Day: June 21, 2023

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Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Shell Companies

Themed answers each include letters circled at the beginning and end. Those letters form a “SHELL” that spells out the name of a COMPANY:

• 54A Corporations with little business activity, and what are formed by the circled letters : SHELL COMPANIES

• 16A Fruity frozen treat : ORANGE POPSICLE (giving “ORA-CLE“)
• 25A Pursue additional education, e.g. : APPLY FOR COLLEGE (giving “APPL-E”)
• 35A Spanish “I like” : ME GUSTA (giving “ME-TA“)
• 42A Slips, bras, etc. : INTIMATE APPAREL (giving “INT-EL”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 45s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Chaparral growth : SHRUB

Chaparral is shrubland found mainly in California comprising plants that thrive in dry summers and relatively wet winters. The term “chaparral” comes from the Spanish “chaparro” meaning “evergreen oak”.

6 Place to soak some barking dogs : FOOT SPA

Apparently, the phrase “my dogs are barking” meaning “my feet are hurting” originated in America in the 1920s. From there evolved the use of the term “dogs” for “feet”.

13 Indigenous New Zealanders : MAORIS

The Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. They are eastern Polynesian in origin and began arriving in New Zealand relatively recently, starting some time in the late 13th century. The word “māori” simply means “normal”, distinguishing mortal humans from spiritual entities. The Māori refer to New Zealand as “Aotearoa”.

The first European to sight the nation that we know today as New Zealand was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He labeled the land “Staten Landt”, believing it to be part of South America. Dutch cartographers changed the name to “Nova Zelandia”, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. That Latin name evolved into the Dutch “Nieuw Zeeland”, which Captain James Cook anglicized to “New Zealand”.

16 Fruity frozen treat : ORANGE POPSICLE (giving “ORA-CLE”)

The term “ice pop” has largely been supplanted in the US by “popsicle”, as the Popsicle brand of ice pop became so popular. We still use “ice pop” in Ireland, and in the UK the same thing is called an “ice lolly”, and in Australia it’s an “ice block”.

Oracle is a huge software company with headquarters in Redwood City, California. Oracle’s main product is enterprise software, software that meets the needs of an organization rather than an individual user. Oracle was co-founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison, who is now one of the richest business people in the world.

20 Chats online, briefly : IMS

Even though instant messaging (sending and receiving IMs) has been around since the 1960s, it was AOL who popularized the term “instant message” in the eighties and nineties. The “AOL Instant Message” service was known as AIM.

25 Pursue additional education, e.g. : APPLY FOR COLLEGE (giving “APPL-E”)

Apple Computers was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The company incorporated the following year, but without Wayne. He sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak, for $800 …

31 Spring flower : IRIS

Iris is a genus of flowering plants that come in a wide variety of flower colors. The term “iris” is a Greek word meaning “rainbow”. Many species of irises are called “flags”. One suggestion is that the alternate name comes from the Middle English “flagge” meaning “reed”. This term was used because iris leaves look like reeds.

32 Fish in a swarm : EELS

A group of eels can be called a swarm, cell, pipe, bed, array or fry.

33 Ctrl-__-Del : ALT

Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a keyboard command on IBM PC compatible systems used for a soft reboot, or more recently to bring up the task manager in the Windows operating system. Bill Gates tells us that the command was originally just a device to be used during development and was never meant to “go live”. He once said that “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” was a mistake, and that he would have preferred a dedicated key on the keyboard that carried out the same function.

35 Spanish “I like” : ME GUSTA (giving “ME-TA”)

Facebook, Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. in 2021 as part of a rebranding exercise.

39 Comedian DeLaria : LEA

Lea DeLaria is a comedian and actor who is perhaps best known for portraying Carrie “Big Boo” Black on the hit comedy-drama “Orange is the New Black”. Another of DeLaria’s claims to fame is that she became the first openly gay comic to appear on a late-night talk show, doing so in 1993 on “The Arsenio Hall Show”.

41 Ballet leap : JETE

A jeté is a leap in ballet, with the term “jeté” coming from the French word “jeter” meaning “to throw”. A “jeté en avant” is a “leap to the front”, towards the audience. A “grand jeté” is a long horizontal jump, a split in the air, leaping from one foot to the other.

42 Slips, bras, etc. : INTIMATE APPAREL (giving “INT-EL”)

Intel is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips. The company was founded in 1968, and the name “Intel” is derived from the term “int(egrated) el(ectronics)”. Recognition of the Intel brand has been greatly helped by the success of the “Intel Inside” campaign that started back in 1991.

48 Transit option to NYC’s Roosevelt Island : TRAM

Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City’s East River lying within the borough of Manhattan. The island was known as Welfare Island when it was used principally for hospitals, from 1921 to 1973. It was renamed Roosevelt Island (in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt) in 1973. I recommend that visitors take a ride on the Roosevelt Island Tramway, especially at night, as the tram offers beautiful views of Manhattan and Queens.

49 Web access co. : ISP

Internet service provider (ISP)

51 WNBA honor for A’ja Wilson in 2020 and 2022 : MVP

Professional basketball player A’ja Wilson was the first pick in the 2018 WNBA draft, after which she signed for the Las Vegas Aces. She won Olympic Gold at the 2020 Olympics, and captained the Aces in 2022 when the team won their first league championship title.

54 Corporations with little business activity, and what are formed by the circled letters : SHELL COMPANIES

A shell corporation is a company with no significant assets or operations. They are a main component of the underground economy, especially those based in tax havens.

59 Item on a laundry list? : TIDE POD

The dark side of social media struck again in late 2017 when “The Tide Pod Challenge” became an Internet sensation. Participants were eating Tide detergent pods on camera, and getting very sick and dangerously injured.

60 Campfire treats : S’MORES

S’mores are treats peculiar to North America that are usually eaten around a campfire. A s’more consists of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers. The earliest written reference to the recipe is in a 1927 publication called “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts”. Girl Scouts always did corner the market on cookies and the like!

61 Bounding main : OPEN SEA

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” to mean “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.

Down

1 Dark cloud on the horizon? : SMOG

“Smog” is a portmanteau formed by melding “smoke” and “fog”. The term was first used to describe the air around London in the early 1900s. Several cities around the world have a reputation of being particularly smoggy. For example, the most smog-plagued city in Latin America is Mexico City, which is located in a highland “bowl” that traps industrial and vehicle pollution.

2 Largest lagomorph : HARE

Rabbits and hares belong to the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, and specifically in the family Leporidae.

6 First three community cards in Texas Hold ’em : FLOP

In the card game called Texas hold ‘em, two hole cards are dealt to each player, and five community cards are dealt face up on the table. The community cards are dealt in the three stages. The first three cards are dealt in one stage (the flop), then the fourth card is shown (the turn), and finally the fifth card (the river).

7 Alley-__ : OOP

An alley-oop is a play in basketball in which one player lobs the ball close to the basket for a teammate who usually scores with a slam dunk.

11 Expert who relies on a show of hands : PALM READER

The practice of telling fortunes by studying palms is known as palmistry, palm reading, chiromancy or chirology. The term “chiromancy” comes from the Greek “kheir” (hand) and “mateia” (divination).

14 Calligrapher’s flourish : SERIF

Serifs are details on the ends of characters in some typefaces. Typefaces without serifs are known as sans-serif, using the French word “sans” meaning “without” and “serif” from the Dutch “schreef” meaning “line”. Some people say that serif fonts are easier to read on paper, whereas sans-serif fonts work better on a computer screen. I’m not so sure though …

Calligraphy is the art of fine handwriting. The term “calligraphy” comes from the Greek “kallos” meaning “beauty” and “graphein” meaning “to write”.

17 Casual top : POLO

René Lacoste was a French tennis player who went into the clothing business, and came up with a more comfortable shirt that players could use. This became known as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted for use in the sport of polo, the shirts also became known as “polo shirts”. The “golf shirt” is basically the same thing. The Lacoste line of clothing features a crocodile logo, because René was nicknamed “The Crocodile”.

23 “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester : HOLT

Lester Holt is a television journalist. When Holt became the permanent anchor of “NBC Nightly News” in 2015, he became the first African-American solo anchor for a daily network news program.

24 Pataky of “Fast & Furious” films : ELSA

Elsa Pataky is a model and actress from Spain who is perhaps best known for playing Brazilian military police officer Elena Neves in the “Fast & Furious” movies. Pataky’s husband is Australian actor Chris Hemsworth.

25 Garlicky dip : AIOLI

Aioli is a French sauce made from garlic, egg yolks, and olive oil. The word “aioli” comes from “alh”, the Provençal word for garlic, and “oli”, a Catalan word meaning “oil”.

27 Vessel that may fly the Jolly Roger : PIRATE SHIP

The Jolly Roger is a flag that was flown by pirates to identify their vessels, basically to strike fear in the hearts of the crews they were attacking. We usually think of the Jolly Roger’s design as a white skull and crossbones on a black background. There is a theory that pirates originally flew a red flag, and this was known colloquially as the “pretty red”, or “joli rouge” in French. “Joli Rouge” then evolved into “Jolly Roger”.

28 Waste reduction strategy : REUSE

The so-called “waste hierarchy” can be restated as the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The preferences are in order:

1. Reduce consumption
2. Reuse manufactured products
3. Recycle raw materials

29 Muscle used in a squat, informally : GLUTE

There are three gluteal muscles in the human body, the largest of which is the gluteus maximus. It’s the gluteus maximus which really dictates the shape and size of the human buttocks. In evolutionary terms, the human “glutes” (also “glutei”) are larger than those in related species because they play a big role in maintaining our erect posture.

30 Broadway icon Merman : ETHEL

Ethel Merman was an actress and singer, one noted for having a very powerful voice. Merman was married and divorced four times. The last marriage was to actor Ernest Borgnine in 1964, although it lasted only 32 days.

36 Part of Q.E.D. : ERAT

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

37 Scandal suffix : -GATE

The Watergate scandal is so named because it involved a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. The Watergate complex is made up of five units, three of which are apartment buildings, one an office building, and one a hotel-office building (which housed the DNC headquarters). Watergate led to the “-gate” suffix being used for many subsequent scandals, such as “Irangate”, “Bridgegate” and “Deflategate”.

45 Play things? : PROPS

We use the word “props” for objects that are used by actors on stage during a play. The term is a shortening of the older term “properties”, which was used with the same meaning up through the 19th century.

46 Country that connects the Americas : PANAMA

The nation that we now know as Panama sits on an isthmus that formed about 3 million years ago. The isthmus was the result of a land bridge forming between North and South America as two tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust slowly collided. Man first attempted to create a waterway across the Isthmus of Panama in 1881, but the 48-mile long Panama Canal only opened for business in 1914.

50 Word with bread or cracker : SODA …

Soda bread is a bread in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a raising agent instead of yeast. It is a bread common in Irish cuisine, and indeed we usually refer to sodium bicarbonate as “bread soda”.

55 Ballroom dancer Goodman : LEN

Len Goodman was a professional ballroom dancer. He was head judge on the US’s “Dancing with the Stars” until 2019, and head judge on the original UK version of the show called “Strictly Come Dancing” until 2017.

56 Vinyl records, briefly : LPS

The first vinyl records designed to play at 33⅓ rpm were introduced by RCA Victor in 1931, but were discontinued due to quality problems. The first long play (LP) 33⅓ rpm disc was introduced by Columbia Records many years later in 1948, with RCA Victor following up with a 45 rpm “single” the following year, in 1949.

Strictly speaking, the term “vinyl” describes the ethenyl functional group (-CH=CH₂) found in some organic chemicals. Perhaps the most often encountered example of such a chemical is vinyl chloride, a chemical used to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride. The name “vinyl” was coined in 1851 by German chemist Hermann Kolbe. He chose the term because the vinyl group is closely related to ethyl alcohol, and “vinum” is Latin for “wine”. Cheers …

58 Native American Heritage mo. : NOV

November was declared as Native American Heritage Month by President George H. W. Bush in 1990.