Day: May 31, 2024

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Constructed by: Michèle Govier
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Double Birdied

Themed answers each comprise a DOUBLE of BIRDIES:

• 73A Double birdie, which can also be found at 17-, 31-, 48-, and 62-Across? : EAGLE

• 17A Ingest lather while getting one’s mouth washed out with soap? : SWALLOW DOVE
• 31A Loudly promote trips to Istanbul? : HAWK TURKEY
• 48A Successfully elude director Scorsese? : DUCK MARTIN
• 62A Say “Holy nightmare, Batman!”? : PARROT ROBIN

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

Bill’s time: 10m 53s

Bill’s errors: 2

WAHOO! (yahoo!)
OWS (oys)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Birthstones for some Scorpios : OPALS

Here is the “official” list of birthstones, by month, that we tend to use today:

• January: Garnet
• February: Amethyst
• March: Bloodstone or Aquamarine
• April: Diamond
• May: Emerald
• June: Pearl or Moonstone
• July: Ruby
• August: Sardonyx or Peridot
• September: Sapphire or Lapis Lazuli
• October: Opal or Pink Tourmaline
• November: Topaz or Citrine
• December: Turquoise or Zircon (also now, Tanzanite)

Scorpio is the eighth astrological sign of the Zodiac. Individuals born between October 23 and November 21 are Scorpios. I’m one of those Scorpios …

11 Revenue sources for freemium apps : ADS

The “freemium” pricing strategy is common for applications available online. In such cases, a basic product is provided free of charge, and a premium is charged for proprietary features.

15 “Dominicana” novelist Cruz : ANGIE

Angie Cruz is a novelist from New York who is perhaps best known for her third novel, 2019’s “Dominicana”. It tells the story of a young woman from the Dominican Republic who moves to New York. Cruz is of Dominican descent, and traveled to the Dominican Republic many times in her youth.

16 Matcha, e.g. : TEA

Matcha is a powder made by grinding dried, green tea leaves. The selected tea bushes are heavily shaded for several weeks prior to harvest, which stimulates the production of chlorophyll resulting in darker green leaves. Matcha is used in East Asian cuisines to prepare tea for drinking, and also as an ingredient in dishes such as ice cream, cakes and sushi rolls.

17 Ingest lather while getting one’s mouth washed out with soap? : SWALLOW DOVE

Dove is a line of personal care products made by Unilever. The brand originated in the UK, back in 1955.

19 Clever one : WAG

A very amusing person might be referred to as a card, stitch, wag or riot.

21 Cry at the end of a performance : ENCORE!

“Encore” is French for “again, one more time”, and is a shout that an audience member will make here in North America to request perhaps another song. But, the term is not used this way in France. Rather, the audience will shout “Bis!”, which is the Italian for “twice!”

23 Tourney game : SEMI

“Tourney” is another word for “tournament”. “Tourney” comes from the Old French word “tornei” meaning “contest of armed men”, from “tornoier” meaning “to joust, jilt”.

26 French beans? : TETES

Slang terms for “head” include “bean”, “coconut”, “gourd”, “noodle” and “noggin”.

29 Seed coating : ARIL

The casing surrounding many seeds is called the aril, and it may be quite fleshy. This fruit-like characteristic makes it desirable as a food and hence aids in the dispersion of the seeds.

31 Loudly promote trips to Istanbul? : HAWK TURKEY

Istanbul, Turkey (formerly “Byzantium” and “Constantinople”) is the only metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents. The city extends both on the European side and on the Asian side of the Bosphorus river.

The verb “to hawk” has a Germanic origin, and comes from the Low German word “hoken” meaning “to peddle”. A hawker is actually slightly different from a peddler by definition, as a hawker is a peddler that uses a horse and cart, or a van nowadays perhaps, to sell his or her wares.

33 Sterling silver, e.g. : ALLOY

The official name of the currency of the UK is the pound sterling (plural “pounds sterling”). The most plausible suggestion for the etymology of the term “sterling” is that it derives from the Old English “steorra” meaning “star”, with the diminutive “-ling”. The resulting “little star” or “sterling” referred to a silver penny used by the English Normans. The pound sterling is the world’s oldest currency still in use.

35 Theater boxes : LOGES

In most theaters and stadiums today, “loge” is the name given to the front rows of a mezzanine level. Loge can also be used for box seating.

36 Virtual animal in an early 2000s fad : NEOPET

Neopets.com is a website where one can own a virtual pet. I wouldn’t bother if I were you …

48 Successfully elude director Scorsese? : DUCK MARTIN

Movie director Martin Scorsese is very much a New York City native, and is well-known for directing movies set in the Big Apple. Among the list of great Scorsese films are “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull”, “Goodfellas”, “Cape Fear”, “Casino” and “The Departed”.

56 Kerfuffles : ADOS

“Kerfuffle” comes from the Scottish “curfuffle”, with both words meaning “disruption”.

57 Late sign : PISCES

The twelfth astrological sign of the zodiac is called Pisces, and is named for the Pisces constellation. “Pisces” is the Latin word for “fish” in the plural (singular “piscis”).

61 Brainpower nos. : IQS

Although it is correct these days to say that the abbreviation IQ stands for “intelligence quotient”, the term was actually coined by German psychologist William Stern, and so is actually an abbreviation for the German “Intelligenz-Quotient”.

62 Say “Holy nightmare, Batman!”? : PARROT ROBIN

Batman’s partner Robin is known for his very creative “Holy …!” exclamations. Here are few worth repeating from the original “Batman” TV show:

• “Holy Tintinnabulation!”
• “Holy Knit One, Purl Two!”
• “Holy Oleo!”
• “Holy Hole in a Doughnut!”

69 Omar of Congress : ILHAN

Ilhan Omar has been representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in the US House since 2019. At that time, she became one of the first two Muslim women, as well as the first Somali American, to serve in the US Congress.

71 Apple TV+ role for Jason : TED

“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 Sudeikis. Sudeikis 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 …

72 “Jurassic Park” dinosaur, e.g. : CLONE

“Jurassic Park” is a 1990 novel by Michael Crichton that was adapted into a hugely successful movie by Steven Spielberg in 1993. One of the main premises of the novel is that dinosaur DNA could be harvested from mosquitoes trapped in amber (fossilized tree resin), the DNA coming from the dinosaur blood consumed by the mosquitoes. The dinosaur DNA is then sequenced and used to create clones of the original beasts. Apparently, that’s a clever idea, but not very practical …

73 Double birdie, which can also be found at 17-, 31-, 48-, and 62-Across? : EAGLE

The following terms are routinely used in golf for scores relative to par:

• Bogey: one over par
• Par
• Birdie: one under par
• Eagle: two under par
• Albatross (also “double eagle”): three under par
• Condor: four under par

No one has ever recorded a condor during a professional tournament.

Down

4 Sticky treat, in more ways than one : LOLLIPOP

A lollipop is a piece of candy on a stick. The name “lollipop” surfaced in 1908, and was taken from a prominent race horse of the day named Lolly Pop.

22 Sonata, for one : CAR

The Sonata is one of Hyundai’s most successful models, having been introduced in 1985 and still being sold today. The original model didn’t make it to the North American market as it had problems meeting emission standards. The first Sonatas hit this side of the Pacific in 1988, and were assembled in Bromont, Quebec.

23 Create a PDF, perhaps : SCAN

Adobe Acrobat is the software used to create .pdf files. Most of us are more familiar with the associated application called Adobe Reader, because that’s what we use to read those .pdf files.

24 “Legally Blonde” blonde : ELLE

“LEGALLY blonde” is a 2001 comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon as a girlish sorority president who heads to Harvard to earn a law degree. “LEGALLY blonde” was successful enough to warrant two sequels as well as a spin-off musical that played most successfully in London’s West End (for 974 performances).

25 Actor Ventimiglia : MILO

Actor Milo Ventimiglia got his break on TV playing Jess Mariano on the show “Gilmore Girls”. He then played Peter Petrelli on “Heroes”, and Jack Pearson on “This Is Us”.

27 Number of hearts for a Time Lord : TWO

The Time Lords are an alien race on the BBC sci-fi show “Doctor Who”. The title character, known as “the Doctor”, is in fact a Time Lord.

28 ER graph : EKG

An EKG measures the electrical activity in the heart. Back in my homeland of Ireland, an EKG is known as an ECG (for electrocardiogram). We use the German name in the US, Elektrokardiogramm, giving us EKG. Apparently the abbreviation EKG is preferred, as ECG might be confused (if poorly handwritten, I guess) with EEG, the abbreviation for an electroencephalogram.

32 Touchpad toucher : USER

A touchpad (also “trackpad”) is a pointing device found mainly on laptop computers. It serves as a fairly decent alternative to a mouse.

39 Argentine soccer legend dubbed “El Pibe de Oro” : MARADONA

Diego Maradona had to have been the most famous of Argentina’s soccer players. He was also one of the country’s most controversial sportsmen and was noted for his outspoken manner with journalists, as well as his cocaine addiction. He was often referred to by his nickname “El Pibe de Oro” (The Golden Boy).

51 Crispy Colonel sandwich seller : KFC

The famous “Colonel” of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame was Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur from Henryville, Indiana. Although not really a “Colonel”, Sanders did indeed serve in the military. He enlisted in the Army as a private in 1906 at the age of 16, lying about his age. He spent the whole of his time in the Army as a soldier in Cuba. It was much later, in the 1930s, that Sanders went into the restaurant business making his specialty deep-fried chicken. By 1935 his reputation as a “character” had grown, so much so that Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky gave Sanders the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel”. Later in the fifties, Sanders developed his trademark look with the white suit, string tie, mustache and goatee. When Sanders was 65 however, his business failed and in stepped Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. Thomas simplified the Sanders menu, cutting it back from over a hundred items to just fried chicken and salads. That was enough to launch KFC into the fast food business. Sanders sold the US franchise in 1964 for just $2 million and moved to Canada to grow KFC north of the border. He died in 1980 and is buried in Louisville, Kentucky. The Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices is indeed a trade secret. Apparently there is only one copy of the recipe, a handwritten piece of paper, written in pencil and signed by Colonel Sanders. Since 2009, the piece of paper has been locked in a computerized vault surrounded with motion detectors and security cameras.

60 Buffalo’s lake : ERIE

Buffalo is the second-most populous city in the state of New York. The city takes its name from Buffalo Creek that runs through the metropolis (although the waterway is called Buffalo River within the city). The source of the name Buffalo Creek is the subject of much speculation, but one thing is clear, there were never any bison in the area.

63 Density symbol, in physics : RHO

Rho is the symbol used for density, i.e. mass/volume.

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.

66 Not online, for short : IRL

In real life (IRL)