Tag: They protect the QB crossword clue

Bill’s time: 8m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Analyze grammatically : PARSE

The verb “to parse” means “to state the parts of speech in a sentence”. “Parse” comes from the Latin word “pars” meaning “part”.

11 Org. for Pistons and Rockets : NBA

The NBA’s Detroit Pistons team was founded in 1941 as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons of the National Basketball League. The team was owned by Fred Zollner, who supplied pistons to the automotive industry. The Pistons moved from Indiana to Detroit in 1957.

The Houston Rockets NBA team was founded as a league expansion team in 1967 in San Diego. The Rockets relocated to Houston in 1971. Surprisingly (to me), the Rockets were not named for Houston’s connection to NASA. The “Rockets” moniker was partly due to San Diego’s more tenuous NASA connection. General Dynamics’ San Diego operation developed and built the first Atlas rockets, including those used in Project Mercury.

15 Egypt’s Sadat : ANWAR

Anwar Sadat was the third President of Egypt right up to the time of his assassination in 1981. Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for the role played in crafting the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978 at Camp David. It was this agreement that largely led to Sadat’s assassination three years later.

16 Common street name in the Northeast : ELM

The most common street name in the US is “Second Street”. “First Street” comes in only at number three, and this is because many cities and towns forgo the use of “First” and instead go with “Main” or something more historical in nature. The spooky “Elm Street” appears on the list at number fifteen.

19 ___ Sports (video game) : WII

Players of the Wii Sports video game can simulate five sports: tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing.

20 Card in Uno : SKIP

In my youth I remember being taught a great card game by a German acquaintance of mine, a game called Mau Mau. Years later I discovered that UNO is basically the same game, but played with a purpose-printed deck instead of the regular deck of playing cards that’s used for Mau Mau. I hear that Mau Mau is derived from the game called Crazy Eights.

28 Festival that awards the Palme d’Or : CANNES

The “Palme d’Or” (or “Golden Palm” in English) is the highest award given at the Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d’Or goes to the director of the film that is selected as the best shown at the festival that year. The palm was selected as an emblem for the award as there is a palm featured on the coat of arms of the Commune of Cannes.

32 Eschew : AVOID

“To eschew”, meaning “to avoid, shun”, comes from the Old French word “eschiver” that means the same thing.

38 Eye of ___ (part of a witch’s brew) : NEWT

The Three Witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” have some lovely lines as they boil up and evil brew and cast a spell:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,–
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

39 Poet Nash, who wrote the lines in 17-, 24-, 47- and 58-Across : OGDEN

Ogden Nash was a poet well known for his light and humorous verse, such as:

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker

40 Long part of a horse, short part of a giraffe : MANE

The giraffe is the tallest terrestrial animal on the planet. Its main source of food is acacia leaves that they eat from high, high up in trees, where other herbivores cannot reach.

41 Places with frontline workers, for short : ERS

An emergency medical technician (EMT) usually takes a patient to an emergency room (ER).

44 Bring out : EDUCE

To educe is to draw out, although the term can also have a meaning similar to “deduce”.

51 Alternative to Google or AOL : YAHOO!

Jerry Yang and David Filo called their company “Yahoo!” for two reasons. Firstly, a Yahoo is a rude unsophisticated brute from Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”. Secondly, Yahoo stands for “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”.

63 They protect the QB : O-LINE

Offensive line (O-line)

64 Beth Harmon’s weakness in “The Queen’s Gambit” : PILLS

“The Queen’s Gambit” is a wonderful 2020 miniseries based on a 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis. Anya Taylor-Joy plays a young chess prodigy who has a tough upbringing in an orphanage, and who then struggles with alcohol and drug dependency. The series was so popular with viewers that it sparked a renewed interest in the game of chess, with sales of chess sets and chess books increasing dramatically.

66 Ocean’s motions : TIDES

Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans. At neap tide, the smaller gravitational effect of the sun cancels out some of the moon’s effect. At spring tide, the sun and the moon’s gravitational forces act in concert causing more extreme movement of the oceans.

Down

1 Adoptees from the A.S.P.C.A. : PETS

Unlike most developed countries, the US has no umbrella organization with the goal of preventing cruelty to animals. Instead there are independent organizations set up all over the nation using the name SPCA. Having said that, there is an organization called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) that was originally intended to operate across the country, but really it now focuses its efforts in New York City.

2 One way to run : AMOK

The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had a good reason for that frenzy …

3 Indian flatbread : ROTI

In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is an unleavened cousin of naan.

5 Fish that may have only vestigial fins : EEL

We use the word “vestige” for a trace, mark or sign. The term comes from the Latin “vestigium” that also means “trace” as well as “footprint”.

6 Mr. Tumnus in the “Narnia” books and others : FAUNS

In the “Narnia” series of books, Mr. Tumnus is a faun, i.e. half-man and half-goat. According to author C.S. Lewis, the whole idea for the “Narnia” stories was born from a single image that he had of a faun carrying parcels and an umbrella through a snowy wood. And that’s just what Lucy sees when she first steps into Narnia via the famous wardrobe.

11 Netflix debut, perhaps : NEW RELEASE

Netflix was founded in Los Gatos, California in 1997 as a DVD rental company that sent out titles by mail. The company delivered it’s billionth DVD in 2007. I presume the renter wasn’t charged for that movie …

12 Ice you can wear : BLING

Bling-bling (often simply “bling”) is the name given to all the shiny stuff sported by rap stars in particular i.e. the jewelry, watches, metallic cell phones, even gold caps on the teeth. The term comes from the supposed “bling” sound caused by light striking a shiny metal surface.

18 Lowry who wrote “The Giver” : LOIS

Lois Lowry is a writer of children’s fiction. Lowry doesn’t stick to “safe” material in her books, and has dealt with difficult subjects such as racism, murder and the Holocaust. Two of her books won the Newbery Medal: “Number the Stars” (1990) and “The Giver” (1993).

23 ___ mode : A LA

In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has also come to describe a way of serving pie. Pie served à la mode includes a dollop of cream or ice cream, or as I recall from my time living in Upstate New York, with a wedge of cheddar cheese.

27 Genesis garden : EDEN

According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve lived in a garden “in” Eden, with Eden being geographically located by reference to four rivers, including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Some scholars hypothesize that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, which encompasses much of modern-day Iraq.

30 “Listen, bub!” : NOW SEE HERE!

“Bub” is American slang, and a term used to address males. “Bub” is possibly a variation of “bud”.

34 Civil rights activist ___ B. Wells : IDA

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and leader of the civil rights movement. She published a pamphlet in 1892 called “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”, which publicized the horrors of lynching of African Americans by white mobs in the South.

40 Shirley Temple, e.g. : MOCKTAIL

The original drink called a Shirley Temple was made with two parts ginger ale, one part orange juice and a dash of grenadine. The contemporary drink is much simpler, and comprises 7up (or equivalent) with a little grenadine. A variant of the non-alcoholic original that includes some form of booze is often called a “Dirty Shirley”.

42 Decepticon’s enemy in the “Transformers” films : AUTOBOT

The 2007 blockbuster hit movie “Transformers” was inspired by a line of toys. Toy transformers can be morphed from their mundane looking appearance as a vehicle or perhaps an animal, into a robotic action figure.

43 Chum : PAL

A chum is a friend. The term “chum” originated in the late 1600s as an alternative spelling for “cham”. In turn, “cham” was a shortened form of “chambermate”, a roommate at university.

45 Scooby-___ : DOO

“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” is a series of cartoons produced for Hanna-Barbera Productions, first broadcast in 1969. The title character is a great Dane dog owned by a young male called Shaggy Rogers. The character’s name was inspired by the famous “doo-be-doo-be-doo” refrain in the Frank Sinatra hit “Strangers in the Night”. Shaggy was voiced by famed disk jockey Casey Kasem. Shaggy and Scooby’s friends are Velma, Fred and Daphne.

47 Like an overachieving personality : TYPE A

The Type-A and Type-B personality theory originated in the fifties. Back then, individuals were labelled as Type A in order to emphasize a perceived increased risk of heart disease. Type-A personality types are so-called “stress junkies”, whereas Type Bs are relaxed and laid back. But there doesn’t seem to be much scientific evidence to support the linkage between the Type-A personality and heart problems.

49 French wine valley : RHONE

Côtes du Rhône is a wine region centered on the Rhône river in France. The name of the region translates as “Slopes (or Hills) of Rhône”. The most prevalent grapes used in Côtes du Rhône wine are Grenache (in reds and rosés) and Grenache blanc (in whites).

50 Much internet humor : MEMES

A meme (from “mineme”) is a cultural practice or idea that is passed on verbally or by repetition from one person to another. The term lends itself very well to the online world where links, emails, files etc. are so easily propagated.

54 Home of the Bruins : UCLA

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) gets more applications from potential students than any other university in the country. UCLA also has more students enrolled than any other university in the state.

55 Refuse to continue : BALK

To balk is to stop and refuse to go on. It’s not just a baseball term …

56 E-commerce site for homemade goods : ETSY

Etsy.com is an e-commerce website where you can buy and sell the kind of items that you might find at a craft fair.

59 One of the Manning brothers : ELI

Eli Manning is a retired footballer who played quarterback for the New York Giants. Eli’s brother Peyton Manning retired from football as the quarterback for the Denver Broncos in 2015. Eli and Peyton’s father is Archie Manning, who was also a successful NFL quarterback. Eli, Peyton and Archie co-authored a book for children titled “Family Huddle” in 2009. It describes the Mannings playing football together as young boys.

60 El ___ (Spanish hero) : CID

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar was known as El Cid Campeador, which translates as “The Champion” or perhaps “The Lord, Master of Military Arts”. El Cid was a soldier who fought under the rule of King Alfonso VI of Spain (among others). However, he was sent into exile by the King in 1080, after acting beyond his authorization in battle. El Cid then offered his services to his former foes, the Moorish kings, After a number of years building a reputation with the Moors, he was recalled from exile by Alfonso. By this time El Cid was very much his own man. Nominally under the orders of Alfonso, he led a combined army of Spanish and Moorish troops and took the city of Valencia on the Mediterranean coast in 1094, making it his headquarters and home. He died in Valencia, quite peacefully, in 1099.

61 UV blocking measure : 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 …