Day: January 16, 2024

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Constructed by: Kevin Curry
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Tech Startup

Themed answers each START with the name of a TECH company:

• 63A New venture that may collaborate with Y Combinator, and what 18-, 24-, 40-, and 52-Across each literally has? : TECH STARTUP

• 18A South American home of many pink dolphins : AMAZON RIVER (giving Amazon)
• 24A Scientific studies of pooled data : META ANALYSIS (giving Meta)
• 40A Diner dessert topped with a scoop : APPLE PIE A LA MODE (giving Apple)
• 52A Bowlful of letter-shaped pasta : ALPHABET SOUP (giving Alphabet)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4 Bygone Persian rulers : SHAHS

“Shah” was a title used by Persian emperors that translates into English as “king”. The full title in Persian is “Sahahsah”, which means “King of Kings”.

14 Baton Rouge sch. : LSU

LSU’s full name is Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, and is located in Baton Rouge. LSU was founded in 1860 as a military academy, with then-Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman as superintendent.

Baton Rouge is the capital city of the state of Louisiana. The name “Baton Rouge” is French for “red stick” or “red staff”. The exact reason why such a name was given to the city isn’t really clear.

15 Certain Tuscan : PISAN

The Italian city of Pisa is home to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is actually the bell tower of the city’s cathedral. Pisa is also a university town, and is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe, the University of Pisa, which was founded in 1343. The university has produced many notable alumni, including the physicist Galileo Galilei.

Tuscany is a beautiful region in central Italy, the capital of which is the city of Florence. Tuscany is considered to be the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, which was centered around Florence. It was home to great artistic icons such as Dante, Botticelli, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Galileo and Puccini.

18 South American home of many pink dolphins : AMAZON RIVER (giving Amazon)

The Amazon River of South America is the world’s largest in terms of volume, and accounts for an amazing one-fifth of the world’s total river flow. Perhaps even more amazing is that there are no bridges across the Amazon! There isn’t even one, mainly because the river flows through tropical rainforest where there are few roads and cities.

The Amazon river dolphin is also known as the pink river dolphin due to the pink color of its skin, especially the males. The species is endemic to specific parts of South America, i.e. the Amazon basin, the Orinoco basin, and the upper Madeira River in Bolivia.

Amazon.com is the largest online retailer in the world. It is also the largest Internet company in the world by revenue. The company was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, in his garage in Bellevue, Washington. I’m a big fan of Amazon’s approach to customer service …

24 Scientific studies of pooled data : META ANALYSIS (giving Meta)

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

40 Diner dessert topped with a scoop : APPLE PIE A LA MODE (giving Apple)

In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has also come to describe a way of serving pie. Pie served à la mode includes a dollop of cream or ice cream, or as I recall from my time living in Upstate New York, with a wedge of cheddar cheese.

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 …

44 “Star Wars” heroine : LEIA

Princess Leia is Luke Skywalker’s twin sister in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and was played by Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher has stated that she hated the famous “cinnamon bun hairstyle” that she had to wear in the films, as she felt it made her face look too round. She also had to sit for two hours every day just to get her hair styled. Two hours to get your hair done? It takes me just two seconds …

45 Sing the praises of : EXTOL

To extol something is to praise it loudly. The term “to extol” comes from the Latin “extollere” meaning “to raise up, elevate”.

46 Snapchat snicker : LOL

Snapchat is a messaging system that allows users to send photos and video clips to a limited list of recipients. The photos and clips, called “snaps”, can be viewed for only a few seconds before they are deleted from the recipient’s device, and from the Snapchat servers.

47 Court game : TENNIS

Our modern sport of tennis evolved from the much older racquet sport known as real tennis. Originally just called “tennis”, the older game was labeled “real tennis” when the modern version began to hold sway. Real tennis is played in a closed court, with the ball frequently bounced off the walls.

50 “Knives Out” filmmaker Johnson : RIAN

Filmmaker Rian Johnson wrote and directed quite a few major films, including “Looper” (2012), “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017) and “Knives Out” (2019).

“Knives Out” is an intriguing murder mystery film released in 2019. There’s a great cast including Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette and Christopher Plummer. I really enjoyed this one, partly because it’s a clever, contemporary take on a classic whodunit movie …

52 Bowlful of letter-shaped pasta : ALPHABET SOUP (giving Alphabet)

Believe it or not, alphabet pasta (pasta shaped like letters of the alphabet) has been around since the 1870s. Campbell’s introduced its Alphabet Soup brand in the 1950s.

Alphabet is a technology holding company that was formed when Google restructured in 2015. Alphabet is the parent of Google and several subsidiaries, including Google Fiber and Waymo (Google’s autonomous driving company).

58 Grampa Simpson : ABE

In the animated TV show called “The Simpsons”, Grampa Abe Simpson is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, the same actor who provides the voice for Homer.

61 Feudal lord : LIEGE

A liege was a feudal lord, one to whom service or allegiance was owed under feudal law. “Liege” was also the term used for one who owed allegiance or service to a lord. Apparently the term is influenced by the Latin verb “ligare” meaning “to tie, bind”. So, I guess both lord and servant were “bound” to each other.

63 New venture that may collaborate with Y Combinator, and what 18-, 24-, 40-, and 52-Across each literally has? : TECH STARTUP

Y Combinator (YC) is a tech startup accelerator that was founded in 1995, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Mountain View, California. YC has been involved in launching over 4,000 companies since its launch.

68 “West Side Story” role for Rachel Zegler : MARIA

“West Side Story” is a 2021 musical film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second big-screen adaptation of the original 1957 stage musical, following the hit 1961 film of the same name. Rita Mareno has a major supporting role (Valentina) in the 2021 film, and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role (Anita) in the 1961 film.

69 Sierra __, Africa : LEONE

The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa that lies on the Atlantic Coast. The capital city of Freetown was originally set up as a colony to house the “Black Poor” of London, England. These people were mainly freed British slaves of Caribbean descent who were living a miserable life in the run-down parts of London. Perhaps to help the impoverished souls, perhaps to rid the streets of “a problem”, three ships were chartered in 1787 to transport a group of blacks, with some whites, to a piece of land purchased in Sierra Leone. Those who made the voyage were granted British citizenship and protection. The descendants of these immigrants, and others who made the journey over the next 60 years, make up the ethnic group that’s today called the Sierra Leone Creole.

73 Above-the-street rumblers : ELS

Elevated railroad (El)

Down

3 End a project due to lack of funding, say : PULL THE PIN

To pull the pin on say a relationship or project is to end it, perhaps due to lack of interest (in a relationship) or lack of funding (for a project). It is a phrase from American English, with two cited, possible etymologies. One relates to pulling the safety pin from a grenade, and the other to pulling the pin in the linkage between train cars.

7 Witch __: astringent lotion : HAZEL

Witch hazel is a genus of deciduous shrub that might be called “winterbloom” here in North America. The use of “witch” in the plant’s name is not a reference to a practitioner of magic, and instead comes from the Old English “wice” meaning “pliant, bendable”.

10 Yale student : ELI

Elihu Yale was a wealthy merchant born in Boston in 1649. Yale worked for the British East India Company, and for many years served as governor of a settlement at Madras (now Chennai) in India. After India, Yale took over his father’s estate near Wrexham in Wales. It was while resident in Wrexham that Yale responded to a request for financial support for the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701. He sent the school a donation, which was used to erect a new building in New Haven that was named “Yale” in his honor. In 1718, the whole school was renamed to “Yale College”. To this day, students of Yale are nicknamed “Elis”, again honoring Elihu.

19 Loch __ monster : NESS

The Surgeon’s Photograph is an image that was taken in 1934, supposedly of the Loch Ness Monster. It is perhaps the most famous picture of Nessie to this day, the one with a “head” and “neck” sticking up out of the water. The picture’s renown doesn’t seem to have abated, even though in the mid-nineties the photograph was shown to be a hoax. The picture is called the Surgeon’s Photograph because it was taken by a Dr. Wilson.

25 Altar area : APSE

An apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally, apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

26 Half-moon tide : NEAP

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.

27 Former name of Thailand : SIAM

Siam was the official name of Thailand up to 1939 (and again from 1945 to 1949).

32 Kumquat coat : PEEL

The kumquat tree bears fruit that looks like a small orange, about the size of an olive. The rind of a kumquat is sweet, and the center sour, so often it is only the rind that is eaten.

33 Poet Whitman : WALT

Walt Whitman is considered to be one of the greatest American poets. He was born in 1819 on Long Island, and lived through the American Civil War. Whitman was a controversial character, even during his own lifetime. One view held by him was that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were not actually written by Shakespeare, but rather by someone else, or perhaps a group of people.

41 “Blue Banisters” singer-songwriter Del Rey : LANA

“Blue Banisters” is the title track of a 2021 studio album released by Lana Del Rey. In the song’s lyrics, Del Rey mentions her two dogs Tex and Mex, and indeed the album’s cover art shows the singer sitting between the two German shepherds.

49 Rotisserie rod : SPIT

We use the term “rotisserie” to describe a cooking device used to roast meat. The French word “rôtisserie” describes a shop selling cooked meats (“rôti” is French for “roasted”). We first absorbed the French term into English in the 1800s, when “rotisserie” described a similar establishment. It was only in the 1950s that we started to describe the home-cooking apparatus as a rotisserie.

57 Marshmallow treats shaped like baby birds : PEEPS

Peeps are marshmallow candies, usually in the shapes of chicks and bunnies, primarily sold around the Easter holiday. Peeps were introduced in 1952 by a Russian immigrant called Sam Born whose company “Just Born” makes the candies to this day. The original candies were yellow and hand-shaped to look like little chicks, hence the name “Peeps”.

60 Beige shade : ECRU

The color ecru is a grayish, yellowish brown. The word “ecru” comes from French and means “raw, unbleached”. “Ecru” has the same roots as our word “crude”.

64 Camouflaged : HID

Our word “camouflage” (often abbreviated to “camo”) evolved directly from a Parisian slang term “camoufler” meaning “to disguise”. The term was first used in WWI, although the British navy at that time preferred the expression “dazzle-painting” as it applied to the pattern painted on the hulls of ships.

65 Game in which a player may get a red or a yellow card : UNO

The classic card game Uno now comes in several versions. Uno ColorAdd allows people with color blindness to play, and there is also a Braille version that allows blind and sighted friends to play together.