Day: October 2, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
4. Waikiki allure SURF
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, and home to the famous Waikiki Beach. The name “Waikiki” means “spouting fresh water” in Hawaiian.

8. Like an old jalopy BEAT-UP
The origins of our word “jalopy” meaning “dilapidated old motor car” seem to have been lost in time, but the word has been around since the 1920s. One credible suggestion is that it comes from Jalapa, Mexico as the Jalapa scrap yards were the destination for many discarded American automobiles.

14. Chemical suffix -IDE
In chemistry, when a metal combines with a nonmetal, the nonmetal is often given the suffix -ide. One example would be iron sulfide, made from iron (a metal) and sulfur (a nonmetal).

15. Hesse-based automaker OPEL
Adam Opel founded his company in 1863, first making sewing machines in a cowshed. Commercial success brought new premises and a new product line in 1886, namely penny-farthing bicycles. Adam Opel died in 1895, leaving his two sons with a company that made more penny-farthings and sewing machines than any other company in the world. In 1899 the two sons partnered with a locksmith and started to make cars, but not very successfully. Two years later, the locksmith was dropped in favor of a licensing arrangement with a French car company. By 1914, Opel was the largest manufacturer of automobiles in Germany. My Dad had an Opel in the seventies, a station wagon (we’d say “estate car” in Ireland) called an Opel Kadett.

Hesse is a German state. The capital of Hesse is Wiesbaden, although the largest city in the state is Frankfurt.

18. Angry young man’s fate? LIFE OF PIQUE (“Life of Pi” + QUE)
Our term “pique” meaning a “fit of ill feeling” is a French word meaning a “prick, sting, irritation”.

The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy named Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

20. Hill stint TERM
The six-year terms enjoyed by US senators are staggered, so that every two years about one third of the US Senate seats come up for reelection. Members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms, with elections taking place every even year.

22. Hershey bar SKOR
Skor is a candy bar produced by Hershey’s. Skor is sold in Canada as Rutnam.

23. Bygone political entity that included Syr. UAR
The United Arab Republic (UAR) was a union between Egypt and Syria made in 1958 and dissolved in 1961 when Syria pulled out of the arrangement.

24. Hercules, e.g.? ANTIQUE HERO (“antihero” + QUE)
An “antihero”, perhaps in a movie or novel, is the “hero” of the piece, but someone who doesn’t exhibit the qualities traditionally associated with a hero, such as bravery or moral fortitude.

“The Twelve Labors of Hercules” is actually a Greek myth, although Hercules is the Roman name for the hero that the Greeks called Heracles. The full list of all twelve labours is:

1. Slay the Nemean Lion.
2. Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra.
3. Capture the Ceryneian Hind.
4. Capture the Erymanthian Boar.
5. Clean the Augean stables in a single day.
6. Slay the Stymphalian Birds.
7. Capture the Cretan Bull.
8. Steal the Mares of Diomedes.
9. Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.
10. Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon.
11. Steal the apples of the Hesperides.
12. Capture and bring back Cerberus.

28. South African golfer with four major championships ELS
Ernie Els is a South African golfer. Els a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. He is a former World No. 1 and has won four majors: the US Open (1994 & 1997) and the British Open (2002 & 2012).

30. Polite response to Aunt Polly YES’M
Mark Twain’s famous character Tom Sawyer had a few family members. He had an Aunt Polly, an Aunt Sally Phelps, a cousin Mary and half-brother Sid.

33. Ingolstadt-based automaker AUDI
The predecessor to today’s Audi company was called Auto Union. Auto Union was formed with the merger of four individual entities: Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer. The Audi logo comprises four intersecting rings, each representing one of the four companies that merged.

Ingolstadt is a city in Bavaria, Germany that is located on the River Danube. Ingolstadt lies within the Munich Metropolitan Area.

39. Result of a Caribbean sanitation strike? DIRTY MARTINIQUE (“dirty martini” + QUE)
The island of Martinique in the eastern Caribbean is actually a part of France, and is referred to as an “overseas department”. As such, Martinique is part of the European Union, and even uses the euro as its currency. The island is fully represented in the French National Assembly and Senate, just like any department within France. It’s sort of like the status of Hawaii within the US.

A dirty Martini is a regular Martini with a splash of olive juice, served with an olive garnish.

44. Poet Sexton ANNE
Anne Sexton was a poet from Massachusetts who won the 1967 Pulitzer for poetry for her collection titled “Live or Die”. Sexton’s style of poetry is sometimes classified as “confessional”, and reveals details of her private life, including her battle with depression. She finally committed suicide in 1974 at the age of 45.

46. Einstein’s birth city ULM
Ulm is in the south of Germany and sits on the River Danube. Ulm is famous as home to the tallest church in the world, Ulm Minster, a Gothic building with a steeple that is 530-feet tall, with 768 steps to climb. Ulm is also the birthplace of Albert Einstein, and is where the entire Austrian army surrendered to Napoleon after the Battle of Ulm in 1805.

47. 50-50, to Fifi EGAL
“Égal” is the French word for “equal, alike”, and a word we sometimes use in English. The national motto of France is “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, meaning “Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood).

51. __ Council: “Survivor” feature TRIBAL
The reality show “Survivor” is based on a Swedish television series created in 1997 called “Expedition Robinson”.

53. Rush HIE
“To hie” is to move quickly, to bolt.

60. Pacific feast LUAU
Nowadays, the word “luau” denotes almost any kind of party on the Hawaiian Islands, but to the purist a luau is a feast that always includes a serving of “poi”, the bulbous underground stems of taro baked with coconut milk.

61. Drudge PEON
A peon is a lowly worker with no real control over his/her working conditions. The word comes into English from Spanish where it has the same meaning.

62. Ready-to-hang Cubist painting? WIRED BRAQUE (“wired bra” + QUE)
In the art movement known as Cubism, objects that are the subject of a painting are broken up and reassembled in an abstract form. The pioneers of the Cubist movement were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

67. Indian state that was part of a former Portuguese colony GOA
Goa is the smallest state in India, and is located in the southwest of the country. The Portuguese landed in Goa in the early 1500s, at first peacefully carrying out trade, but then took the area by force creating Portuguese India. Portugal held onto Portuguese India even after the British pulled out of India in 1947, until the Indian Army marched into the area in 1961.

68. Tamsui River capital TAIPEI
“Taipei” translates from Chinese as “Northern Taiwan City” and indeed is situated at the northern tip of Taiwan. The city is nicknamed “City of Azaleas” as the flower blooms better in Taipei than in any other city on the island.

70. “Monsters, __” INC
The animated feature “Monsters, Inc.” was released in 2001, and was Pixar’s fourth full-length movie. It’s about cute monsters, and that’s all I know other than that the voice cast included the likes of John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Steve Buscemi.

71. Magellan’s milieux OCEANS
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who was hired by King Charles I of Spain to find a westward route to the “Spice Islands”, now known as the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. Magellan headed west through the Atlantic starting out in 1519. He passed south of the Americas through was is now called the Strait of Magellan. The body of water he encountered west of the Americas he named the “peaceful sea”, the Pacific Ocean. He and his expedition reached the Spice Islands in 1521, and returned home via the Indian Ocean. This voyage was the first circumnavigation of the globe in history.

72. Breyers competitor EDY’S
Dreyer’s ice cream sells its products under the name Dreyers in the Western United States, and Edy’s in the Eastern states. The company’s founders were William Dryer and Joseph Edy.

Breyers ice cream was introduced by William A. Breyer in 1866, in Philadelphia. Always known for using all-natural ingredients, Breyers products made in recent years contain more and more food additives in an attempt to cut costs in a competitive market. In fact, most Breyers products can’t even be labeled “ice cream” anymore as they don’t contain enough milk and cream and so are labeled “frozen dairy dessert” instead.

Down
1. Regional organisms BIOTA
The biota of a region is the total collection of flora and fauna found there.

2. Stimulant trademark ADRENALIN
One of the first products introduced by drug maker Parke-Davis was Adrenalin, in 1900. Adrenalin is a pure form of adrenaline, the hormone produced by the adrenal glands that is important in the fight-or-flight response. Because the trademark name is so close to the name of the hormone, generic forms of the drug have to refer to the natural hormone as “epinephrine”, the alternative name for adrenaline.

3. Jalapeño product, for some? HEARTBURN
The delicious jalapeño pepper is named for the place where it was traditionally cultivated: the city of Xalapa (also “Jalapa”) in Veracruz, Mexico.

4. San José sun SOL
San José is a capital of the Central American country of Costa Rica. Well, that’s one of the many places called San José around the world …

5. News org. UPI
Founded in 1958, United Press International (UPI) was one of the biggest news agencies in the world, sending out news by wire to the major newspapers. UPI ran into trouble with the change in media formats at the end of the twentieth century and lost many of its clients as the afternoon newspapers shut down due to the advent of television news. UPI, which once employed thousands, still exists today but with just a handful of employees.

10. Bee: Pref. API-
Something described as “apian” is related to bees. “Apis” is the Latin for “bee”.

11. Chapeau seen in “Ratatouille” TOQUE
A toque was a brimless style of hat that was very fashionable in Europe in the 13th to 16th centuries. Nowadays we associate toques with chefs, as it is the name given to a chef’s hat (called a “toque blanche” in French, a “white hat”). A chef’s toque is quite interesting. Many toques have exactly 100 pleats, often said to signify the number of ways that an egg can be cooked.

“Chapeau” is the French word for “hat”.

“Ratatouille” is a 2007 animated film produced by Pixar. The hero of the piece is Remy, a rat whose ambition is to become a chef. Remy was voiced by stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt. The veteran actor Peter O’Toole voiced the character Anton Ego, a restaurant critic.

12. Quotidian USUAL
Something described as “quotidian” is ordinary, commonplace, or is something that occurs daily. “Quotidianus” is Latin for “daily”.

21. Apennines possessive MIO
“Mio” is Italian for “my”.

The Apennines are the chain of mountains running the length of the Italian peninsula. The highest peak of the range is in the central Apennines and is named the Corno Grande, which rises to over 9,500 feet.

26. Word on a bill UNUM
From 1776, “E pluribus unum” was the unofficial motto of the United States. “E pluribus unum” is Latin for “Out of many, one”. It was pushed aside in 1956 when an Act of Congress designated “In God We Trust” as the country’s official motto.

27. Old writings mentioning Odin EDDA
The Poetic Edda and Prose Edda are two ancient works that are the source for much of Norse mythology. Both Eddas were written in the 13th century, in Iceland.

31. Open __ MRI
MRI scans can be daunting for many people as they usually involve the patient lying inside a tube with the imaging magnet surrounding the body. Additionally, the scan can take up to 40 minutes in some cases. There are some open MRI scanners available that help prevent a feeling of claustrophobia. However, the image produced by open scanners are of lower quality as they operate at lower magnetic fields.

32. Org. requiring milk pasteurization FDA
Federal Drug Administration (FDA)

Unlike sterilization, pasteurization does not kill off all microbes, but instead reduces their number so that a food is unlikely to cause disease or to spoil. Pasteurization involves heating a food to a defined temperature for a defined time and then immediately cooling it. The modern process was created by the French chemist Louis Pasteur, after whom the technique is named. Pasteur’s original aim was to prevent wine and beer from going sour.

34. The Bronx’s Jerome Ave. line is part of it IRT
The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the original private operator of the New York Subway when it opened in 1904. The city took over ownership of the system in 1940, but the lines originally operated by the IRT are still known by the IRT moniker.

The New York City borough known as the Bronx takes its name from the Bronx River that runs through it. The river was named after Jonas Bronck, an early immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Bronck’s farm gave rise to the names “Broncksland” and “Bronck’s River”.

36. Mixture that dissolves gold AQUA REGIA
Aqua regia is a mixture of concentrated nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. “Aqua regia” translates as “royal water”. The mixture was given this name as it can dissolve the “noble” metals, gold and platinum.

37. Rare twosome of July 2015 FULL MOONS
We had two full moons in July 2015. The first was on July 1st and the second, the “blue moon”, was on July 31st.

As there is a full moon once every four weeks, approximately monthly, there are usually twelve full moons in any given year. However, every 2-3 years, depending on the phase of the moon at the beginning of the calendar year, there may be a thirteenth full moon. The “extra” full moon is called a “blue moon”, although no one seems to really know why the term “blue” is used, as far as I can tell. Which of the thirteen full moons that is designated as the blue moon varies depending on tradition. My favorite definition is from the Farmer’s Almanac. It states that as each of the seasons normally has three full moons (twelve divided by the four seasons), then the season with four full moons is designated as “special”, then the THIRD (and not the fourth) full moon in that “special” season is the blue moon. Complicated, huh?

38. Pro __ TEM
“Pro tempore” can be abbreviated to “pro tem” or “p.t.” “Pro tempore” is a Latin phrase that best translates as “for the time being”. It is used to describe a person who is acting for another, usually a superior.

41. 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner TUTU
Desmond Tutu is a South African, a former Anglican bishop who is an outspoken opponent of apartheid. Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, among other distinguished awards.

43. Innocent NAIF
A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

48. Big name in mustard GULDEN
The Gulden’s brand of mustard was introduced by New Yorker Charles Gulden, way back in 1862. In the early days, Gulden actually attached small spoons to each jar to be used in serving the mustard.

49. Wolf-headed god ANUBIS
Anubis is the Greek name for the Ancient Egyptian deity called Inpu, a god associated with death and mummification. Anubis’s role was to protect the dead and their tombs.

54. __ crest: pelvic border ILIAC
The sacrum and the two ilia are three bones in the human pelvis.

55. Like H.P. Lovecraft stories EERIE
H. P. Lovecraft was an author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Lovecraft’s books aren’t my cup of tea …

63. Org. monitoring endangered species EPA
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

64. Letters of proof QED
QED is used at the end of a mathematical proof or a philosophical argument. The QED acronym stands for the Latin “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “that which was to be demonstrated”.

65. Turn that’s hung UEY
Hang a uey, make a u-turn.

66. Chekov’s “Star Trek” rank: Abbr. ENS
Ensign is (usually) the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the armed forces. The name comes from the tradition that the junior officer would be given the task of carrying the ensign flag.

Walter Koenig played Pavel Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series. Mr. Chekov was a Russian character, but Koenig himself was born in Chicago, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. “I don’t like it!” BAH!
4. Waikiki allure SURF
8. Like an old jalopy BEAT-UP
14. Chemical suffix -IDE
15. Hesse-based automaker OPEL
16. Reporter’s coup EXPOSE
17. Man-mouse link OR A
18. Angry young man’s fate? LIFE OF PIQUE (“Life of Pi” + QUE)
20. Hill stint TERM
22. Hershey bar SKOR
23. Bygone political entity that included Syr. UAR
24. Hercules, e.g.? ANTIQUE HERO (“antihero” + QUE)
28. South African golfer with four major championships ELS
29. Be quite prevalent ABOUND
30. Polite response to Aunt Polly YES’M
32. Seasonal affliction FLU
33. Ingolstadt-based automaker AUDI
35. Crude carrier RAFT
39. Result of a Caribbean sanitation strike? DIRTY MARTINIQUE (“dirty martini” + QUE)
44. Poet Sexton ANNE
45. Popular melt meat TUNA
46. Einstein’s birth city ULM
47. 50-50, to Fifi EGAL
51. __ Council: “Survivor” feature TRIBAL
53. Rush HIE
56. Proprietary paperwork? UNIQUE FORMS (“uniforms” + QUE)
59. “Well done!” analog OLE!
60. Pacific feast LUAU
61. Drudge PEON
62. Ready-to-hang Cubist painting? WIRED BRAQUE (“wired bra” + QUE)
67. Indian state that was part of a former Portuguese colony GOA
68. Tamsui River capital TAIPEI
69. Excited about, with “on” KEEN
70. “Monsters, __” INC
71. Magellan’s milieux OCEANS
72. Breyers competitor EDY’S
73. Require ASK

Down
1. Regional organisms BIOTA
2. Stimulant trademark ADRENALIN
3. Jalapeño product, for some? HEARTBURN
4. San José sun SOL
5. News org. UPI
6. Court charge caller REF
7. Soft tissue FLESH
8. In front of BEFORE
9. Many sports commentators EX-PROS
10. Bee: Pref. API-
11. Chapeau seen in “Ratatouille” TOQUE
12. Quotidian USUAL
13. Jury members PEERS
19. “__-doke!” OKEY
21. Apennines possessive MIO
25. Ship loading site QUAY
26. Word on a bill UNUM
27. Old writings mentioning Odin EDDA
31. Open __ MRI
32. Org. requiring milk pasteurization FDA
34. The Bronx’ Jerome Ave. line is part of it IRT
36. Mixture that dissolves gold AQUA REGIA
37. Rare twosome of July 2015 FULL MOONS
38. Pro __ TEM
40. Pro’s support TEE
41. 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner TUTU
42. Regarding IN RE
43. Innocent NAIF
48. Big name in mustard GULDEN
49. Wolf-headed god ANUBIS
50. One covering tracks, perhaps LIAR
52. Hit on the head BOP
53. Book with steps HOW-TO
54. __ crest: pelvic border ILIAC
55. Like H.P. Lovecraft stories EERIE
57. Tremble QUAKE
58. Oreos, say SNACK
63. Org. monitoring endangered species EPA
64. Letters of proof QED
65. Turn that’s hung UEY
66. Chekov’s “Star Trek” rank: Abbr. ENS

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