Day: September 17, 2024

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Constructed by: Doug Peterson
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Container Ship

Themed answers each include a type of SHIP, divided between the start and finish:

• 49A Vessel transporting standard-sized cargo units, and a description of each set of circled letters : CONTAINER SHIP

• 20A Comic strip that’s been running since 1918 : GASOLINE ALLEY (giving “GA/LLEY”)
• 25A Significant other : LIFE PARTNER (giving “LI/NER”)
• 44A “Delta Dawn” country singer : TANYA TUCKER (giving “TAN/KER”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Persian Gulf nation : IRAN

The Persian Gulf is in effect an inland sea, although it technically is an offshoot of the Indian Ocean. The outlet from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean is one of the most famous maritime “choke points” in the world, and is known as the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world’s supply of petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

5 Tree with fronds : PALM

Palms are perennial flowering plants that take many forms, some as shrubs and some as vines, for example. Some take on a tree-like shape, with a woody stem topped by a crown of leaves. Such palms are usually referred to as “palm trees”. The coco de mer palm tree has the largest seeds of any plant on the planet. We are more familiar with the coconut palm tree, which has the second-largest plant seeds known.

18 Prestigious British boarding school : ETON

Eton College near Windsor in the south of England was founded way back in 1440 by King Henry VI. Originally known as “The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor”, the school was intended to provide free education to poor boys. Free education today at Eton? Not so much …

20 Comic strip that’s been running since 1918 : GASOLINE ALLEY (giving “GA/LLEY”)

“Gasoline Alley” is a comic strip that debuted in 1918, making it the longest strip still running in the US. It was created by Frank King, who passed away in 1969, and so others have drawn it since then. The characters in the strip all live in the fictional town of Gasoline Alley.

Galleys were large medieval ships found mainly in the Mediterranean. They were propelled by a combination of sails and oars.

23 Burrowing animal : MOLE

One of the more commonly known facts about my native Ireland is that there are no snakes in the country (outside of politics, that is). A lesser known fact is that there are no moles either. There are plenty of snakes and moles in Britain, just a few miles away. Over a pint, we tend to give the credit to Saint Patrick, but the last ice age is more likely the responsible party …

25 Significant other : LIFE PARTNER (giving “LI/NER”)

The use of the word “line” with reference to transportation started in the 1780s, in the context of stagecoaches. Such transportation operated a string of stagecoaches between towns and cities along regular “lines”. The concept shifted to shipping “lines” operating ocean-going “liners” between ports. And then came “airliners”.

37 Fuji or Vesuvius : MOUNT

Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest and most famous mountain. Located just west of Tokyo, Mount Fuji is an active volcano, although its last eruption took place in 1707/1708.

Mount Vesuvius is on the Bay of Naples, just over five miles from the city of Naples. The most famous of the volcano’s eruptions took place in AD 79, the one which destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Today, Vesuvius is considered to be one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, largely because it is at the center of the most densely populated volcanic region in the world, with 3 million people living nearby.

40 “A Wrinkle in Time” actor Michael : PENA

Michael Peña is an actor from Chicago. He has had many supporting roles in hit movies, but is also known for playing the title character in “Cesar Chavez” (2014) and for heading the cast of “Narcos: Mexico” on Netflix.

“A Wrinkle in Time” is a book by Madeleine L’Engle. Published in 1962, it is described as a science fantasy. Included in the book’s cast of characters are Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, all of whom turn out to be supernatural beings who transport the antagonists through the universe. “A Wrinkle in Time” was adapted into a 2018 movie of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling as the three “Mrs” characters.

41 Hunting bird active at night : OWL

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”.

42 Drum at a poetry slam : BONGO

Bongo drums are Cuban percussion instruments consisting of a pair of drums, one larger than the other. The smaller drum is called the “hembra” (female) and the larger the “macho” (male).

A poetry slam is a competition in which poets read their own work (usually), with winners being chosen by members of the audience. Apparently the first poetry slam took place in Chicago in 1984. Now there is a National Poetry Slam that takes place each year, with representatives from the US, Canada and France.

44 “Delta Dawn” country singer : TANYA TUCKER (giving “TAN/KER”)

The country song “Delta Dawn” uses the melody of the traditional Scottish song “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond”. “Delta Down” was a hit for Tanya Tucker in 1972, when she was just 13 years old. The following year, Helen Reddy’s recording of “Delta Dawn” hit number-one in the charts.

47 __ rummy : GIN

Gin rummy is a faster variant of standard rummy. It was introduced in 1909 by one Elwood Baker and his son.

55 Any of the Transformers : ROBOT

The 2007 blockbuster hit movie “Transformers” was inspired by a line of toys. Toy transformers can be morphed from their mundane looking appearance as a vehicle or perhaps an animal, into a robotic action figure.

60 Emmy-nominated “Insecure” star Rae : ISSA

“Insecure” is a comedy-drama TV show that premiered in 2016. It is co-written by and stars Issa Rae, who also created the comedy web series “Awkward Black Girl” on which “Insecure” is based.

61 Toy with a BrickHeadz line : LEGO

BrickHeadz is a line of relatively small Lego kits from which can be built characters featured mainly in movie series. So, there are characters from the likes of “Avatar”, “Back to the Future”, “Ghostbusters” and many, many more.

Down

3 Polygon calculation : AREA

The suffix -gon comes from the Greek “gonia” meaning “angle, knee”. An octagon, for example, has eight angles, and a polygon has many angles.

5 Saffron-flavored Spanish dish : PAELLA

Paella is sometimes referred to as the Spanish national dish, but not by Spaniards. In Spain, paella is regarded as a typical regional dish from Valencia. The name “paella” means “frying pan” in Valencian, and is a reference to the shallow vessel traditionally used to cook the dish over an open fire.

6 More bohemian : ARTIER

The region known as Bohemia covers most of the Czech Republic. Centuries ago, it was wrongly believed that gypsies came from Bohemia, giving rise to the term “Bohemian” meaning a “gypsy of society”.

13 __ Moines, Iowa : DES

The city of Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, and takes its name from the Des Moines River. The river in turn takes its name from the French “Riviere des Moines” meaning “River of the Monks”. It looks like there isn’t any “monkish” connection to the city’s name per se. “Des Moines” was just the name given by French traders who corrupted “Moingona”, the name of a group of Illinois Native Americans who lived by the river. However, others contend that French Trappist monks, who lived a full 200 miles from the river, somehow influenced the name.

22 Tinseltown power broker : AGENT

Back in the mid-1400s, the word “tinsel” applied to cloth into which was woven gold or silver thread. The term came from the Middle French word “estincelle” meaning “spark, spangle”, which ultimately derived from the Latin “scintilla” meaning “spark”. By the end of the 1500s, “tinsel” described thin strips of shiny metal. The word “Tinseltown” wasn’t applied to Hollywood until 1972.

25 Bulb holders : LAMPS

Here’s a light bulb riddle:

Question: How many mystery authors does it take to change a light bulb?Answer: Two! One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.

27 Swedes’ neighbors : FINNS

The Finland–Sweden border was defined in 1809 at the end of the Finnish War fought between Sweden and Imperial Russia. Very little of the border is on dry land, and most runs through the Gulf of Bothnia and along the Torne River and its tributaries.

35 Capital east of Oslo : STOCKHOLM

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and the most populous city in the country. Over one fifth of all Swedish residents live in Stockholm.

37 Disney movie set on the island of Motunui : MOANA

“Moana” is a 2016 animated feature film and the 56th animated Disney movie. The title character is the daughter of a Polynesian chief who heads off in search of the demigod Maui, hoping that he can save her people. Unlike many of the previous Disney Princess films, Moana’s story is not centered around romance. In fact, she is the first Disney Princess who doesn’t have a love interest.

42 Tampa Bay NFLers : BUCS

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (the Bucs) joined the NFL in 1976, along with the Seattle Seahawks, as an expansion team. The Bucs had a tough start in the NFL, losing their first 26 games. Things went better in the early eighties, but then the team went through 14 consecutive losing seasons. Their luck changed again though, and they won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2002 season.

46 Kilt pattern : TARTAN

“Tartan” is sometimes called “plaid” over here in the US, and is a word not used in the same sense outside of this country. In Scotland, a plaid is a blanket or a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder.

47 Bearded lawn decoration : GNOME

In English folklore, the fairy’s anti-hero is the diminutive gnome, an evil ugly character. Although the charastics of gnomes vary in folklore, typically they are described as diminutive humanoids who live underground. Over the centuries, the gnome has become more lovable. We now have garden gnomes, and even the Travelocity Gnome.

49 Gelato holder : CONE

Gelato (plural “gelati”) is the Italian version of American ice cream, differing in that it has a lower butterfat content than its US counterpart.

50 Somber bio : OBIT

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

54 1990s fad discs : POGS

The game of pogs was originally played with bottle caps from POG fruit juice. The juice was named for its constituents, passion fruit, orange and guava.

55 Fish follower, in the zodiac : RAM

Aries the Ram is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, and is named after the constellation. Your birth sign is Aries if you were born between March 21 and April 20, but if you are an Aries you would know that! “Aries” is the Latin word for “ram”.