Day: May 30, 2024

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Constructed by: Emma Oxford
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Sliced Bread

Themed answers are in adjacent pairs in the grid. Each pair contains a kind of BREAD, which is SLICED into two parts by a black square:

• 39A Basis of comparison for many innovations that’s depicted four times in this puzzle : SLICED BREAD

• 17A Radio City, for one : MUSIC HALL
• 19A In the lead : AHEAD
• Hiding sliced CHALL-AH

• 32A Arizona people : HOPI
• 34A Drink mix made popular by NASA : TANG
• Hiding sliced PI-TA

• 46A Dynamic start? : AERO–
• 49A Neat as a pin : TIDY
• Hiding sliced RO-TI

• 62A Saint __: Caribbean island : LUCIA
• 64A Army unit : BATTALION
• Hiding sliced CIA-BATTA

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

Bill’s time: 5m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9 Brand paired with devil horns for a Halloween costume : PRADA

“The Devil Wears Prada” is a 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger that is set in the fashion industry. One of the main characters in the story is Miranda Priestly, the tyrannical editor-in-chief of the fictional fashion magazine “Runway”. It has been suggested that the Priestly character was inspired by Anna Wintour, the real life editor-in-chief of “Vogue”. Weisberger’s book was adapted into a very successful film with the same title that was released in 2006, with Meryl Streep playing Priestly.

15 Hertz rival : AVIS

Avis has been around since 1946, and is the second largest car rental agency after Hertz. Avis has the distinction of being the first car rental company to locate a branch at an airport.

The Hertz car rental company was started in 1918 by Walter L. Jacobs in Chicago. He began with just twelve model T Ford cars available for rent. In 1923, the car rental operation was bought out by John D. Hertz who incorporated it into his truck and coach manufacturing company.

17 Radio City, for one : MUSIC HALL

New York City’s Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center opened for business in 1932. Originally to be named International Music Hall, the current name was chosen in honor of the Radio Corporation of America, which was one of Rockefeller Center’s first tenants.

23 Verizon acquisition of 2006 : MCI

MCI was a giant telecom company that suffered a similar fate to Enron, and around about the same time. MCI was formed with the merger of MCI Communications and WorldCom in 1997, and eventually became the second-largest, long-distance provider in the US. MCI’s stock price fell in 2000 and, in maneuvers designed to protect the price, the company committed illegal acts. MCI’s larger-than-life CEO Bernie Ebbers (formerly of WorldCom) served 13 years of a 25-year sentence, before being released due to a decline in health. He died one month later.

The telecommunications company that we know today as Verizon was founded in 1983 as Bell Atlantic, and was one of the “Baby Bells” that were formed after the breakup of AT&T. Bell Atlantic merged with fellow Baby Bell NYNEX in 1997, and then merged with GTE in 2000 to form Verizon. The new company name is a portmanteau of “veritas” (“truth” in Latin) and “horizon”.

26 “__ the season … ” : TIS

The music for the Christmas song “Deck the Halls” is a traditional Welsh tune that dates back to the 16th century. The same tune was used by Mozart for a violin and piano duet. The lyrics with which we are familiar (other than the “fa-la-la”) are American in origin, and were recorded in the 19th century.

“’Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la la!”

32 Arizona people : HOPI

Many members of the Hopi nation live on a reservation that is actually located within the much larger Navajo reservation in Arizona.

34 Drink mix made popular by NASA : TANG

Tang is a fruity drink that is sold in powdered form. The sales of Tang “took off” when John Glenn took Tang on his Mercury flight. However, it is a common misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. That’s not true, although it was included in the payload of many missions.

35 Cooper of CNN : ANDERSON

Anderson Cooper is a respected news personality on CNN and on various shows around the dial. Among my favorite appearances of his, although he would call them trivial I am sure, was as host of a great reality game show called “The Mole” that aired in 2001. Cooper’s mother was fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt.

39 Basis of comparison for many innovations that’s depicted four times in this puzzle : SLICED BREAD

Sliced bread was retailed for the first time in 1928 by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. The company marketed the product using the slogan “The greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped”. That slogan evolved into the idiom “… the greatest thing since sliced bread”, which we use to this day.

42 Sign of summer : LEO

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

43 Petroleum jelly brand : VASELINE

Vaseline is a brand of petroleum jelly owned by Unilever. The term “vaseline” has entered many languages, including English, as a generic term for petroleum jelly.

49 Neat as a pin : TIDY

Apparently, the idiom “neat as a pin” arose in the early 1800s, with the advent of mass production. Up until that time, pins were handmade and so were irregular and relatively flawed. Mass-produced pins were uniform and of consistent quality. So, something that was uniform and of consistent quality came to be described as “neat as a pin”.

51 Pre-univ. warmup exams : PSATS

Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

56 Psychoactive constituent of cannabis : THC

“Hemp oil” shouldn’t be confused with “hash oil”. The former is produced by pressing hemp seeds, and contains only insignificant amounts of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). The latter is extracted from the plant using solvents, and contains relatively high concentrations of the psychoactive THC.

57 OB-GYNs, e.g. : MDS

Obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN)

62 Saint __: Caribbean island : LUCIA

The Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia has a population of less than 200,000. Remarkably, Saint Lucia has produced two Nobel Laureates: economist Arthur Lewis and poet Derek Walcott.

64 Army unit : BATTALION

Typically, a battalion is a military unit comprising about a thousand soldiers, subdivided into several companies.

71 “The War of the Worlds” writer : WELLS

“The War of the Worlds” is a science fiction classic penned by H. G. Wells in 1895-97. This compelling story of Martians invading Earth has been adapted many times into radio dramas, a television series and several movies.

Down

1 Parsons of “Hidden Figures” : JIM

Jim Parsons is an actor from Houston, Texas who is best known for playing Sheldon Cooper on the television sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”.

“Hidden Figures” is an excellent 2016 film based on a book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. Both book and film tell the story of female African-American mathematicians who worked for NASA during the Mercury and Apollo programs in the 1960s.

2 __ Dhabi : ABU

Abu Dhabi is one of the seven Emirates that make up the federation known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two largest members of the UAE (geographically) are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the only two of the seven members that have veto power over UAE policy. Before 1971, the UAE was a British Protectorate, a collection of sheikdoms. The sheikdoms entered into a maritime truce with Britain in 1835, after which they became known as the Trucial States, derived from the word “truce”.

3 Chums : BEST BUDS

A chum is a friend. The term “chum” originated in the late 1600s as an alternative spelling for “cham”. In turn, “cham” was a shortened form of “chambermate”, a roommate at university.

5 Actress Christine : LAHTI

Christine Lahti is an actress probably best known for playing Dr. Kate Austen on the TV medical drama “Chicago Hope”. If you read “The Huffington Post” you might run across her as well, as Lahti is a contributing blogger.

6 Janelle’s “Abbott Elementary” role : AVA

Janelle James is a comedian and actress who is perhaps best known to TV audiences for playing Ava Coleman, the school’s inept principal in the mockumentary sitcom “Abbot Elementary”.

“Abbott Elementary” is a sitcom in the mockumentary genre. The show was created by and stars Quinta Brunson as a cup-half-full second-grade teacher in a Philadelphia public school. The premise of “Abbott Elementary” is that a film crew is making a documentary about the lives of teachers working in underfunded schools.

7 Latte ingredient : MILK

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk; there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

9 “Allegory of the cave” philosopher : PLATO

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” appears in his Socratic dialogue titled “Republic”. He uses the allegory to make the point that some people can be comfortable in their ignorance and become hostile towards someone who tries to educate them, to make them aware of their ignorance.

11 Iron deficiency : ANEMIA

The term “anemia” (or “anaemia”, as we write it back in Ireland) comes from a Greek word meaning “lack of blood”. Anemia is a lack of iron in the blood, or a low red blood cell count. Tiredness is a symptom of the condition, and so we use the term “anemic” figuratively to mean “lacking in vitality or substance”.

18 Clique : COTERIE

A coterie is a small group of friends who hang out together, and often share a common interest. The term comes to us from French, in which language a coterie was an organization of peasants all of whom held land owned by the same feudal lord.

A clique is a small, exclusive group of people. The term “clique” comes to us from France, where it has the same meaning. In French, it somehow evolved in meaning from the original “clique” meaning a sharp noise, or as we would say today, “click”.

27 Steve Madden creation : SHOE

Fashion designer Steve Madden is best known for his line of shoes. Madden fell foul of the law and was convicted in 2002 of stock manipulation, money laundering, and securities fraud, for which he was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

31 Large strings : CELLOS

The word “cello” (plural “celli” or “cellos”) is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation “‘cello” was often used. Nowadays, we just drop the apostrophe.

36 Nova __ : SCOTIA

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia (NS) lies on the east coast of the country and is a peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The area was settled by Scots starting in 1621, and Nova Scotia is Latin for “New Scotland”.

38 Bathysphere realm : DEEP SEA

A bathysphere is a submersible used in exploring the deep sea. The bathysphere is spherical in shape, so as to better resist the high pressure of deep waters. The term “bathysphere” comes from the Greek “bathus” and “sphaira” meaning “deep” and “sphere”. The vessel is simply lowered into the water on a strong cable.

41 Rant : DIATRIBE

A diatribe is a bitter discourse. The term “diatribe” comes from the Greek “diatribein” meaning “to wear away”.

53 Amherst campus, familiarly : UMASS

The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) is the largest public university in New England. UMass was founded back in 1863, although it took a while to get the school into service. Construction work was delayed and the college went through two presidents before William S. Clark took charge. He cracked the whip, completed the construction and enrolled the first students in the same year that he took over the reins, in 1867. As a result, although Clark was the third President of UMass, he is regarded by most as the school’s founding father.

59 Bistro : CAFE

“Bistro” was originally a Parisian slang term describing a little wine shop or restaurant.

61 Actor Ruck : ALAN

Actor Alan Ruck’s big break came when he was cast as the title character’s best friend (Cameron Frye) in the excellent 1986 film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. On TV, Ruck’s breakthrough role was the power-grabbing member of the mayor’s staff in the sitcom “Spin City”. More recently, he landed the part of Connor Roy in the hit drama show “Succession”. In real life, Ruck married fellow actor Mireille Enos in 2008.

65 Hat that may match a kilt : TAM

A tam o’shanter is a man’s cap worn traditionally by Scotsmen. “Tams” were originally all blue (and called “blue bonnets”) but as more dyes became readily available they became more colorful. The name of the cap comes from the title character of the Robert Burns poem “Tam o’ Shanter”. A pom-pom adorning a tam is known as a toorie.

67 “Game of Thrones” patriarch Stark : NED

Sean Bean is an English actor who is perhaps best known in North America for playing Boromir in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and Ned Stark in the fantasy TV show “Game of Thrones”. James Bond fans will remember him as the bad guy in “GoldenEye”, the character called Alec Trevelyan.