Day: September 5, 2023

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Constructed by: Susan Gelfand
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Instructions

Themed answers are common phrases reinterpreted as INSTRUCTIONS in areas cited in the corresponding clues:

• 17A Instruction in public relations? : SPIN CLASS
• 26A Instruction in horticulture? : NURSERY SCHOOL
• 48A Instruction in an early computer language? : BASIC TRAINING
• 63A Instruction in residential real estate? : HOME STUDY

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

Bill’s time: 5m 36s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Tot’s piggy : TOE

When talking to a little child, one might refer to his or her toes as “little piggies”.

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home.

17 Instruction in public relations? : SPIN CLASS

We use the term “spin” to describe an attempt to influence media reporters, with the term “spin doctor” describing a public relations person who is spouting such “spin”. Apparently, the use of “spin” in this context was popularized during the Reagan administration, when White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was known informally as the “Director of Spin Control”.

Exercise classes that feature indoor cycling are usually referred to as “spin classes”. Apparently, “spinning” is a trademarked term owned by a company called Mad Dogg Athletics. That said, there are a lot of folks out there using “spinning” as a generic term.

26 Instruction in horticulture? : NURSERY SCHOOL

Horticulture is the practice of growing ornamental and food plants. The term “horticulture” is rooted in the Latin word “hortus” meaning “garden”.

31 Capital city near the Nile Delta : CAIRO

Cairo is the capital city of Egypt. It is nicknamed “The City of a Thousand Minarets” because of its impressive skyline replete with Islamic architecture. The name “Cairo” is a European corruption of the city’s original name in Arabic, “Al-Qahira”.

A river delta is a triangular landform at the mouth of a river created by the deposition of sediment. The use of the term “delta” in this context comes from the triangular shape of the Greek letter delta. The Nile Delta in Northern Egypt is one of the world’s largest river deltas, and covers 150 miles of coastline on the Mediterranean. The most famous “delta” in the United States isn’t actually a delta at all. The Mississippi Delta is an alluvial plain that lies 300 miles north of the river’s actual delta, yet it is known as the “Mississippi River Delta”. Very confusing …

33 Four-time WNBA champion Bird : SUE

WNBA player Sue Bird is one of only two basketball players, male or female, to have won five Olympic gold medals. The other is fellow WNBA star Diana Taurasi. Bird became engaged to US soccer phenom Megan Rapinoe in 2020.

34 Jason’s ship, in Greek mythology : ARGO

In Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts set sail on the Argo from the city of Iolcos in search of the Golden Fleece. Jason’s vessel was called the “Argo” in honor of a man named Argus, who designed and constructed it with the help of the goddess Athena.

35 Do the last part of a triathlon, e.g. : RUN

An Ironman Triathlon is a race involving a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon run of just over 26 miles. The idea for the race came out of a debate between some runners in the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay. They were questioning whether runners, swimmers or bikers were the most fit athletes. The debaters decided to combine three local events to determine the answer, inviting athletes from all three disciplines. The events that were mimicked in the first triathlon were the Waikiki Roughwater swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). The idea was that whoever finishes first would be called “the Iron Man”. The first triathlon was run in 1978, with fifteen starters and only twelve finishers. The race format is used all over the world now, but the Hawaiian Ironman is the event that everyone wants to win.

36 Catch a few winks : NAP

Back in the early 1800s, folks took “nine winks” when getting a few minutes of sleep during the day. Dr. William Kitchiner extended this concept in his 1821 self-help book “The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life”. He suggested “A Forty Winks Nap”, which we seem to have been taking ever since. Mind you, I’m up to about eighty winks most days …

39 Los Angeles commuter org. : MTA

“MTA” might refer to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is known as “the Metro” and sometimes “the MTA”.

41 The NHL’s __ Ross Trophy : ART

Art Ross was a Canadian who played professional hockey from 1905 to 1918. Ross then worked as a game official on the ice, before launching a second career as coach and general manager of the Boston Bruins. In 1947, Ross donated the Art Ross Trophy to the NHL that is awarded annually to the league’s highest scorer.

44 Novelist Deighton : LEN

I used to walk my dog right past author Len Deighton’s house years ago, as we lived in the same seaside village in Ireland (probably my only claim to “fame”). Deighton wrote the excellent espionage thriller “The IPCRESS File”, which was made into a 1965 movie starring Michael Caine.

46 Mystical old letters : RUNES

A rune is a character in an alphabet that is believed to have mysterious powers. In Norse mythology, the runic alphabet was said to have a divine origin.

48 Instruction in an early computer language? : BASIC TRAINING

BASIC is a family of computer programming languages. The original version in the series was released in 1964 at Dartmouth College. The program was designed to enable students in fields outside the sciences to program computers. The acronym BASIC stands for “Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code”.

52 Letter after pi : RHO

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter R. It is the 17th letter in the Greek alphabet.

53 Whitlock Jr. of “Cocaine Bear” : ISIAH

Actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. is perhaps best known for playing state senator Clay Davis on the hit TV show “The Wire”. Whitlock picked up a colorful catchphrase from his character on “The Wire”, as the actor used his rich, deep voice to the full pronouncing a mild expletive as “sheeeeeeeee-it”. 🙂

“Cocaine Bear” is a 2023 horror comedy film loosely inspired by the true story of the “Cocaine Bear”, an American black bear that ingested nearly 75 lb of lost cocaine. The movie is a darkly comedic take on the true story of the Cocaine Bear. The film’s cast includes Ray Liotta, and It is dedicated to him as he died in May 2022.

57 Hogwash : ROT

“Hogwash” means “rubbish, of little value”. “Hogwash” was originally the name of swill fed to pigs.

62 “Mental Illness” Grammy winner Mann : AIMEE

“Mental Illness” is a 2017 studio album released by Aimee Mann that won that season’s Grammy for Best Folk Album.

66 Prez on a fiver : ABE

The US five-dollar bill is often called an “Abe”, as President Abraham Lincoln’s portrait is on the front. An Abe is also referred to as a “fin”, a term that has been used for a five-pound note in Britain since 1868.

69 Knight’s title : SIR

Kneel, and a monarch might “dub thee a knight” if you’re lucky. “Dub” is a specific term derived from Old English that was used to mean “make a knight”. As the knight was also given a knightly name at the same time, “dub” came to mean “give someone a name”.

70 Herbes de Provence herb : THYME

The term “herbes de Provence” is used to describe various mixtures of herbs traditionally associated with Provençal cuisine. In the 1970s, spice suppliers started using the term to describe particular mixtures of specific herbs dried that were sold in outlets. Such mixtures usually include savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano and possibly lavender.

Down

4 Mythological man-horse : CENTAUR

A centaur is a figure from Greek mythology. It is a creature with the upper body of a human and lower body of a horse.

5 Top-left PC key : ESC

The escape key (Esc) was originally used just to control computer peripherals. It was a key that allowed the computer operator to stop what the peripheral was doing (cancel a print job, for example). Nowadays the escape key is used for all sorts of things, especially in gaming programs.

9 Like most of the Pacific Coast Highway : SCENIC

“Pacific Coast Highway” is the name given to several sections of California State Route 1, which runs along much of the state’s Pacific coastline.

10 Omnivorous fish : PIRANHA

Piranhas are reputed to be able to strip an animal to its bones in seconds, but this is somewhat of a myth. Piranhas are not in fact strict carnivores, and usually are more of a nuisance to fishermen rather than a danger, as they tend to eat bait that has been set to catch other fish. Much of the reputation of the piranha is owed to the description written by President Theodore Roosevelt in his book “Through the Brazilian Wilderness”. President Roosevelt was somewhat hoodwinked though, as local fishermen put on a special “show” for him. They dumped hordes of hungry piranhas into a dammed section of a river and then tossed in a sliced up cow. President Roosevelt was pretty impressed by the orchestrated feeding frenzy.

12 Sea level shift : TIDE

Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans. At neap tide, the smaller gravitational effect of the sun cancels out some of the moon’s effect. At spring tide, the sun and the moon’s gravitational forces act in concert causing more extreme movement of the oceans.

26 Dressed to the __ : NINES

The term “to the nines” means “to perfection”. The first person to use the term in literature was Robbie Burns. Apparently the idea behind the use of “nines” is figurative (pun!), with the number nine considered “ideal” as it is arrived at by multiplying three by three.

28 Chimp kin : ORANG

Orangutans (also “orangs”) are arboreal creatures, the largest arboreal animals known to man. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, and live in rainforests. Like most species in rainforests these days, orangutans are endangered, with only two species surviving. The word “orangutan” is Malay, meaning “man of the forest”.

29 Beast in “Puss in Boots” : OGRE

“Puss in Boots” is a fairy tale from Europe, the earliest recording of which is in a collection of stories by Giovanni Francesco Straparola that dates back to the 1550s. The title character has been used in subsequent works; he makes an appearance in Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Sleeping Beauty”, and more recently in the “Shrek” series of animated films.

31 Fiddler __: creature with asymmetric claws : CRAB

“Fiddler crab” is the common name given to several species of small crab. One characteristic of a fiddler crab is that the main claws of the female are the same size whereas one of the male’s main claws is much larger than the other.

37 Voices between sopranos and tenors : ALTOS

In choral music, an alto (plural “alti”) is the second-highest voice in a four-part chorus made up of soprano, contr(alto), tenor and bass. The word “alto” describes the vocal range, that of the deepest female singing-voice, whereas the term “contralto” describes more than just the alto range, but also its quality and timbre. An adult male’s voice (not a boy’s) with the same range as an alto is called a “countertenor”.

45 Kenyan city known as the Green City in the Sun : NAIROBI

Nairobi is the capital and largest city in the African nation of Kenya. The city is named for the Nairobi River, which in turn takes its name from the Maasai “Enkare Nairobi” meaning “Cool Water”. Nairobi was founded in 1899 as a stop on the Kenya-Uganda railroad, at a time when the country was a British colony.

49 Corny : CHEESY

“Cheesy” can mean “of poor quality”. The term’s usage dates back to the late 1800s when it evolved from the Urdu “chiz” meaning “thing”. “Chiz” was used to describe a big thing, something important, and our word “cheesy” is an ironic derivative from that sense.

50 Chemically similar compound : ISOMER

In the world of chemistry, isomers are two compounds with the same chemical formula (i.e. the same atomic constituents), but with a slightly different arrangement of the atoms relative to each other. The differing arrangement of atoms often leads to different chemical properties.

54 Folk legend Joan : BAEZ

Joan Baez is an American folk singer and a prominent activist in the fields of non-violence, civil rights, human rights and environmental protection. Baez has dated some high-profile figures in her life including Bob Dylan, Steve Jobs (of Apple) and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead.

55 Take a bus : RIDE

We use the term “bus” for a mode of transportation as it is an abbreviated form of the original “omnibus”. We imported “omnibus” via French from Latin, in which language it means “for all”. The idea is that an omnibus is a carriage “for all”.

56 Iowa college town : AMES

The Iowa city of Ames was founded as a stop on the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad in 1864. It was named for US Congressman Oakes Ames from the state of Massachusetts in honor of the role that Ames played in the building of the transcontinental railroad.

60 Gouda alternative : EDAM

Edam cheese takes its name from the Dutch town of Edam in North Holland. The cheese is famous for its coating of red paraffin wax, a layer of protection that helps Edam travel well and prevents spoiling. You might occasionally come across an Edam cheese that is coated in black wax. The black color indicates that the underlying cheese has been aged for a minimum of 17 weeks.

Gouda is a cheese that originated in the Dutch city of the same name, although today Gouda is produced all over the world and very little of it comes from the Netherlands. Gouda is often smoke-cured, which gives it a yellowish-brown outer skin and that characteristic smoky taste.

64 Mach 1 breaker : SST

Supersonic transports (SSTs) like the Concorde broke Mach 1, the speed of sound. As a plane flies through the air, it creates pressure waves in front (and behind) rather like the bow and stern waves of a boat. These pressure waves travel at the speed of sound, so as an aircraft itself accelerates towards the speed of sound it catches up with the pressure waves until they cannot “get out of the way”. When the aircraft reaches the speed of sound, the compressed waves merge into one single shock wave, creating a sonic boom.

The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is its speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane traveling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.