Day: January 2, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Like Sherlock’s game AFOOT
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in writing the “Sherlock Holmes” stories, had his hero use the phrase “the game is afoot” on more than one occasion. Holmes first uttered the expression in “The Adventures of the Abbey Grange”. However, the phrase was used long before Conan Doyle put pen to paper. In William Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV Part I” there is the line “Before the game is afoot, thou let’st slip”.

10. Medical ending -OSIS
The suffix “-osis” is found in medical terms. “-Osis” indicates a disorder in general, with the prefix providing more specificity.

14. Sierra Nevada tourist attraction TAHOE
Lake Tahoe is up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, right on the border between California and Nevada. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in the country. It’s also the second deepest lake, with only the beautiful Crater Lake in Oregon being deeper. Given its location, there are tall casinos that sit right on the shore on the Nevada side of the state line where gambling is legal.

15. Bruin’s home UCLA
The UCLA Bruins mascots are Joe and Josephine Bruin, characters that have evolved over the years. There used to be “mean” Bruin mascots but they weren’t very popular with the fans, so now there are only “happy” Bruin mascots at the games.

17. Top horticulturist? BUSHMASTER
Bushmasters are a genus of venomous snake native to Central and South America.

19. East in Ecuador ESTE
“Ecuador” is the Spanish word for “equator”, which gives the country its name.

20. Puncture opening? ACU-
Acupressure and acupuncture are related alternative medical techniques. Both aim to clear blockages in the flow of life energy through the body’s meridians. The treatment is given by stimulating “acupoints’ in the body, by applying pressure in the case of acupressure, and by applying needles in the case of acupuncture.

22. Main signal SOS
The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.

When one thinks of the word “main” in the context of the sea, the Spanish Main usually comes to mind. Indeed, the use of the more general term “main”, meaning the sea, originates from the more specific “Spanish Main”. “Spanish Main” originally referred to land and not water, as it was the name given to the mainland coast around the Caribbean Sea in the days of Spanish domination of the region.

24. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” writer POE
Edgar Allan Poe wrote the words “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” in an 1948 letter with reference to his excessive drinking and the death of his wife.

30. Pearl Buck heroine O-LAN
Pearl S. Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” won a Pulitzer in 1932, and helped Buck win the Nobel Prize for literature a few years later. The story tells of life in a Chinese village and follows the fortunes of Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan. Although “The Good Earth” has been around for decades, it hit the bestseller list again in 2004 when it was a pick for Oprah’s Book Club.

35. Private meetings TRYSTS
In its most general sense, a tryst is a meeting at an agreed time and place. More usually we consider a tryst to be a prearranged meeting between lovers. The term comes from the Old French “triste”, a waiting place designated when hunting.

41. Go __ TO POT
The phrase “go to pot”, meaning fall into ruin, has been around since the 1500s when it really meant “go to (the) pot”, to be chopped up and boiled for food.

42. Rosa’s rosa, e.g. FLOR
In Spanish, the rose (rosa) is the flower of love (flor del amor).

47. Top entomologist? FLYWHEEL
A “flywheel” is a wheel with a great mass that is used to store rotational energy.

Entomology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of insects. The etymology of “entomology” (!) is the Greek “entomon” (meaning “insect”) and “logia” (meaning “study of”). In turn, the Greek word “entomos” for insect is literal translation into Greek of “having a notch or cut”, in deference to the observation by Aristotle that insects have segmented bodies.

49. Homburg kin FEDORA
A fedora is a lovely hat, I think. It is made of felt, and is similar to a trilby, but has a broader brim. “Fedora” was a play written for Sarah Bernhardt and first performed in 1889. Bernhardt had the title role of Princess Fedora, and on stage she wore a hat similar to a modern-day fedora. The play led to the women’s fashion accessory, the fedora hat, commonly worn by women into the beginning of the twentieth century. Men then started wearing fedoras, but only when women gave up the fashion …

A homburg is a felt hat that has a single dent in the hat’s crown and slightly rolled brim. The style was popularized by King Edward VII after he brought such a hat back from Bad Homburg in Germany.

51. City VIP ALD
The term “alderman” (ald.) comes from English law, and is used for a member of a municipal assembly or council. In some locations in the US some cities have a Board of Aldermen instead of a city council. The term comes from the Old English for “older man” or “patriarch”.

52. Lamp opening? ELL
The word “lamp” opens with a letter L (“ell” or “el”).

53. Cannes confirmation OUI
Cannes is a city on the French Riviera, noted as host of the Cannes Film Festival. The idea of the annual film festival was adopted by the city just before WWII. However, the festival had to wait for the end of the war for its launch in 1946.

57. Top cinematographer? FILM LEADER
A film leader is a short length at the start of a roll of film that is used for threading it into say a camera.

60. Verdant LUSH
Back in the late 1500s, “verdant” simply meant “green”, but we now tend to use the term to mean green and lush with vegetation. “Viridis” is the Latin for “green”.

61. “Young Frankenstein” Fräulein INGA
I am not really a big fan of movies by Mel Brooks, but “Young Frankenstein” is the exception. I think the cast has a lot to do with me liking the film, as it includes Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Teri Garr (Inga), Marty Feldman (Igor) and Gene Hackman (Harold, the blind man).

A “Fräulein” is an unmarried woman, in German.

63. I-76 in Penn., e.g. TPKE
Back in the 15th century a “turnpike” was a defensive barrier across a road. By the 17th century the term was used for a barrier that stopped travellers until a toll was paid. By the 18th century a turnpike was the name given to a road with a toll.

Interstate 76 is a highway running from Akron, Ohio to Gloucester City, New Jersey. For most of its route through Pennsylvania, I-76 forms part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Down
2. Tap FAUCET
Here’s another word I had to learn to use when I moved to the US. The common “faucet” in an American house is almost always referred to as a “tap” on the other side of the pond.

3. “And I’m Cleopatra” OH SURE
Apparently the phrase “yeah, and I’m Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile” is used to express disbelief at an assertion made by someone.

5. Home of Arizona State TEMPE
Tempe is a city in the metropolitan area of Phoenix. The city is named for the Vale of Tempe in Greece.

7. Calendar pg. OCT
October is the tenth month in our calendar but was the eighth month in the old Roman calendar, hence the name “Octo-ber”. Back then there were only ten months in the year. “Ianuarius” (January) and “Februarius” (February) were then added as the eleventh and twelfth months of the year. Soon after, the year was reset and January and February became the first and second months.

8. Nellie __, character in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books OLESON
Laura Ingalls Wilder was an author from Pepin, Wisconsin who is best remembered for her “Little House” series of children’s novels. The series was based on her own childhood in a pioneer family that moved from Wisconsin to Kansas and back again. Laura was blind from her teen years.

9. Low-grade peer BARON
In Britain, There are five ranks of peer, namely duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron, in descending order.

13. Small trunks SPEEDOS
Speedo brand swimwear was first produced in Australia in 1928, by a hosiery company that wanted to diversify. The brand name was chosen after a slogan competition among employees was won by “Speed on in your Speedos”. It was a long time ago, I guess …

Back in the mid-1500s, a fashionable man might wear “trunk hose”, a form of padded breeches. The term “trunk hose” gave us our term “swim trunks” used for a man’s bathing suit.

18. Dawns AURORAS
Dawn might be referred to as “aurora”, named for the Roman goddess of the dawn.

In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn who lived at the edge of the ocean. Eos would wake each morning to welcome her brother Helios the sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora.

27. Mistake at home, perhaps BAD CALL
One mistake at home plate in baseball might be a bad call.

28. Yokel HAYSEED
“Hayseed” is a slang term for a country bumpkin, a yokel. Not very flattering terms, I’d say …

31. Apollo 11’s Eagle, briefly LEM
In the Apollo program, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) was the vehicle that actually landed on the moon and returned the astronauts to the command module that was orbiting overhead. The third LEM built was named “Spider”, and it participated in the Apollo 9 mission which tested the functionality of the LEM design in space. The fourth LEM was called “Snoopy” and it flew around the moon in the Apollo 10 mission, the dress rehearsal for the upcoming moon landing. Apollo 11’s LEM was called “Eagle” and it brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to and from the moon’s surface. Another famous LEM was Apollo 13’s Aquarius. Although Aquarius never landed on the moon, it did serve as a “lifeboat” for the three astronauts after the explosive rupture of an oxygen canister in the Service Module.

36. News editing site COPY DESK
A newspaper’s “copy desk” is where the “copy” (the text intended for publication) is edited and prepared for printing.

37. Starz rival HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is the second largest network of premium channels in the US, after Encore. HBO is a favorite of mine as I really like many of the HBO made-for-television movies and especially the HBO original series. Among the list of original series from HBO are “Mildred Pierce”, “The Pacific”, “John Adams”, “Big Love”, “Extras”, “The Wire”, “Sex and the City”, “From the Earth to the Moon”, “The Sopranos” and “Band of Brothers”. What great television …

The Starz premium cable channel is owned by the same company that owns the Encore cable channel. Starz was launched in 1994 and mainly shows movies.

39. Dons fancy duds DOLLS UP
“Duds” is an informal word for clothing, coming from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

50. Farm sequence? E-I-E-I-O
There was an American version of the English children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (E-I-E-I-O), that was around in the days of WWI. The first line of the US version goes “Old MacDougal had a farm, in Ohio-i-o”.

53. “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough” poet OMAR
Omar Khayyam was a Persian with many talents. He was a poet as well as an important mathematician, astronomer and physician. A selection of his poems were translated by one Edward Fitzgerald in a collection called “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”.

Here are some lines by 11th-century poet Omar Khayyam:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

58. JFK alternative LGA
The accepted three big airports serving New York City are John F. Kennedy (JFK), La Guardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Like Sherlock’s game AFOOT
6. Jerk BOOB
10. Medical ending -OSIS
14. Sierra Nevada tourist attraction TAHOE
15. Bruin’s home UCLA
16. Leave in a bad way DUMP
17. Top horticulturist? BUSHMASTER
19. East in Ecuador ESTE
20. Puncture opening? ACU-
21. Lay PUT
22. Main signal SOS
24. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” writer POE
25. Less inclined to ramble TERSER
27. Top orthopedist? BONEHEAD
29. Get a leg up … and down STEP
30. Pearl Buck heroine O-LAN
32. Playground retort CAN SO!
33. Comparable to a beet AS RED
35. Private meetings TRYSTS
36. Top dairyman? CREAM CHEESE
38. Emulates a fan ADORES
40. Lessen ABATE
41. Go __ TO POT
42. Rosa’s rosa, e.g. FLOR
43. Cut, in a way ETCH
47. Top entomologist? FLYWHEEL
49. Homburg kin FEDORA
51. City VIP ALD
52. Lamp opening? ELL
53. Cannes confirmation OUI
54. Even so YET
55. Applications USES
57. Top cinematographer? FILM LEADER
60. Verdant LUSH
61. “Young Frankenstein” Fräulein INGA
62. “If only!” I HOPE!
63. I-76 in Penn., e.g. TPKE
64. Handy NEAR
65. “Good Lord!” OH GOD!

Down
1. Chances for a walk in the park? AT-BATS
2. Tap FAUCET
3. “And I’m Cleopatra” OH SURE
4. Awed response OOH!
5. Home of Arizona State TEMPE
6. Museum work BUST
7. Calendar pg. OCT
8. Nellie __, character in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books OLESON
9. Low-grade peer BARON
10. Lyric tribute ODE
11. Film genre SUSPENSE
12. “My goose is cooked” I’M TOAST
13. Small trunks SPEEDOS
18. Dawns AURORAS
23. It may be told in anger SECRET
26. Field chirper SPARROW
27. Mistake at home, perhaps BAD CALL
28. Yokel HAYSEED
31. Apollo 11’s Eagle, briefly LEM
34. Rage below the surface SEETHE
35. Like some goodbyes TEARFUL
36. News editing site COPY DESK
37. Starz rival HBO
38. Liable AT FAULT
39. Dons fancy duds DOLLS UP
42. One may be in your lap FELINE
44. One may be in your lap TOY DOG
45. Sleazeball CREEPO
46. More than dislike HATRED
48. Puckish ELFIN
50. Farm sequence? E-I-E-I-O
53. “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough” poet OMAR
56. Ship, to the captain SHE
58. JFK alternative LGA
59. Spa sound AHH

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