Day: March 16, 2024

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Constructed by: Jess Rucks
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 8m 35s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 __ Men: one-hit junkanoo band of 2000 : BAHA

The Baha Men are so called because they hail from the Bahamas. Their big hit was “Who Let the Dogs Out?” That song once ranked third in a list of the world’s most annoying songs!

The festival of Junkanoo originated in the Bahamas, probably in Jamaica among enslaved Africans and their descendents in the 1700s. In most locations, it is celebrated around the week of Christmas. Central to the celebration is a parade featuring lavish costumes and dancing.

9 Member of a dazzle : ZEBRA

Here are some colorful collective nouns:

• A pride of lions
• A shrewdness of apes
• A cloud of bats
• A bench of bishops
• A clowder of cats
• A waddling of ducks
• An army of frogs
• A knot of toads
• A memory of elephants
• A dazzle of zebra
• A tower of giraffe
• A crash of rhinos

14 “Van Helsing” role : IGOR

“Van Helsing” is a 2004 horror movie starring Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, a monster hunter. The title character was inspired by Dutch vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing who appears in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula”.

15 Smart __ : ALEC

Apparently, the original “smart Alec” (sometimes “Aleck”) was one Alec Hoag, a pimp, thief and confidence trickster who plied his trade in New York City in the 1840s.

16 Location of the Karnak Temple Complex : EGYPT

The Karnak Temple Complex is located near Luxor on the banks of the River Nile in Egypt. The most famous structure at Karnak is the Great Temple of Amun.

18 Pepa or pepper partner : SALT

Salt-N-Pepa are an all-female hip-hop trio from New York made up of “Salt” (Cheryl James), “Pepa” (Sandra Denton) and “DJ Spinderella” (Deidra Roper). The group’s 1991 song “Let’s Talk Sex” created quite a fuss as the lyrics explored the subject of sex, and safe sex in particular. A later version addressed the dangers of AIDS.

19 “Buona __” : NOTTE

In Italian, one might say “buona notte” (goodnight) before heading to bed.

20 Phrase on a shamrock-green T-shirt : KISS ME, I’M IRISH

Me too …

25 Hermey of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” for one : ELF

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a 1964 animated Christmas special made for TV. Decades later, it is still aired, several times during the holiday season. The special is based on the 1949 song of the same name written by Johnny Marks and popularized by Gene Autry. In turn, the song is based on the 1939 poem of the same name penned by Robert L. May, Johnny Marks’ brother-in-law.

28 Comedian who wrote “Cracking Up” and “I Know I Am, but What Are You?” : SAMANTHA BEE

Samantha Bee is a comedian from Toronto who found fame as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” starting way back in 2003. Bee left “The Daily Show” in 2015 to host her own late-night talk show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” on TBS.

32 Hodgepodge : MISHMASH

“Hochepot” is an Old French word for stew or soup, and this gave rise to an Anglo-French legal term for a collection of property that was gathered prior to being divided up. This became our “hodgepodge” in the early 1400s.

35 Hoity-toity type : SNOOT

“Snoot” is a variant of “snout”, and is a word that originated in Scotland. The idea is that someone who is snooty, or “snouty”, tends to look down his or her nose at the rest of the world.

Believe it or not, the term “hoity-toity” has been in the English language since the 1660s, but back then it meant “riotous behavior”. It began to mean “haughty” in the late 1800s, simply because the “haughty” sounds similar to “hoity”.

36 Euler’s field : MATH

Leonhard Euler was a brilliant Swiss mathematician and physicist, and a pioneer in the fields of logarithms and graph theory. Euler’s eyesight deteriorated during his working life, and he eventually became almost totally blind.

37 Vital organ elements : PIPES

The organ that we often see in churches, synagogues and concert halls is a pipe organ. Sound is produced by pressurized air driven through particular pipes selected by keys on a keyboard.

44 Cozy aesthetic : COTTAGECORE

Cottagecore is an aesthetic that developed relatively recently, in the 2010s. It emphasizes simplicity and looks to rural life for inspiration and as a motif. Cottagecore embraces things like growing food in one’s garden, baking bread at home, the use of secondhand furniture, and adopting hobbies such as drawing and pottery.

47 Camel kin : TAN

Camel and tan are both colors.

60 Cornstarch brand : ARGO

Argo brand cornstarch first hit the store shelves way back in 1892.

61 Rice brews : SAKES

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

62 “American Chopper” argument, e.g. : MEME

“American Chopper” is a reality TV show about a father and son who manufacture chopper-style motorcycles. There is an explosive argument in one episode in which the father fires the son. A clip showing that argument has turned into an Internet meme. After some legal wrangling, the son opened his own motorcycle design company.

64 Aromatic herb : THYME

In ancient Greece, thyme was burned as incense and used in baths as it was believed to be a source of courage.

66 Chuck : YEET

In contemporary slang, to yeet is to throw away, discard. “To yeet” usually implies the use of force and a general disregard for what is being discarded. As in, “I really want to yeet the word ‘yeet’ …”

Down

1 Travis Scott’s “__ Mode” : SICKO

“Sicko Mode” is a 2018 song by rapper Travis Scott. It was destined to become the first hip-hop song to spend a minimum of three weeks in the top ten of the Billboard 100.

3 Like Freya and Hel : NORSE

The Norse goddess Freyja (also “Freya”) rules over Fólkvangr, a meadow that is the destination of half of those who die in battle. The other half go to Valhalla, the majestic hall presided over by the god Odin. The word “freyja” translates to “lady, mistress” in Old Norse.

Hel is a being from Norse Mythology who presides over a realm that is also called Hel. The underworld of Hel receives many of the dead, and the term “go to Hel” is used in Norse accounts to mean “to die”.

5 One of two near Everest : BASE CAMP

There are two dase camps used by mountaineers attempting to scale Everest. The South Base Camp is in Nepal at about 17,600 feet, and is used when making the climb via the southeast ridge. The North Base Camp in China at about 17,000 feet, and is used when making the climb via the northeast ridge.

7 Tiller : HELM

In its broadest sense, the term “helm” describes the whole of a ship’s steering mechanism, including the rudder and tiller. In a more specific sense, the helm is the handle, tiller or wheel that is used to control the steering gear.

8 Lara Croft, for one : ACTION HERO

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

9 High points : ZENITHS

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

10 Super followers? : -EGOS

Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The superego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.

12 Sch. assignment : RPT

Report (rpt.)

26 Currency in West Africa : LEONE

Leones are the currency of Sierra Leone. The Leone was introduced in 1964 to replace the British West African pound. The move was a practical one, as the Leone is a decimal currency and replaces the old British system of pounds, shillings and pence.

29 Handle for a née-sayer : MAIDEN NAME

“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”. The term “née” is mainly used in English when referring to a married woman’s birth name, assuming that she has adopted her husband’s name, e.g. Michelle Obama née Robinson, Melania Trump née Knavs, and Jill Biden née Jacobs.

30 Savory jelly : ASPIC

Aspic is a dish in which the main ingredients are served in a gelatin made from meat stock. “Aspic” is a French word meaning “jelly”.

31 Start to freeze? : ANTI-

The antifreeze that we put into our cars has ethylene glycol as the active ingredient. Ethylene glycol is dangerous stuff, and is very poisonous. Ingestion causes calcium oxalate crystals to form in the kidneys. It sounds like a horrible way to go …

36 Game for owls : MICE

Much of an owl’s diet consists of small mammals. As a result, humans have used owls for centuries to control rodent populations, usually by placing a nest box for owls on a property. Despite the fact that owls and humans live together in relative harmony, owls have been known to attack humans from time to time. Celebrated English bird photographer Eric Hosking lost an eye when attacked by a tawny owl that he was trying to photograph. Hosking wrote a 1970 autobiography with the wry title “An Eye for a Bird”.

38 Cord cutter, perhaps : STREAMER

Cord-cutting is moving away from subscription TV service offered by cable and satellite providers, and moving to streaming services offered over the Internet. I made the move some years ago, and saved a LOT of money. But, the providers of streaming services are smart, and my TV-viewing costs are rising steadily …

41 “Blue Nude” painter : MATISSE

“Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra)” is a 1907 oil painting by Henri Matisse. He was working on a sculpture of a nude that shattered, leading to him working on the painting of the same subject. Matisse later finished the sculpture, which he called “Reclining Nude I (Aurore). “Blue Nude” can be seen at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

43 Large group : BEVY

“Bevy” is a collective noun used for a number of types of bird, including quail and swans. “Bevy” is also sometimes used as a collective noun for women.

45 Josh who plays Shakespeare on “History of the World, Part II” : GAD

Josh Gad is an actor and comedian who was born in Hollywood, although that would be Hollywood, Florida. Gads big break came on the stage, when he originated the role of Elder Cunningham in “The Book of Mormon”. On the big screen Gad played Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak in “Jobs” and Hector McQueen in the 2017 adaptation of “Murder on the Orient Express”. Gad also voiced Olaf in the “Frozen” films.

“History of the World, Part II” is a sketch comedy series created by Mel Brooks. It is positioned as a sequel to the 1981 film “History of the World, Part I”, also written by Brooks. The TV show features a variety of sketches that parody events from different periods of human history and legend. It stars a number of well-known actors, including Mel Brooks himself and co-writer Wanda Sykes.

49 Winner of four FIFA World Cups : ITALY

The International Federation of Association Football (“Fédération Internationale de Football Association” in French) is usually referred to by the acronym “FIFA”. FIFA is the governing body of the game of soccer (association football), and the organizer of the FIFA World Cup held every four years.

50 Paroxysm : THROE

Our contemporary word “throe”, meaning a spasm of pain, has been around since the early 1600s. It is a different spelling of the word “throwe” that had been around since around 1200 AD and which meant pain, particularly a pang of childbirth or the agony of death. Pain, from cradle to grave …

A paroxysm is a convulsion, an attack, a sudden worsening of symptoms. We also use “paroxysm” in a non-medical sense, to describe a sudden outburst.

51 Old quarter back : EAGLE

State quarters were introduced in 1999. Prior to that, the quarter had an eagle on its reverse.

52 Mink kin : STOAT

The stoat has dark brown fur in the summer, and white fur in the winter. Sometimes the term “ermine” is used for the animal during the winter when the fur is white. Ermine skins have long been prized by royalty and are often used for white trim on ceremonial robes.

There are two species of mink extant: the European Mink and the American Mink. There used to be a Sea Mink which was much larger than its two cousins, but it was hunted to extinction (for its fur) in the late 1800s. American Minks are farmed over in Europe for fur, and animal rights activists have released many of these animals into the wild when raiding mink farms. As a result the European Mink population has declined due to the presence of its larger and more adaptable American cousin.

55 Creature feature with giant ants : THEM!

“Them!” is a 1954 science fiction movie about giant ants attacking humans after receiving a dose of nuclear radiation in the New Mexico desert. “Them!” was the first of a whole host of “giant bug” films, of which I think I’ve seen … none …

56 Quasi : SEMI

“Quasi” is a Latin word meaning “as if, as though”. We use the term in English to mean “having a likeness to something”.

57 Wash. setting : PST

The people from what today is Washington state first petitioned the US Congress for statehood in 1852. At that time the proposal was to name the new state Columbia, but this was rejected as it was felt that a state called Columbia might be confused with the District of Columbia. Somewhat bizarrely, the alternative name of Washington was accepted. Certainly, the name Washington honors the first President, but there’s still potential confusion with the nation’s capital. I hate to admit my ignorance, but as a young man in Ireland, whenever I heard talk of Washington (state), I assumed the discussion was about Washington, D.C. …