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Constructed by: Katie Hale
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): It’s Foreign, Literally

Themed answers are common phrases that include a reference to a foreign country. Each is clued using a word in the language of the country cited in the answer:

• 16A Zevk, literally : TURKISH “DELIGHT”
• 24A Bise, literally : FRENCH “KISS”
• 36A Cangkir, literally : “CUP” OF JAVA
• 50A Quando, literally : “WHEN” IN ROME
• 58A La lluvia, literally : “THE RAIN” IN SPAIN

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 8m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Kid’s parent : GOAT

Male goats are bucks or billies, although castrated males are known as wethers. Female goats are does or nannies, and young goats are referred to as kids.

5 Rebecca in the Basketball Hall of Fame : LOBO

Rebecca Lobo is a former WNBA basketball player who launched a second career as a sports reporter and analyst for ESPN. Lobo played with the New York Liberty, Houston Comets and Connecticut Sun.

9 Texter’s “I don’t understand” : WDYM?

What do you mean? (WDYM?)

13 Actor Omar : EPPS

Omar Epps is the actor who played Eric Foreman on the excellent television series “House”. Prior to playing Dr. Foreman, Epps had a recurring role playing Dr. Dennis Gant on “ER”. He is good friends with actor and comedian Marlon Wayans. Epps and Wayns were classmates at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

14 Hyaluronic __ : ACID

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is essentially a sugar molecule, one that occurs naturally in the fluid of the eyes and in the joints. HA is found in many cosmetics as it binds water in the skin, giving it a plumper appearance.

15 Frost : HOAR

The Old English word “har” meant “gray, venerable, old”, and came into English as “hoar” (and later “hoary”) with the same meaning. The term “hoar-frost” dates back to the 13th century, and reflects the similarity of the white feathers of frost to the gray/white of an old man’s beard.

16 Zevk, literally : TURKISH “DELIGHT”

“Zevk” is a Turkish word meaning “pleasure, delight”.

Turkish delight is a confection or candy made mainly from a starch gel and sugar. Additional ingredients can include chopped dates and nuts, as well as rosewater, orange or lemon flavoring.

19 Early ISP : AOL

AOL was a leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the 1980s and 1990s. The company does still provide dial-up access to the Internet for some subscribers, but most users now access AOL using faster, non-AOL ISPs.

20 Fictional sleuth Wolfe : NERO

Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective and the hero of many stories published by author Rex Stout. There are 33 Nero Wolfe novels for us to read, and 39 short stories. There are also movie adaptations of two of the novels: “Meet Nero Wolfe” (1936) which features a young Rita Hayworth, and “The League of Frightened Men” (1937). One of Wolfe’s endearing traits is his love of good food and beer, so he is a pretty rotund character.

21 Egyptian cobra : ASP

The Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) is also known as the asp. That said, the term “asp” can apply to several species of snake, including the Egyptian cobra. Legend has it that Cleopatra committed suicide by enticing an asp to bite her. If that’s true, then that asp was probably an Egyptian cobra.

22 St. __: Cornwall town : IVES

You might remember the nursery rhyme “As I was going to St. Ives” from the third “Die Hard” movie, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” as it is used as a riddle in the film’s storyline. The rhyme goes like this:

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Each wife had seven sacks
Each sack had seven cats
Each cat had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, wives
How many were going to St Ives?

There is more than one place called St. Ives in England, but most think the reference is to the seaside town of St. Ives in Cornwall. By the way, the answer to the riddle is “one”, because just the narrator was going to St. Ives, and the rest were characters he met along the way.

24 Bise, literally : FRENCH “KISS”

“Bise” is a French word meaning “kiss”.

A kiss that involves touching of tongues is known as a French kiss, but no one seems to know why. Paradoxically, in Northern France, giving the same type of kiss is known as “baiser anglais”, i.e. English kissing!

31 Pianist Rubinstein : ARTUR

The great Arthur (sometimes “Artur”) Rubinstein was a classical pianist from Poland who became a naturalized American citizen in 1946. Rubenstein was particularly respected as a performer of Chopin’s repertoire.

32 Philistine : BOOR

“Philistine” is a derogatory term used to label someone as an anti-intellectual, or someone who undervalues art, beauty and intellect. Our use of the word derives from the German word “Philister” that was used originally by university students to describe, in a snide way, the townspeople of nearby Jena in eastern Germany. There had been a row between the students and locals resulting in several deaths. A university cleric admonished the participants in a sermon using a phrase from the Bible’s “Book of Judges”, saying “The Philistines be upon thee”, a reference to the conflict between Samson and the Philistines. Anyway, little did that cleric know how his words would ring out around the world over 300 years later.

36 Cangkir, literally : “CUP” OF JAVA

“Cangkir” is an Indonesian word meaning “cup, drinking vessel”.

Java is a large island in Indonesia that is home to the country’s capital, Jakarta. With a population of over 130 million, Java is the most populous island in the world, with even more people than Honshu, the main island of Japan.

42 Noshes : EATS

Our word “nosh” has been around since the late fifties, when it was imported from the Yiddish word “nashn” meaning “to nibble”. We use “nosh” as a noun that means “snack”, or as a verb meaning “to eat between meals”.

47 Marquee time : TONITE

A marquee is a large sign that is placed over the entrance to a theater. The marquee usually displays the names of the film or play currently showing, as well as the principal actors performing.

50 Quando, literally : “WHEN” IN ROME

“Quando” translates from Italian as “when”, and can be used as a question-word and as a conjunction.

The proverb “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” probably dates back to the days of St. Augustine. St. Augustine wrote a letter around 390 AD in which he states:

When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal?

54 Sails off course : YAWS

The word “yaw” means to deviate from the line of a course and is used mainly at sea and in the air. “Yaw” is derived from the Old Norse word “jaege” which means “to drive, chase”. As such, “yaw” is etymologically related to our word “yacht”.

56 Some ballpark figs. : ERAS

The phrase “in the ballpark” means “within an acceptable range of approximation”. The term was coined in the mid-fifties as jargon used by scientists developing atomic weapons. The first “ballpark” in this sense was the broad area within which a missile was forecast to return to earth.

57 Dust jacket paragraph : BIO

You can usually read an author’s bio on a book’s dust jacket.

58 La lluvia, literally : “THE RAIN” IN SPAIN

“Lluvia” translates from Spanish as “rain, rainfall”.

“The Rain in Spain” is a song from the 1956 Lerner & Loewe musical “My Fair Lady”. The famous lyric “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” appears in the 1938 film “Pygmalion” and not in the original 1913 George Bernard Shaw play “Pygmalion”, on which all the derivative works are based.

63 Humdinger : LULU

We call a remarkable thing or a person a lulu. The term “lulu” was coined in honor of Lulu Hurst, the Georgia Wonder, who was a stage magician active in the 1880s.

64 Element used in a 5-Down : NEON
[5D Lithography tool : LASER]

Neon (Ne) was discovered in 1898 by two British chemists, Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers. They chilled a sample of air, turning it into a liquid. They then warmed that liquid and separated out the gases that boiled off. Along with nitrogen, oxygen and argon (already known), the pair of scientists discovered two new gases. The first they called “krypton” and the second “neon”. “Krypton” is Greek for “the hidden one” and “neon” is Greek for “new”.

66 Ancient Briton : CELT

The Celts are a very broad group of people across Europe who are linked by common languages. The original Celts were largely absorbed by other cultures, although a relatively modern revival of the “Celtic identity” is alive and well in Britain and Ireland. Such Celtic peoples today are mainly found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany in France.

67 Some digital natives, informally : GEN-Y

The Millennial Generation are sometimes referred to as “Generation Y” (Gen-Y). Millennials were born after the “Gen-Xers”, from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

Down

3 Car sticker fig. : APR

Annual percentage rate (APR)

5 Lithography tool : LASER

Lithography is a printing technique that was invented in 1796 as a cheap way to publish theatrical works. In the litho process the image is drawn on a metal plate, although originally it was drawn on a stone (hence the prefix “litho-“). The image is drawn in such a way that some regions of the plate repel ink, and then when paper is applied to the plate, those areas are ink-free. A “lithograph” is a print that is made using the technique, and is often a reproduction of a work of art.

6 Prehistoric paint colour : OCHRE

Ocher is a light, yellowish-brown color, although variations of the pigment are possible such as red ocher and purple ocher. “Ocher” is usually spelled “ochre” on the other side of the pond.

We define “prehistory” as that span of time before humans started keeping written records or had writing systems.

8 First word of the European Union anthem’s title : ODE …

Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” has to be one of the most recognizable pieces of music in the classical repertoire. “Ode to Joy”, based on the final movement of the work, is now the anthem of the European Union. If you’d like to see a fictional tale that explores Beethoven’s life at the time he was writing the “Ninth Symphony”, I highly recommend you take a look at the 2006 movie “Copying Beethoven”. Ed Harris plays Beethoven, and the soundtrack is superb.

12 B.A. Baracus player : MR T

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

“The A-Team” is an action television series that originally ran in the eighties. The A-Team was a group of ex-US special forces personnel who became mercenaries. Star of the show was Hollywood actor George Peppard (as “Hannibal” Smith), ably assisted by Mr. T (as “B.A.” Baracus) and Robert Vaughn (as Hunt Stockwell).

17 Recon collection : INFO

A reconnaissance (recon) is a preliminary survey carried out to gather information. The term “reconnaissance” came into English in the early 19th century from French, from which language it translates literally as “recognition”.

18 Cowardly Lion portrayer : LAHR

Bert Lahr’s most famous role was the cowardly lion in “The Wizard of Oz”. Lahr had a long career in burlesque, vaudeville and on Broadway. Remember the catchphrase made famous by the cartoon character Snagglepuss, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”? Snagglepuss stole that line from a 1944 movie called “Meet the People” in which it was first uttered by none other than Bert Lahr.

19 Big name in speakers : AIWA

Aiwa was a Japanese company that produced consumer electronics, mainly audio and video equipment. Sony bought Aiwa in 2002 and eventually discontinued the brand in 2006. The Aiwa trademark was acquired by a Chicago-based consumer electronics company in 2015.

25 “Downton Abbey” countess played by Elizabeth McGovern : CORA

American actress Elizabeth McGovern is perhaps most famous today on the small screen for playing Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham in the hit period drama “Downton Abbey”. She gets a lot of TV work in England, partly because she lives in London with her British husband, filmmaker Simon Curtis. McGovern is also a professional musician. She plays the guitar, and has fronted the UK-based Americana-folk band Sadie and the Hotheads since 2007.

26 Tax form digits : SSN

The main purpose of a Social Security Number (SSN) is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although given its ubiquitous use, it is looking more and more like an identity number to me. The social security number system was introduced in 1936. Prior to 1986, an SSN was required only for persons with substantial income, so many children under 14 had no number assigned. For some years the IRS had a concern that a lot of people were claiming children on their tax returns who did not actually exist. So starting in 1986, the IRS made it a requirement to get an SSN for any dependents over the age of 5. Sure enough, seven million dependents “disappeared” in 1987. Today, a SSN is required for a child of any age in order to receive a tax exemption.

29 Capote nickname : TRU

The larger-than-life Truman “Tru” Capote was an author and comedian. Capote is perhaps most associated with his novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and his true crime novel “In Cold Blood”. Truman Capote grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. There he met, and became lifelong friends with, fellow novelist Harper Lee. Capote was the inspiration for the character “Dill” in Lee’s celebrated work “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In turn, Harper Lee was the inspiration for the character “Idabel” in Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms”.

34 Fresh-squeezed drinks, for short : OJS

Orange juice (OJ)

37 Hammer end : PEEN

The peen of a hammer is on the head, and is the side of the head that is opposite the striking surface. Often the peen is in the shape of a hemisphere (as in a ball-peen hammer), but usually it is shaped like a claw (mainly for removing nails).

38 Actor Kilmer : VAL

Val Kilmer’s first big leading role in a movie was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic “The Doors”. A few years later, Kilmer was chosen for the lead in another big production, “Batman Forever”. Things haven’t really gone as well for Kilmer since then, I’d say. Off the screen, he flirted with the idea of running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010. A Hollywood actor as a governor? Would never happen …

39 FYI kin : BTW

By the way (BTW)

41 Like yeast : ONE-CELL

Yeasts are unicellular microorganisms in the kingdom Fungi. The species of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used for centuries in the making of wine and beer, and in breadmaking. Saccharomyces cerevisiae converts carbohydrates into carbon dioxide and alcohol in the process of fermentation. When making beer and wine, the carbon dioxide and alcohol may be captured by the liquid. When making bread, the carbon dioxide and alcohol is driven off by heat.

44 Horse breed that originated on an Asian peninsula : ARABIAN

The Arab (also “Arabian”) breed of horse takes its name from its original home, the Arabian Peninsula. Like any animal that humans have over-bred, the horse falls prey to genetic diseases, some of which are fatal and some of which require the horse to be euthanized.

46 Exxon, in Canada and Europe : ESSO

The Esso brand has its roots in the old Standard Oil company as it uses the initial letters of “Standard” and “Oil” (ESS-O). The Esso brand was replaced by Exxon in the US, but ESSO is still used in many other countries.

48 Jukebox musical whose first number is “Nutbush City Limits” : TINA

“Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” is described as a jukebox musical that premiered in London in 2018. It tells the life story of rock ‘n roll legend Tina Turner. I haven’t seen this one, and would love to do so …

“Nutbush City Limits” is a 1973 song written and recorded by Tina Turner. The title is a reference to Turner’s hometown of Nutbush, Tennessee.

49 “Porgy and __” : BESS

“Porgy and Bess” is an opera with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and libretto by DuBose Heyward. The storyline of the opera is based on the novel “Porgy” written by DuBose Heyward and his wife Dorothy. “Porgy and Bess” was first performed in 1935, in New York City, but really wasn’t accepted as legitimate opera until 1976 after a landmark production by the Houston Grand Opera. The most famous song from the piece is probably the wonderful aria “Summertime”.

51 “Judy” star Zellweger : RENEE

Renée Zellweger’s big break came with the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire”. A few years later, Zellweger followed that up with a string of successes in “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (2001), “Chicago” (2002) and “Cold Mountain” (2003). My wife and I love watching her play Bridget Jones, and as someone coming from Britain and Ireland, I have to say that Zellweger does a remarkable job with the accent. She worked hard to perfect that accent, and of course she had a voice coach. She also went “undercover” and worked as a temp in an office for three weeks fine-tuning her skills.

The 2019 movie “Judy” is a biopic about singer and actress Judy Garland. The film is an adaptation of the 2005 Peter Quilter play “End of the Rainbow”. “Judy” focuses on the last year of Garland’s life, with Renée Zellweger in the title role.

52 Hunter slain by Artemis : ORION

According to Greek mythology, Orion was a giant hunter who was placed in the night sky by Zeus, the king of the gods. Orion is very recognizable as a constellation, especially with the three bright stars known as “Orion’s Belt”. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, is said to be Orion’s hunting dog, and this star sits at Orion’s “foot”.

Artemis was an ancient Greek goddess, and the equivalent of the Roman goddess Diana. Artemis was also a daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Among other things, she was the goddess of the hunt, and so often is depicted carrying a bow and arrows.

53 2004 World Series MVP Ramirez : MANNY

Manny Ramirez is a retired outfielder who played for several MLB teams from 1993 to 2011. He also played a season with the EDA Rhinos of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan. Ramirez is known for some quirky behavior on the field, and the playing of practical jokes. Such incidents are often referred to as “Manny Moments” and “Manny Being Manny”.

58 Indulgent attention, for short : TLC

Tender loving care (TLC)

60 Gerund syllable : -ING

A gerund is a form of a verb that can be used as a noun. For example, the gerund of the verb “to solve” is “solving”, as in the phrase “we really enjoyed the solving experience”.

61 IBMs, e.g. : PCS

The original IBM Personal Computer is model number 5150, which was introduced to the world on August 12, 1981. The term “personal computer” was already in use, but the success of the IBM 5150 led to the term “PC” being used for all computer products compatible with the IBM platform.

62 Former boxer Laila : ALI

Laila Ali is the daughter of the great Muhammad Ali and is a very capable boxer in her own right. Laila’s professional record is an impressive 24 wins, including 21 knockouts. Now retired, she never lost a fight, and nor did she ever draw. One of those victories was against Jackie Frazier-Lyde, daughter of her father’s nemesis Joe Frazier. Laila is not a bad dancer either, coming in third place in the fourth season of “Dancing with the Stars”.