Day: May 3, 2025

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Constructed by: Ricky J. Sirois
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 16m 54s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Shillelagh cousin : MACE

A mace is a relatively simple weapon in essence. It is a heavy weight on the end of a handle that is used to deliver powerful blows on an opponent’s body.

A shillelagh is a wooden walking stick that, according to Irish folklore, was often used as a weapon, as a club. The term “shillelagh” is an anglicized corruption of “sail éille” meaning “thonged willow”. The spelling of this corruption somehow got confused over the years with the village of Shillelagh in County Wicklow. The name of the village is unrelated to the walking stick, and rather comes from the Irish “Síol Éalaigh” meaning “people descended from Élothach”, i.e. descended from Élothach mac Fáelchon, one of the Irish kings.

14 B in chemistry : BORON

Boron is the chemical element with the atomic number of 5 and symbol B. It lies over to the right in Group 13 of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Uncombined, elemental boron is not found naturally on Earth. The boron that is mined is found in oxide form, and not as uncombined boron.

21 Locks in place? : PERM

“Perm” is the common name given to a permanent wave, a chemical or thermal treatment of hair to produce waves or curls.

22 Hidden assets : HOLE CARDS

“Stud poker” is the name given to many variants of poker, all of which are characterized by the dealer giving each player a mix of cards face-down and face-up. The cards facing upwards are called “upcards”. The cards facing downwards are called “hole cards”, cards only visible to the individual who holds that particular hand. This gives rise to the phrase “ace in the hole”, a valuable holding that only the player with the ace is aware of.

24 Only native of Great Britain to be named “Doctor of the Church” : BEDE

The Venerable Bede was a monk in the north of England in the eighth century AD. Saint Bede is mainly known as an author and scholar, publisher of “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People”. In his writings, Bede struggled with the two common ways of referring to dates at that time. Bede turned to the anno domini dating method that had been devised by Dionysius Exiguus in 525. Bede’s writings of circa 730 were extremely influential and helped popularize the “anno domini” method. He is sometimes referred to as “The Father of English History”.

25 Primo who wrote “The Periodic Table” : LEVI

“The Periodic Table” is a collection of 21 short stories by Primo Levi. The stories are mainly autobiographical, and each is named for an element in the Periodic Table. Each story is connected to the title element in some way.

26 Research Triangle city : DURHAM

“Research Triangle” is the name given to an area in North Carolina defined by the three research universities of North Carolina State, Duke and Chapel Hill. The name really took off in the late fifties when academics in NC State and Duke established Research Triangle Park (RTP), a research park designed to increase innovation in the area. Today, RTP is the largest research park in the United States.

32 Ovine mother : EWE

The Latin word for “sheep” is “ovis”, giving us the adjective “ovine” meaning “like a sheep”.

33 Jason’s ship : ARGO

In Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts set sail on the Argo from the city of Iolcos in search of the Golden Fleece. Jason’s vessel was called the “Argo” in honor of a man named Argus, who designed and constructed it with the help of the goddess Athena.

35 Surveyor’s map : PLAT

A plat is a map showing actual and planned features. So, a town might have a plat showing existing and intended buildings.

36 German article : DER

The definite article in German is der, die or das, for masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. The indefinite article is ein, eine or ein, again depending on the gender of the noun. A further complication, relative to English, is that the masculine form (and only the masculine form) of the article changes when used in the accusative case, when used with the object of a sentence. The accusative forms are “den” and “einen”.

37 Spitting image : CARBON COPY

“Spitting image” is used to describe someone who looks very much like another. The phrase used to be written as “spit and image”, and makes use of the concept that a person is made up of the stuff of one’s parents (i.e. the spit) and has the look of one’s parents (i.e. the image). The expression “you are the very spit of your mother/father” uses the same ideas.

42 Color for a San Jose Shark : TEAL

The San Jose Sharks hockey team play their home games at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, a venue that we locals call “the Shark Tank”.

49 Level with Space Cowboys and Storm Chasers : AAA

The Sugar Land Space Cowboys are a Minor League Baseball team located in Sugar Land, Texas, a suburb of Houston. They are the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros and, appropriately enough, play their home games at Constellation Field.

The Omaha Storm Chasers are a triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. The team was founded in 1969 as the Royals, became the Golden Spikes in 1999, and became the Storm Chasers in 2011 following a fan competition to choose a name.

51 Bloody Mary, e.g. : URBAN MYTH

Bloody Mary is a folklore legend involving a ghost or spirit invoked through ritual. To summon her, one typically stands in a darkened bathroom, facing a mirror, and chants her name repeatedly. One colorful variation of the ritual involves young women walking backwards up a flight of stairs while holding a mirror, hoping to glimpse the face of their future husband. Dearie me …

54 One-named singer who played Nettie in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple” : CIARA

Ciara is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas. She used to date rapper Bow Wow, but married Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson in 2016.

“The Color Purple” is a 2023 musical drama film that is based on a stage musical of the same name, as well as a 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker. Two of the movie’s producers are Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Spielberg had directed a 1985 big-screen adaptation of the novel, using the same title, in which Winfrey had starred.

56 Isaac of “Dune” : OSCAR

Oscar Isaac is an actor from Guatemala who was raised in Miami. Before acting, Isaac played lead guitar in his own band called the Blinking Underdogs. Isaac portrayed X-wing pilot Poe Dameron in several of the “Star Wars” movies.

2021’s epic film “Dune” is the first of a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. The version of “Dune” did a lot better than the 1984 big-screen adaptation of the same novel, which really flopped at the box office. “Dune: Part Two” followed in 2024.

58 Rock band whose founding members adopted the names Gene and Dean : WEEN

Ween is a rock band formed in New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1984 by Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo. The founding members use the stage names Gene Ween and Dean Ween, respectively.

Down

2 Default font in Google Docs : ARIAL

Google Docs is a word processing application that is part of the Google Drive suite of services. In fact, I am typing this blog post right now in Google Docs.

3 Elvis, for one : COSTELLO

Elvis Costello is an English singer and songwriter whose real name is Declan MacManus. Although Costello is more associated with the punk rock music scene, he is very active with the Jazz Foundation of America. He does a lot of work with the foundation to help jazz and blues musicians in need, especially after Hurricane Katrina.

6 Source material for “Troilus and Cressida” : ILIAD

William Shakespeare wrote his tragedy “Troilus and Cressida” in 1602. The play was inspired by “The Iliad”, and is a retelling of events during the Trojan War leading up to the death of Hector.

9 Saison chaude : ETE

In French, “été” (summer) is “la saison chaude” (the warm season).

10 One-piece garment : ROMPER

An infant might wear a one-piece jumpsuit known as a romper.

19 Common character in “The Far Side” : CAVEMAN

“The Far Side” is a cartoon series drawn by Gary Larson. It ran from 1980 to 1995, and continues today in reruns in many papers. A lot of “The Far Side” cartoons feature animals, often in outrageous, human-like situations. Larson was so popular with people working with animals that in 1989 a newly discovered insect species was named Strigiphilus garylarsoni. How cool is that?

23 Help for a choir that wants to sing higher : RISER

A riser is a platform that elevates a group of people above a crowd, and so is ideal for the performance of a choir.

30 Aid in learning to play guitar : TAB

Tablature (also “tab”) is a kind of musical notation that indicates instrument fingering, rather than musical notes.

35 Sea creature that uses echolocation : PORPOISE

Porpoises are aquatic mammals. Studies of porpoises in captivity have shown that they have an unusual sleep pattern. Basically, while one hemisphere of the brain rests, is asleep, the other hemisphere remains alert.

Echolocation, when used by animals, is known as biosonar. The best-known example of an animal using biosonar is probably the bat, although not all species of bat use sounds to locate objects.

37 “Scooby-Doo” souvenir, maybe : CEL

“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” is a series of cartoons produced for Hanna-Barbera Productions, first broadcast in 1969. The title character is a great Dane dog owned by a young male called Shaggy Rogers. The character’s name was inspired by the famous “doo-be-doo-be-doo” refrain in the Frank Sinatra hit “Strangers in the Night”. Shaggy was voiced by famed disk jockey Casey Kasem. Shaggy and Scooby’s friends are Velma, Fred and Daphne.

38 Income stream : CASH COW

On a farm, a dairy cow can produce a steady supply of milk, with relatively little maintenance. In the world of business, by analogy, a “cash cow” is an operation that delivers a steady stream of profits, with relatively little investment.

44 Dustin Hoffman role : RATSO

Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo is one of the characters in the groundbreaking 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy”. Rizzo is a down-and-out con man played by Dustin Hoffman.

The 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy” is a Hollywood adaptation of a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It’s a pretty depressing story about a young Texan named Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight) who heads to New York City to make money as a hustler, hiring himself out to women for sex. Pretty soon the young man ends up selling his body for sex with males as well. Prior to release the MPAA gave the movie an R-rating, but the United Artists studio took advice and decided to release it with an X-rating. When “Midnight Cowboy” won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1969, it became the only X-rated film to be so honored.

46 Glad rival : SARAN

What’s known as plastic wrap in America, we call cling-film in Ireland. The brand name “Saran” is often used generically in the US, while “Glad” wrap is common down under. Plastic wrap was one of those unintended inventions, a byproduct of a development program to create a hard plastic cover for cars.

47 Michelin award : STAR

Michelin is a manufacturer of tires that is based in France. The company was founded by brothers Édouard and André Michelin in 1888. The brothers were running a rubber factory at the time, and invented the world’s first removable pneumatic tire, an invention that they used to launch their new company. Michelin is also noted for rating restaurants and accommodation in its famous Michelin Travel Guides, awarding coveted Michelin stars.

48 Stages of an audition process : CUTS

A cut is a short selection from a larger piece of work, such as a play, musical, or film script, that an actor prepares and performs for an audition.

49 Pioneering football coach __ Alonzo Stagg : AMOS

Amos Alonzo Stagg was an athlete and coach whose talents extended across a number of sports. He was inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

52 “The 1619 Project” publisher, for short : NYT

The 1619 Project is an active project at “The New York Times”. It is focused on slavery, and re-examining its position in the history of the United States. The project name commemorates the arrival of a group of captive Africans in the Virginia Colony in 1619.