Day: November 2, 2024

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Constructed by: Evan Mulvihill
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 12m 21s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 Polo player? : LAUREN

Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer, born Ralph Liftshitz in the Bronx, New York. Lauren started off working as a salesman for Brooks Brothers after spending two years in the US Army. He then opened a necktie store, featuring his own tie designs. The ties were sold under the name “Polo”, which became Lauren’s most famous brand. Other Lauren brands are Purple Label and Black Label.

14 Opposite of “Nothin’ but net” : AIRBALL

An air ball in basketball is a shot that misses without even touching the rim, net or backboard.

“Nothing but net” is a phrase used in basketball to describe a “clean basket”. A clean basket is a score in which the ball doesn’t touch the backboard or even the rim, and touches only the net.

17 “Elmo’s World” character played by Bill Irwin : MR NOODLE

The character named Mr. Noodle is a mime who appears in the “Elmo’s World” segment of “Sesame Street”. The character was originally played by Broadway actor Bill Erwin, starting in 1998.

18 Quaint contraction : SHAN’T

“Shall not” is contracted to “shan’t”.

19 Comedian Wyatt : CENAC

Wyatt Cenac is a comedian and writer from New York City who was raised in Dallas. Cenac worked for three years as a writer for the TV show “King of the Hill” before joining “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” as writer and correspondent.

20 Cab alternative : ZIN

Zinfandel is one of my favorite red wine varietals. It amazes me that the rich and heavy red Zinfandel comes from the same grape as does the sweet White Zinfandel.

26 India’s neighbor on a Risk board : SIAM

Risk is a fabulous board game that was introduced in France in 1957. It was invented by a very successful French director of short films called Albert Lamorisse. Lamorisse called his new game “La Conquête du Monde”, which translates into English as “The Conquest of the World”. A game of Risk is a must during the holidays in our house …

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

30 Abundance during amateur hour? : ROOKIE MISTAKES

The term “rookie”, used for a raw recruit, first appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s collection of songs and poems called the “Barrack-Room Ballads”, which was originally published in 1892.

34 Orchestra known for an annual Fourth of July concert : BOSTON POPS

The marvelous Boston Pops orchestra specializes in playing light classical and popular music. It grew out of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), founded in 1885 by Henry Lee Higginson. Higginson instituted a series of performances by the BSO of lighter classics for the summer months, starting in 1885. These performances were originally known as the “Promenade Concerts”, and soon became year-round events. The name evolved into “Popular Concerts”, which was shortened to “Pops” and officially adopted in 1900.

35 Some unicorns : TECH STARTUPS

In the world of finance, a unicorn is a privately-held startup company that has a value of over $1 billion. The derivative terms “decacorn” and “hectacorn” refer to companies with valuation of over $10 billion and $100 billion respectively. The use of the term “unicorn” reflects how unlikely such valuations are.

38 Fruit with wrinkled skin : UGLI

The ugli fruit is a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine that was first discovered growing wild in Jamaica where most ugli fruit comes from today. “UGLI” is a trademark name that is a variant of “ugly”, a nod to the fruit’s unsightly wrinkled rind.

39 Court pro : STENO

Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing). A stenographer might be a court reporter, or a person provided captions accompanying a live television broadcast.

40 Intel org. : NSA

National Security Agency (NSA)

43 Breaks open chests in Fortnite : LOOTS

Fortnite is a very, very popular online game that was released in 2017. There are several versions of the game, including the original Fortnite: Save the World.

48 Oft-mispunctuated word : ITS (or IT’S)

The word “it’s” is a contraction for “it is”, as in “it’s a fun crossword”. The spelling “its”, without an apostrophe, is used in all other cases, most commonly as the possessive form of the pronoun “it”. In that sense, “its” is akin to the pronouns his, hers, ours, etc., as in “the newspaper is known for its great crosswords”.

52 Crime novelist Buchanan : EDNA

Edna Buchanan is an author, mainly of crime mystery novels. She also worked as a crime journalist for “The Miami Herald”.

53 “Elsbeth” star Carrie : PRESTON

Carrie Preston is an actress from Macon, Georgia who plays Elsbeth Tascioni, a wonderful character on the TV show “The Good Wife” and its sequel “The Good Fight”. Such was the popularity of the character on those shows that Preston was asked to play Elsbeth in her own police comedy drama show starting in 2024. I really, really enjoy watching “Elsbeth” …

55 Good standing with sailors? : SEA LEGS

On a ship, one is said to have found one’s sea legs when the body has adjusted to the motion of the vessel. One can walk steadily, and is free from seasickness. An alternative use of “sea legs” is to describe the feeling one might have when stepping on land spending a few hours on a small boat sailing through relatively rough seas. In this case, the body can feel as though it is still rising and falling, as if one is still on the boat.

58 Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?,” notably : TED TALK

The acronym “TED” stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design”. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the Sapling Foundation. The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The Sapling Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as “TED Talks”. There are also TEDx events, which are locally-run talks presented under license from TED.

Sir Kenneth Robinson was an international advisor on education from England. He reached a large audience with his three TED talks on creativity in education. His talk titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity”, as of 2020, was the most watched TED talk of all time.

60 “Heather Has Two Mommies” writer Newman : LESLEA

“Heather Has Two Mommies” is a 1989 children’s book by feminist author Lesléa Newman. It is recognized as a pioneering piece of children’s literature, one of the first to depict a lesbian relationship.

Down

2 Persian rugs? : CAT HAIR

The Persian is that long-haired cat with a squashed muzzle. The breed takes its name from its place of origin, namely Persia (Iran).

3 Place to enjoy krioyo cuisine : CURACAO

The Country of Curaçao is a Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles, lying about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. For centuries, Curaçao was a Dutch colony. Since 2010, it has been an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

4 Moriarty of “The Boys” : ERIN

Erin Moriarty is an actress from New York City whose big break came when she landed the role of Starlight (aka AnnieJanuary) in the superhero TV series “The Boys”.

5 411 : DEETS

“Deets” is slang for “details”.

Several large US cities started using the telephone number “411” in the 1930s for local directory assistance. “411” was used in markets where the Bell System of telephone companies was prevalent. The number “113” served the same purpose on markets dominated by GTE and other telephone companies, with the last such usage of “113” disappearing in the 1980s. The term “4-1-1” is now used in North America as slang for “information”.

6 Demise : END

Back in the 1400s, a demise was the transfer of an estate via a will. The usage of “demise” extended in the mid-1700s to the contemporary meaning of “death, downfall”.

8 “High Priestess of Soul” Simone : NINA

“Nina Simone” was the stage name of Eunice Waymon. Simone was very much associated with jazz music, although she really wanted to be a classical musician early in her career. She was inspired by a love for the music of Bach.

9 Some restaurant clogs : CROCS

Crocs are foam clogs that were originally designed as shoes to be worn at health spas. I bought a pair of crocs, and then my kids said they would stop talking to me …

10 Typing letters? : ABO

The most important grouping of blood types is the ABO system. Blood is classified as either A, B, AB or O, depending on the type of antigens on the surface of the red blood cells. A secondary designation of blood is the Rh factor, in which other antigens are labeled as either positive or negative. When a patient receives a blood transfusion, ideally the donor blood should be the same type as that of the recipient, as incompatible blood cells can be rejected. However, blood type O-neg can be accepted by recipients with all blood types, A, B, AB or O, and positive or negative. Hence someone with O-neg blood type is called a universal donor.

12 Figure in Kepler’s first law : ELLIPSE

Johannes Kepler was a mathematician, and most famously an astronomer. Kepler came up with his celebrated laws of planetary motion in the early 1600s.

15 Concave or convex things : LENSES

A surface of a lens might be convex (bulging outwards) or concave (bulging inwards).

25 Yappers : TRAPS

“Yap” and “trap” are slang terms meaning “mouth”.

27 Finale of “The Sopranos,” maybe : MOB HIT

“The Sopranos” is an outstanding television drama made by HBO that is a story about Italian-American mobsters in New Jersey. “The Sopranos” is regularly cited as one of the best TV series of all time. It’s “must see TV” …

31 Heavy socks? : KOS

Knockout (KO)

32 Did some politicking, say : SPUN

We use the term “spin” to describe an attempt to influence media reporters, with the term “spin doctor” describing a public relations person who is spouting such “spin”. Apparently, the use of “spin” in this context was popularized during the Reagan administration, when White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was known informally as the “Director of Spin Control”.

33 Traditional literary motif : TOPOS

In classical rhetoric, topoi (singular “topos”) are basically common lines of argument or strategies used to persuade an audience. For example, one common topos is the appeal to authority, where one cites an expert to support one’s point. Another is the comparison between two things to highlight similarities or differences.

35 Bulbs that may not need to be replaced : TULIPS

We usually associate the cultivation of tulips with the Netherlands, but they were first grown commercially in the Ottoman Empire. The name “tulip” ultimately derives from the Ottoman Turkish word “tulbend” that means “muslin, gauze”.

42 “The Great North” setting : ALASKA

“The Great North” is a cartoon sitcom that first aired in 2021. The main character is Beef Tobin, a single father and fisherman living in an Alaska town with his four children and one daughter-in-law. Tobin is voiced by actor Nick Offerman.

50 Residue used to make pan sauces : FOND

In the kitchen, fond is the collection of small, flavorful particles that adhere to the bottom of a pan, especially after the cooking of meat. The fond is often deglazed with a liquid to produce the basis of a sauce or stock. The term “fond” comes from the French “fonds de cuisine”, which can be translated as the “foundation of the food”.

51 Instagram video : REEL

Reels is a facility introduced by Instagram in 2020. Essentially, it is a feature that competes with TikTok.

54 “The Simpsons” disco guy : STU

On “The Simpsons”, the character Disco Stu is voiced by Hank Azaria, although the original intent was for him to be voiced by Phil Hartman. Disco Stu is described as “a black, wrinkly John Travolta”.

56 Slangy ending with hater : -ADE

An extremely negative person might be described as having drunk the “haterade”, a play on the beverage “Gatorade”.