Day: September 4, 2023

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Constructed by: Marin Wells & Andrew Kingsley
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Break the Ice

Themed answers each include the word “ICE” hidden within, although it is BROKEN up and the letters stretched throughout:

• 64A Begin a conversation, and what the answers to the starred clues do to their circled letters? : BREAK THE ICE

• 17A *Clue suspect dressed in red : MISS SCARLET
• 25A *The key to good locks? : HAIR CARE
• 40A *”I confess! You got me!” : GUILTY AS CHARGED
• 50A *Parakeet’s home : BIRDCAGE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 06s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Like the Mandarin and Thai languages : TONAL

In tonal languages, words that are spelled the same can be imparted with different meanings by use of inflection. The most widely spoken tonal language is Mandarin Chinese.

14 Spanish birthplace of St. Teresa : AVILA

The Spanish city of Ávila is famous for the walled defenses around the old city (“la muralla de Ávila”) that date back to 1090. They were constructed out of brown granite, and are still in excellent repair. There are nine gateways and eighty-towers in all. Even the cathedral built between the 12th and 14th centuries is part of the city’s defenses, so it looks like an imposing fortress.

St. Teresa of Ávila (also known as St. Teresa of Jesus) was a Carmelite nun living in Spain in the 1500s. She is particularly noted for her writings on Christian meditation and mental prayer.

16 Conjunction that’s the “B” in the FANBOYS mnemonic : BUT

The mnemonic “FANBOYS” stands for “for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so”. These are conjunctions used to connect ideas in a sentence.

17 *Clue suspect dressed in red : MISS SCARLET

Miss Scarlet is one of the suspects in the board game “Clue”.

Clue is a board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

33 Civil rights icon Parks : ROSA

Rosa Parks was one of a cadre of brave women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

36 Tropical fruit : GUAVA

The name “guava” applies to several tropical fruit species. The most frequently eaten species is the apple guava (also “common guava”). Almost half of the world’s guava is produced by India.

43 Tennis star Naomi : OSAKA

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

44 Silicon Valley’s __ Alto : PALO

The city of Palo Alto, California takes its name from a specific redwood tree called El Palo Alto (Spanish for “the tall stick”) that is located within the bounds of the city. The tree is 110 feet tall and over a thousand years old.

50 *Parakeet’s home : BIRDCAGE

Parakeets are a group of bird species that are small parrots. The most common type of parakeet that we see in pet stores is the budgerigar.

59 Some nest eggs, for short : IRAS

A nest egg is an amount of money laid down as a reserve. This is the figurative use of “nest egg” that originally described an artificial egg left in a nest to encourage a hen to lay real eggs in that spot. So our financial nest egg is set aside in anticipation of continued growth, more eggs being laid.

63 __ Quixote : DON

The full name of Cervantes’s novel is “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”. In the story, Don Quixote is a retired country gentleman who heads out as a knight-errant and who renames himself Don Quixote of La Mancha. In his mind he designates a neighboring farm girl called Aldonza Lorenzo as his lady love, and renames her Dulcinea del Toboso.

66 Ted Lasso setting: Abbr. : ENG

The terms “United Kingdom”, “Great Britain” and “England” can sometimes be confused. The official use of “United Kingdom” originated in 1707 with the Acts of Union that declared the countries of England and Scotland as “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”. The name changed again with the Acts of Union 1800 that created the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” (much to the chagrin of most of the Irish population). This was partially reversed in 1927 when the current name was introduced, the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, in recognition of an independent Irish Free State in the south of the island of Ireland.

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikas. Sudeikas first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

67 Out of style : PASSE

“Passé” is a French word, meaning “past, faded”. We’ve imported the term into English, and use it in the same sense.

68 Painter’s stand : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

69 Night anticipating the Ball Drop, informally : NYE

The famous New Year’s Eve (NYE) ball-dropping tradition in Times Square started on January 1st 1908. The original ball was lit with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs and was dropped at one second after midnight. A fifth version of the ball was introduced in 2008 for the centennial anniversary of the ceremony. The 2008 ball was built by Waterford Crystal and was lit by 9,567 LED bulbs that consumed the same amount of power as ten electric toasters. The current ball was used for the first time in 2009, and is double the size of the 2008 ball at 12 feet in diameter. The ball now sits atop Times Square year round, so you can go see it next time you are in town.

70 Where most of “Moby-Dick” takes place : AT SEA

The full title of Herman Melville’s novel is “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale”. Note that the convention is to hyphenate “Moby-Dick” in the title, as that was how the book was first published, in 1851. However, there is no hyphen in the name of the whale “Moby Dick” as reproduced throughout the text.

71 Romance novelist Danielle : STEEL

Danielle Steel is a remarkably popular author, and one who is very prolific. She has sold over 800 million copies of her 179 books. Steel lives part-time in San Francisco, in a 55-room mansion built for sugar tycoon Adolph B. Spreckels.

Down

2 “Buenos Aires” musical : EVITA

“Evita” was the follow-up musical to “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Both of these works were originally released as album musicals, and very successful ones at that (I remember buying them when they first came out). “Evita” was made into a film in 1996, with Madonna playing the title role and Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce playing her husband Juan Perón.

4 Golfer Ernie known as “The Big Easy” : ELS

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

6 Russian autocrat : TSAR

Imperial Russia was a period of Russian history that lasted from 1721 to 1917, when Russia was ruled by a series of Emperors known as tsars. The Russian Empire was officially claimed by Emperor Peter I, known as Peter the Great, after the defeat of the Swedish Empire and the end of the Great Northern War. The tsars lost their power when the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918 during the Russian Civil War. When the war ended in 1923, the Bolsheviks established the Soviet Union, which covered most of the territory occupied by the Russian Empire.

7 “Queen of All Media” Winfrey : OPRAH

Oprah Winfrey’s multimedia production company is known as Harpo Studios. “Harpo” is “Oprah” spelled backwards, and is also the name of the husband of the character who Winfrey played in the movie “The Color Purple”.

8 __ wafers : NILLA

As one might expect, “Nilla” is a shortened form of “vanilla”. However, you won’t find any vanilla in Nilla brand cookies or wafers. They have always been flavored with vanillin, which is synthetic vanilla. Is nothing sacred …?

11 President who appointed two women to the Supreme Court : OBAMA

Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General of the United States who replaced Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court. That made Justice Kagan the first female US Solicitor General and the fourth female US Supreme Court justice. I hear she is a fan of Jane Austen, and used to reread “Pride and Prejudice” once a year. Not a bad thing to do, I’d say …

Sonia Sotomayor was the first Hispanic justice appointed to the US Supreme Court, and the third female justice. Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace the retiring Justice David Souter in 2009. She is the subject of a picture book in the series “Ordinary People Change the World” by Brad Meltzer. “I Am Sonia Sotomayor” was published in 2018.

13 Curling piece : STONE

I think curling is such a cool game (pun!). It’s somewhat like bowls, but played on a sheet of ice. The sport was supposedly invented in medieval Scotland, and is called curling because of the action of the granite stone as it moves across the ice. A player can make the stone take a curved path (“curl”) by causing it to slowly rotate as it slides.

18 Dip stick? : CELERY

There’s an urban myth that the process of eating celery burns more calories than the body can obtain from the vegetable through digestion. While celery is indeed a low-calorie food, eating it does provide a net-positive number of calories.

26 Latvia’s capital : RIGA

Riga is the capital city of Latvia. The historical center of Riga is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, declared as such because of the city’s magnificent examples of Art Nouveau architecture. In fact, Riga has the largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world, with over 750 buildings in the city center designed in the style.

28 Sudsy bar : SOAP

Soap is basically made by adding a strong alkali (like lye) to a fat (like olive oil or palm oil). The fats break down in the basic solution in a process called saponification. The crude soap is extracted from the mixture, washed, purified and finished in molds.

34 Nine-digit ID issuer : SSA

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was set up as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first person to receive a monthly retirement benefit was Ida May Fuller of Vermont who received her first check for the sum of $22.54 after having contributed for three years through payroll taxes. The New Deal turned out to be a good deal for Ms. Fuller, as she lived to be 100 years of age and received a total benefit of almost $23,000, whereas her three years of contributions added up to just $24.75.

A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts, i.e AAA-GG-SSSS. Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Starting in 1973, the Area Number reflected the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN was the Group Number, and the SSSS number the Serial Number. This is all moot today. Since 2011, SSNs have been assigned randomly. Some random numbers, however, have been excluded from use, i.e. Area Numbers 000, 666 (!) and 900-999.

35 LGBTQ+ advocacy org. : ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning, and others (LGBTQ+)

38 “Peace” shape : VEE

One has to be careful making that V-sign depending where you are in the world. Where I came from, the V-for-victory (or peace) sign has to be made with the palm facing outwards. If the sign is made with the palm facing inwards, it can be interpreted as a very obscene gesture.

41 Barber’s powder : TALC

Talc is a mineral, hydrated magnesium silicate. Talcum powder is composed of loose talc, although these days “baby powder” is also made from cornstarch.

42 Stinging insect : HORNET

A hornet is a large type of wasp, with some species reaching over two inches in length.

50 President who declared Juneteenth a federal holiday : BIDEN

“Juneteenth” is a holiday celebrated on June 19th every year, a commemoration of the emancipation of slaves throughout the Confederate South. President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect on January 1st, 1863 but it only applied to Confederate states that were not in Union hands. The order freeing the last slaves in the US was issued at the end of the Civil War, on June 19th 1865. That order applied specifically to the State of Texas. Over a decade later, in 1980, Texas became the first state to declare June 19th (“Juneteenth”) a state holiday.

51 “The Twilight Zone” specialty : IRONY

The iconic television series “The Twilight Zone” first aired in 1959 and then ran for 156 episodes before being pulled in 1964. “The Twilight Zone” was revived for four years in the late eighties, and was also spun-off into a movie by Steven Spielberg in 1983.

52 “Home on the __” : RANGE

The words of “Home on the Range” came before the music, from an 1870s poem called “My Western Home” penned by a Dr. Brewster Higley of Kansas. The music was added by Daniel Kelley, a friend of Higley. And now, a version of the song is the state song of Kansas.

57 Quiz-show host : EMCEE

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism used for a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

61 Self-assembly furniture giant : IKEA

The IKEA furniture chain was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943, when he was just 17-years-old. IKEA is an acronym standing for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (don’t forget now!). Elmtaryd was the name of the farm where Ingvar Kamprad grew up, and Agunnaryd is his home parish in Sweden.

64 Chemical in some plastics, briefly : BPA

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic chemical that is used extensively in the manufacture of plastics. The main source of the controversy surrounding the use of the chemical is that BPA has hormone-like properties and has been classified as an endocrine disruptor, meaning that it can interfere with human hormone systems. BPA is “everywhere”, given the amount of plastic that we use in society. The debate seems to be whether or not the levels that we are exposed to are sufficient to create a health risk.