from an employee’s paycheck and sending it directly to the government. This ensures that individuals pay taxes on their income throughout the year, rather than owing a large sum at the end of the tax year.

11A Sex work? : KAMA SUTRA

The “Kama Sutra” is renowned for its descriptions of positions that can be used for sexual intercourse, but the sutra includes many other texts that deal with various matters of a sexual nature, including how to woo a woman, the conduct of a “chief wife”, the conduct of “other wives”, how to make money as a courtesan, and much more.

14A Screen name : IMAX

The IMAX Corporation, which is behind the IMAX film format, is a Canadian company. The impetus for developing the system came after Expo ’67 in Montreal. Back then large format screenings were accomplished using multiple projectors with multiple screens, with images basically stitched together. The team behind the IMAX technology set out to simplify things, and developed a single-camera, single-projector system.

15A Tennis feat involving four consecutive major tournament wins in two calendar years : SERENA SLAM

The term “Serena Slam” is a reference to tennis star Serena Williams. It describes the winning of four major tournaments in a row. This compares with a “Grand Slam”, the winning of the four major tournaments within the same season.

20A World Economic Forum, e.g., for short : NGO

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

Davos is a resort town in the Swiss Alps. Known as a health resort in the 19th century, today it is best known as the host of the World Economic Forum, which is an annual meeting of political and corporate leaders from around the world.

21A Tripping : ON LSD

LSD (known colloquially as “acid”) is lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …

22A Style secured with a scrunchie : PONYTAIL

When Rommy Revson patented the Scrunchie hair tie in 1987, she called it a “Scunci”, after her pet poodle.

24A Tobiko or masago : ROE

In Japanese cuisine, the roe of salmon is called “ikura” and the roe of flying fish is called “tobiko”.

The Japanese dish called “masago” is actually the roe of the capelin fish. Masago is often mixed with wasabi and served as “wasabi caviar”.

28A Pharyngitis docs : ENTS

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

37A Blind component : SLAT

Venetian blinds probably did not originate in Venice, and rather were brought to Europe from Persia by Venetian traders. Apparently, the French haven’t forgotten the true origins of the design as they call Venetian blinds “Les Persiennes”.

41A Wiseacre : SMARTY-PANTS

The word “wiseacre” dates back to the late 1500s, when it was a botched translation of the Middle Dutch word “wijsegger” meaning “soothsayer”. Originally, there was no derogatory connotation to the word, but over time a wiseacre had become a know-it-all.

43A What a closed fist with an extended index finger represents, in A.S.L. : ONE

American Sign Language (ASL)

48A Perspective, for short : POV

Point of view (POV)

56A Relative of a tumbler : TRAVEL MUG

A tumbler is a glass. Back in the 1660s a tumbler was a glass with a rounded or pointed base so that it could not be put down without spilling its contents, as it would “tumble” over. The idea was that one had to drink up before putting the glass down.

Down

3D Shangri-La : XANADU

Shangdu (also ‘Xanadu’) was located in Inner Mongolia in China, just over 200 miles north of Beijing. Shangdu was the capital of the Yuan dynasty that was established in 1271 by Kublai Khan. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited Shangdu in about 1272, and the city was destroyed by the Ming army in 1369. Centuries later in 1797, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge immortalized the city (as “Xanadu”) in his celebrated poem “Kubla Khan”.

Shangri-La is the earthly paradise in the mountains of Tibet described by James Hilton in his novel “Lost Horizon”. Shangri-La is “edenic” (perfect, like the Garden of Eden from the Book of Genesis). Frank Capra directed a wonderful screen adaptation of “Lost Horizon” in 1937 starring Ronald Colman.

5D Seat of Fulton County: Abbr. : ATL

The city of Atlanta, Georgia (A-Town) had its beginnings in the late 1830s when the location was chosen as the terminus for a new railroad to be built connecting Georgia with the Midwestern United States. The city’s name was chosen by the Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, apparently after the middle name of the daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin: “Atalanta”.

6D British counterpart to “Shark Tank” : DRAGONS’ DEN

“Shark Tank” is a reality television show that features aspiring entrepreneurs making pitches to potential investors (the “sharks”) as they try to grow their businesses. The show is a Mark Burnett production and is based on a British series called “Dragons’ Den”.

10D Glorifies : EXTOLS

To extol something is to praise it loudly. The term “to extol” comes from the Latin “extollere” meaning “to raise up, elevate”.

15D Reproductive part of a fern : SPORE

Ferns are unlike mosses in that they have xylem and phloem, making them vascular plants. They also have stems, leaves and roots, but they do not have seeds and flowers, and reproduce using spores. Spores differ from seeds in that they have very little stored food.

19D Youngest Bennet sister in “Pride and Prejudice” : LYDIA

In Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice”, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five daughters. They are, ranked from the eldest:

• Jane (the kind and beautiful daughter)
• Elizabeth (the witty and sometimes sarcastic daughter)
• Mary (the bookish and musical daughter)
• Catherine/Kitty (the daughter easily led by her younger sister)
• Lydia (the immature and flirtatious daughter)

22D Patrick, to SpongeBob : PAL

SpongeBob SquarePants is a cartoon character in a Nickelodeon television series. Spongebob first appeared in 1999, and he “lives in a pineapple under the sea”. The character was created by marine biologist, cartoonist and animator Stephen Hillenburg.

29D “Yellow Submarine” lead vocalist : STARR

Paul McCartney wrote the song “Yellow Submarine” with Ringo Starr in mind as the lead singer. As McCartney said himself, because it was for Ringo, he wrote something that wasn’t “too rangey”. It turned out to be more like a children’s song, and a couple of years later in 1968, the song was used as the title for an animated film. The song is full of sound effects, including John Lennon blowing through a straw into a bowl of water to create a “bubbling”, and Lennon and McCartney speaking into tin cans to create the sound of the captain and officer exchanging orders. And at one point in the recording, a backing vocalist led everyone around the studio on a conga line, while pounding on a bass drum. What a way to make money, and lots of it …

35D Formal pause in a line of poetry : CAESURA

In poetry, a caesura is an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. An example would be (from Alexander Pope): “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

36D Certain shot, colloquially : VAX

A vaccine used to be exclusively a modified virus administered to an individual to stimulate the immune system into developing immunity, until mRNA vaccines were introduced to combat COVID-19. British physician Edward Jenner came up with the first vaccine, injecting people with the cowpox virus in order to prevent smallpox. The term “vaccination” comes from the Latin “vaccinus” meaning “from cows”, with “vacca” translating as “cow”.

40D ___ incognita : TERRA

“Terra incognita” is a Latin term meaning “unknown land”, a term one might see on an old map. One might also see “mare incognitum”, meaning “unknown sea”.

49D Hindu deity depicted with four arms : SIVA

Shiva (also “Siva”) is one of the major deities of the Hindu tradition, and is known as the destroyer of evil and the transformer. Shiva is also part of the Hindu trinity known as the Trimurti, along with Brahma and Vishnu.

50D Denial in Aberdeen : NAE

The Scottish city of Aberdeen is located amidst plentiful supplies of granite that were actively quarried until the 1970s. Many local buildings incorporate some of that granite in their structure. Aberdeen granite is especially prized for its high levels of mica, which can cause the stone to sparkle like silver. It’s no surprise then, that the list of Aberdeen’s nicknames includes “Granite City” and “Silver City”.

52D Chain that can symbolize friendship : LEI

“Lei” is a Hawaiian word meaning “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a lei is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.