Category: Carly Schuna

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Constructed by: Barbara Lin & Carly Schuna
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Totally Ripped

Themed answers can all be described as TOTALLY RIPPED:

• 55A Shredded, or an apt description of 20-, 29-, 36-, and 44-Across : TOTALLY RIPPED

• 20A Present surroundings? : WRAPPING PAPER
• 29A Audio cassette successor : COMPACT DISC
• 36A Jeans option : DISTRESSED DENIM
• 44A One with pressing needs? : BODYBUILDER

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

Bill’s time: 6m 54s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Prepare, as avocados for guacamole : MASH

Guacamole is one of my favorite dishes. It is prepared by mashing avocados and perhaps adding the likes of tomato, onion and lime juice. The guacamole recipe dates back as early as the 16th century, to the time of the Aztecs. “Guacamole” translates as “avocado sauce”.

15 __ gobi: vegetarian curry dish : ALOO

Aloo gobi is a very tasty vegetarian dish in Indian cuisine made from potatoes and cauliflower, flavored with traditional Indian spices. “Aloo” translates to “potato” and “gobi” to “cauliflower”.

16 Grouch on TV : OSCAR

Oscar the Grouch is the Muppet who lives in a garbage can. Oscar’s persona comes from various sources. He is named after Oscar Brand who was one of the board members of the Children’s Television Workshop, the backers for “Sesame Street” as the Muppets were being developed in the sixties. Oscar’s personality was inspired by an angry waiter that once served Jim Henson (father of the Muppets). The voice was modeled on a grumpy New York cab driver encountered one day by Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer who brings Oscar to life.

18 Prefix with second or bot : NANO-

The prefix “nano-” is used for units of one billionth part. “Nano-” comes from the Greek “nanos” meaning “dwarf”.

Nanorobots (also “nanobots”) are tiny devices that range from 0.1 to 10 micrometers in size. The technology of nanorobotics is in its infancy, but it is hoped that nanobots might be used (for example) in medicine one day. The oft-cited application is the use of nanobots inserted inside the body to identify and destroy cancer cells.

23 Taco topping : SALSA

“Salsa” is simply the Spanish for “sauce”.

24 Lav : LOO

Our word “lavatory” (sometimes “lav”) originally referred to a washbasin, and comes from the Latin “lavatorium”, a place for washing. In the 1600s, “lavatory” came to mean a washroom, and in the 1920s a toilet.

25 Faux __ : PAS

The term “faux pas” is French in origin, and translates literally as “false step” (or “false steps”, as the plural has the same spelling in French).

29 Audio cassette successor : COMPACT DISC

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

36 Jeans option : DISTRESSED DENIM

Nîmes is a lovely city in the south of France. One of the claims to fame of the city is the invention of denim fabric. The French phrase “de Nîmes” (from Nîmes) gives us the word “denim”.

43 Nose-in-the-air type : SNOOT

“Snoot” is a variant of “snout”, and is a word that originated in Scotland. The idea is that someone who is snooty, or “snouty”, tends to look down his or her nose at the rest of the world.

51 Horn-heavy genre : SKA

Ska originated in Jamaica in the late fifties and was the precursor to reggae music. No one has a really definitive etymology of the term “ska”, but it is likely to be imitative of a sound.

52 Communication syst. in which an ILY gesture means “I love you” : ASL

American Sign Language (ASL)

60 Slacks alternative : SKIRT

The term “slacks” was introduced in the early 1800s with the meaning “loose trousers”. Those early slacks were part of a military uniform.

63 Ductwork sealer : TAPE

What we tend to call “duct” tape today was originally known as “duck” tape. In its first form, duck tape was rubber-based adhesive applied to a duck cloth backing, hence the name. Cotton duck cloth is a canvas-like material, a plain woven cotton fabric. The name “duck” comes from the Dutch “doek” meaning “linen canvas”. Duck tape started to be known as “duct tape” in the fifties, as it was commonly used to wrap air ducts in the construction industry.

64 Frenemy, maybe : RIVAL

A frenemy is someone who feigns friendship but who is actually an enemy or competitor.

65 Start of a German count? : EINS

“Eins, zwei, drei, vier” is German for “one, two, three, four”.

67 “Hello” Grammy winner : ADELE

“Hello” is a 2015 song by English singer Adele that won her three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance.

Down

5 Finger painting, for short? : MANI

Manicure (mani)

6 Ruck of HBO’s “Succession” : 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.

8 Hullabaloo : HOOPLA

The word “hoopla” means “boisterous excitement”. The term probably comes from “houp-là”, something the French say instead of “upsy-daisy”. Then again, “upsy-daisy” probably isn’t something said very often here in the US …

10 Tennis legend Arthur : ASHE

The great American tennis player Arthur Ashe spent the last years of his life writing his memoir called “Days of Grace”. He finished the manuscript just a few days before he passed away, dying from AIDS caused by a tainted blood transfusion.

11 Desert stinger : SCORPION

There are about 1750 different species of scorpion in the world, but only 25 or so have venom sufficiently toxic to kill a human.

13 Unit of energy : ERG

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, with one joule comprising 10 million ergs. It has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

21 Indiana cager : PACER

In the early days of basketball, when a ball went out of bounds possession was awarded to the player who first retrieved the ball. This led to mad scuffles off the court, often involving spectators. As the game became more organized, courts were routinely “caged”, largely because of this out of bounds rule, to limit interaction with the crowd. It’s because of these cages that basketball players are sometimes referred to today as “cagers”.

22 NYC rep since 2019 : AOC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a politician who is often referred to by her initials “AOC”. A Democrat, she was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2018, representing part of the Bronx, Queens and Rikers Island in New York City. When she took office in 2019 at the age of 29, AOC became the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.

27 Bamboozle : SCAM

It’s thought that the lovely word “bamboozle” came into English from the Scottish “bombaze” meaning “perplex”. We’ve been using “bamboozle” since the very early 1700s.

31 Bks. in progress : MSS

Manuscript (ms)

32 “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” novelist Marisha : PESSL

Marisha Pessl is an American writer who achieved success with her debut novel, 2006’s “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”. It is a complex mystery story, one that took several drafts over three years to perfect, according to the author.

34 Airbnb visit, say : STAY

Airbnb is a website-based service that matches people wanting to rent out short-term living quarters to people seeking accommodation. The company was founded in 2008 as AirBed & Breakfast. The original concept was renting out an “air bed” and providing “breakfast” to someone looking for cheap, temporary accommodation. Yeah, the “Air” in “Airbnb” has nothing to do with “air” travel …

41 Latissimus __: back muscle : DORSI

The muscles known as the “lats” are the “latissimi dorsi”, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

46 Team with four Women’s World Cup titles : USA

The US women’s national team (USWNT) is the most successful in international women’s soccer. The team has won multiple World Cups, and multiple Olympic Golds. “Sports Illustrated” named the whole team as the 1999 Sportswomen of the Year.

48 Vicuña descendant : ALPACA

The vicuña is a South American camelid that lives in the Andes. The vicuña produces very little wool, and that wool can only be collected every three years. So, vicuña wool is very expensive due to the shortage of supply. And, the vicuña is the national animal of Peru.

57 A Skywalker twin : LEIA

The full name of the character played by Carrie Fisher in the “Star Wars” series of films is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and later Leia Organa Solo. Leia is the twin sister of Luke Skywalker, and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker (aka “Darth Vader”) and Padmé Amidala. Leia is raised by her adoptive parents Bail and Breha Organa. She eventually marries Han Solo.

59 Subterfuge : RUSE

A subterfuge is a deception, especially one designed to aid in evasion, escape or concealment. The term subterfuge ultimately comes from the Latin “subter-” meaning secretly, and “fugere” meaning “to flee”.

60 Mme., in Madrid : SRA

Madrid is the most populous city in Spain, and is the nation’s capital. It is located very close to the geographical center of the country. Madrid is the second-largest city in the European Union by population, after Berlin. People from Madrid called themselves Madrileños.

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