Day: May 5, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Mar. 17th honoree ST PAT
There is a fair amount known about St. Patrick, some of which comes from two letters written in his own hand. St. Patrick lived in the fifth century, but was not born in Ireland. He was first brought to Ireland at about 16 years of age from his native Britain, by Irish raiders who made him a slave for six years. Patrick managed to escape and returned to his homeland where he studied and entered the Church. He went back to Ireland as a bishop and a missionary and there lived out the rest of his life. There seems to be good evidence that he died on March 17th (now celebrated annually as St. Patrick’s Day), although the year is less clear. The stories about shamrock and snakes, I am afraid they are the stuff of legend.

10. Gray timber wolf LOBO
The timber wolf is also known as the gray wolf, tundra wolf or lobo.

14. Pasta sauce brand PREGO
The Prego brand of pasta sauce is owned by the Campbell Soup Company. It is actually based on the family recipe of one of the company’s chefs. “Prego” literally means “I pray” in Italian, but it translates in English best as “you’re welcome” when it is used after a “thank you” (“grazie”, in Italian).

15. Sonny’s partner CHER
Cher’s real name is Cherilyn Sarkisian, born in 1946. In her acting career, Cher was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of 1984 for her performance in “Silkwood”. She went further in 1998 and won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Loretta Castorini in “Moonstruck”.

Sonny Bono was a recording artist who later moved into the world of politics. As a musical entertainer, Bono was most famous for his recordings as a duo with Cher, who later became his second wife. The couple divorced, but continued to work together. Bono went into politics, first as the mayor of Palm Springs, California and later as a representative for a California district in the US House of Representatives. Sadly, Bono was killed in a skiing accident in 1998. Coincidently, Michael Kennedy (son of Robert F. Kennedy) had died in a similar skiing accident just one week earlier.

16. Et __: and others ALIA
Et alii (et al.) is the equivalent of et cetera (etc.), with et cetera being used in place of a list of objects, and et alii used for a list of names. In fact “et al.” can stand for et alii (for a group of males, or males and females), aliae (for a group of women) and et alia (for a group of neuter nouns, or for a group of people where the intent is to retain gender-neutrality).

19. Bismarck is its cap. N DAK
Bismarck is the second most populous city in North Dakota (after Fargo), and the state capitol. The site that became the city was originally known as Missouri Crossing, as it was the location where the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the river. Missouri Crossing became Edwinton after an employee of the Northern Pacific Railway. The railway company renamed the city Bismarck in honor of Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor as Northern Pacific was hoping for German investment.

23. “__ will be done …”: Lord’s Prayer THY
The Lord’s Prayer is a central prayer in Christian religions, and is found in two places in the New Testament. In the version in the Gospel of Matthew the last line of the prayer is “deliver from evil”. In the Gospel of Luke the last line is “lead us not into temptation”. The last words of the prayer as it most often said today are:

For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen

24. Summer zodiac sign LEO
The constellation called Leo of course can be said to resemble a lion. Others say that it resembles a bent coat hanger. “Leo” is the Latin for “lion”, but I’m not sure what the Latin is for “coat hanger” …

25. Of the flock LAIC
Anything described is laic (or “laical, lay”) is related to the laity, those members of the church who are not clergy. The term “laic” ultimately comes from the Greek “laikos” meaning “of the people”.

26. Actress Taylor, familiarly LIZ
Actress Elizabeth Taylor married eight times, to seven husbands. Those marriages were to:

– Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, the young hotel heir
– Michael Wilding, the English actor
– Mike Todd, the film and stage producer
– Eddie Fisher, the singer
– Richard Burton (twice), the Welsh actor
– John Warner, who went on to become a US Senator for Virginia
– Larry Fortensky, a construction worker who Taylor met at the Betty Ford Clinic

35. “Gone With the Wind” plantation TARA
Rhett Butler hung out with Scarlett O’Hara at the Tara plantation in Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”. Tara was founded not far from the Georgia city of Jonesboro by Scarlett’s father, Irish immigrant Gerald O’Hara. Gerald named his new abode after the Hill of Tara back in his home country, the ancient seat of the High King of Ireland.

36. Yoko from Tokyo ONO
Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Ono’s father moved around the world for work and Yoko lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII. There Yoko lived through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.

41. Chinese chairman MAO
Mao Zedong (also “Mao Tse-tung”) was born on December 16, 1893 in the Hunan Province of China. As Mao was the son of a peasant farmer, his prospects for education were limited. Indeed he left school at age 13 to work on the family farm but did eventually get to secondary school in Changsha, the provincial capital. In the years following, Mao continued his education in Beijing and actually turned down an opportunity to study in France.

44. Capone and Capp ALS
When Al Capone was a young man, he worked as a bouncer in nightclubs and saloons. He was working the door of a Brooklyn night spot one evening when he apparently insulted a woman, sparking off a fight with her brother. In the tussle, Capone’s face was slashed three times. Capone wasn’t too proud of the incident, nor the “Scarface” moniker. He always hid the scars as best he could when being photographed, and was also fond of telling people that the scars were from old war wounds.

Al Capp was a cartoonist from New Haven, Connecticut who is best remembered for cartoon strip “Li’l Abner”. Capp created “Li’l Abner” in 1934 and drew it himself until 1977. Capp passed away two years after “Li’l Abner” was retired.

46. Pres. between HST and JFK DDE
The initial “S” in the middle of the name Harry S. Truman (HST) doesn’t stand for anything. The future-president was named “Harry” in honor of his mother’s brother Harrison “Harry” Young. The initial “S” was chosen in honor of young Harry’s two grandfathers: Anderson S-hipp Truman and S-olomon Young.

President Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas and given the name David Dwight Eisenhower, but by the time he made it to the White House he was going by the name Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE). Growing up, his family called him Dwight, and when “Ike” enrolled in West Point he himself reversed the order of his given names.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) was the son of Joe Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, hence the president’s double-barreled name.

47. __ gin fizz SLOE
By definition, a cocktail known as a Fizz includes lemon or lime juice and carbonated water. The most popular of the genre is the Gin Fizz, made from 3 parts gin, 2 parts lemon juice, 1 part sugar syrup and 5 parts soda water. There is also a variant known as a sloe gin fizz.

50. Unit of work ERG
An erg is a unit of energy or mechanical work. “Erg” comes from the Greek word “ergon” meaning “work”. A dyne is a unit of force. The name “dyne” comes from the Greek “dynamis” meaning “power, force”. Ergs and dynes are related to each other in that one erg is the amount of energy needed to move a force of one dyne over a distance of one centimeter.

57. Coffee, in slang JAVA
Back in 1850, the name “java” was given to a type of coffee grown on the island of Java, and the usage of the term spread from there.

58. __ Crunch: cereal brand CAP’N
The first Cap’n Crunch commercials aired in 1963, at the time the product line was launched. The Cap’n’s full name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch, would you believe?. Crunch’s voice was provided for many years by Daws Butler, the same voice actor who gave us Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound.

63. __ avis RARA
A “rara avis” is anything that is very rare, and is Latin for “rare bird”.

64. One lacking experience TYRO
A tyro (also “tiro”) is a beginner or a novice. “Tyro” comes into English from Latin, in which “tiro” means “a recruit”.

65. John of tractors DEERE
John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”.

Down
1. Jack who ate no fat SPRAT
Jack Sprat was a nickname given in the 16th century to people of small stature. Jack featured in a proverb of the day:

Jack will eat not fat, and Jull doth love no leane. Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.

Over time, this mutated into a nursery rhyme that is still recited in England:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.

4. New __: modern spiritualist AGER
New Age music is created to provide a relaxing and stress-free atmosphere. The New Age movement is often said to have begun with the release of an album called “Spectrum Suite” by Steven Halpern in 1975.

6. Sound evoking “Gesundheit!” ACHOO!
“Gesundheit” is the German word for “health”, and is used in response to a sneeze in Germany, as indeed it is here in the US.

7. Hemingway’s “For __ the Bell Tolls” WHOM
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” is a 1940 novel by author Ernest Hemingway that tells the story of an American fighting for a republican guerilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. The novel is based on Hemingway’s own experiences during the conflict. The title is taken from a work by metaphysical poet John Donne called “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions”.

“Devotions upon Emergent Occasions” is a work of prose by English poet John Donne, first published in 1624. A couple of famous phrases oft-quoted from the work are “No man is an island” and “for whom the bell tolls”.

10. Polynesian porch LANAI
A lanai is a type of veranda, a design that originated in Hawaii. A kind blog reader tells me that the etymology of “lanai” seems unclear, but that the island name of “Lana’i” is apparently not related.

21. Pince-__ glasses NEZ
Pince-nez are eyeglasses clipped to the bridge of the nose. “Pince-nez” is French, translating as “pinch the nose”.

30. Crucifix letters INRI
The letters written on the cross on which Jesus died were “INRI”. INRI is an acronym for the Latin “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum”, which translates into English as “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”.

32. Actress Thompson EMMA
Emma Thompson is one of my favorite English actresses, someone who has appeared in many of my favorite films. She probably first came to attention in the US when she won an Oscar for her role in “Howards End”, which she followed up with “Remains of the Day” and “In the Name of the Father”. Perhaps my favorite production of hers is her own adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility”, which won her Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress. Emma Thompson went to Cambridge University and was good friends with a host of successful British actors and entertainers, including her ex-boyfriend Hugh Laurie who is famous in the US for playing the title role in television’s “House”.

45. “You’ve got mail” company AOL
The iconic phrase “You’ve got mail” was first used by AOL in 1989. The greeting was recorded by voice actor Elwood Edwards. Edwards has parlayed his gig with AOL into some other work. He appears in an episode of “The Simpsons” as a doctor who says the line “You’ve got leprosy”. Edwards also worked as a weatherman for a while and got to use the line “You’ve got hail” …

48. Andean animal LLAMA
The wool from a llama is much softer than that from a sheep, and it is also free from lanolin.

49. Sonata movement RONDO
A rondo was often chosen by composers in the classical period for the last movement of a sonata (or symphony or concerto, for that matter). In rondo form there is a principal theme that alternates with a contrasting theme(s). So, the original theme anchors the whole piece in between secondary digressions.

The term “sonata” comes from the Latin and Italian word “sonare” meaning “to sound”. A sonata is a piece of music that is played, as opposed to a cantata (from Latin and Italian “cantare” meaning “to sing”), a piece of music that is sung.

56. Double-reed instrument OBOE
The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”. When you hear an orchestra tuning before a performance you’ll note (pun intended!) that the oboe starts off the process by playing an “A”. The rest of the musicians in turn tune to that oboe’s “A”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Mar. 17th honoree ST PAT
6. Amazed AWED
10. Gray timber wolf LOBO
14. Pasta sauce brand PREGO
15. Sonny’s partner CHER
16. Et __: and others ALIA
17. Word before PG or PG-13 RATED
18. Sacred HOLY
19. Bismarck is its cap. N DAK
20. Where to see stars in school ASTRONOMY CLASS
23. “__ will be done …”: Lord’s Prayer THY
24. Summer zodiac sign LEO
25. Of the flock LAIC
26. Actress Taylor, familiarly LIZ
27. Hearty dish STEW
29. Concealed HID
32. Knives’ sharp sides EDGES
35. “Gone With the Wind” plantation TARA
36. Yoko from Tokyo ONO
37. Where to see stars in the service MILITARY UNIFORM
41. Chinese chairman MAO
42. Get beaten LOSE
43. “Honest!” NO LIE!
44. Capone and Capp ALS
45. Voice below soprano ALTO
46. Pres. between HST and JFK DDE
47. __ gin fizz SLOE
49. Regret RUE
50. Unit of work ERG
53. Where to see stars in theaters HOLLYWOOD MOVIE
57. Coffee, in slang JAVA
58. __ Crunch: cereal brand CAP’N
59. Tolerate ABIDE
60. “Um, excuse me …” AHEM …
61. Fired AXED
62. Memoranda NOTES
63. __ avis RARA
64. One lacking experience TYRO
65. John of tractors DEERE

Down
1. Jack who ate no fat SPRAT
2. Garbage TRASH
3. Trivial, as a complaint PETTY
4. New __: modern spiritualist AGER
5. Slate of errands and chores TO-DO LIST
6. Sound evoking “Gesundheit!” ACHOO!
7. Hemingway’s “For __ the Bell Tolls” WHOM
8. Slippery EELY
9. Launder, as a suit DRY-CLEAN
10. Polynesian porch LANAI
11. Like some conservative teaching methods OLD-SCHOOL
12. Prejudice BIAS
13. Mighty tree OAK
21. Pince-__ glasses NEZ
22. Attorney’s field LAW
26. Floral necklace LEI
27. Authority SAY-SO
28. “That’s a good point” TRUE
30. Crucifix letters INRI
31. Bowl-shaped roof DOME
32. Actress Thompson EMMA
33. Rotary phone part DIAL
34. Handle superficially GLOSS OVER
35. Home run jog TROT
38. Prowling feline ALLEY CAT
39. Extremely popular IN DEMAND
40. Enemy FOE
45. “You’ve got mail” company AOL
46. Firecracker that doesn’t crack DUD
48. Andean animal LLAMA
49. Sonata movement RONDO
50. Online party request EVITE
51. One on horseback RIDER
52. Canada honkers GEESE
53. “That’s funny!” HA HA!
54. Like crayons WAXY
55. Abbr. on a phone’s “0” button OPER
56. Double-reed instrument OBOE
57. Cookie container JAR

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