Category: David Alfred Bywaters

Bill’s time: 12m 40s!

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

21 Emotion linked to schadenfreude : ENVY

Our word “schadenfreude” comes from German. “Schaden” means harm or adversity, and “Freude” means joy. So, schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

22 “‘I __ you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din” : ‘OPE

“Gunga Din” is an 1892 poem penned by Rudyard Kipling. The poem tells of a British soldier in colonial India and a native water-bearer who saves his life. We tend to pronounce the water bearer’s name as Gunga Din, with “din” just as it’s written, like the loud noise. Based on the rhymes in the poem however, we should be pronouncing it “deen”.

23 Coiffure created using a mirror? : SELF-MADE MANE (self-made man + e)

“Coiffure” is a French word that we’ve imported into English meaning “hairstyle”. The term comes from the Old French word “coife”, which was used for the inner part of a helmet.

25 Catholic leader appealing to a younger demographic? : TEEN POPE (teen pop + e)

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The term “pope” comes from the Latin “papa”, and ultimately from the Greek “pappas”, with both terms being a child’s word for “father”.

29 School support gps. : PTAS

Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

32 Longing : YEN

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.

33 Slender bit of stemware : FLUTE

The narrow bowl of a champagne flute is preferred over the wide bowl of a champagne coupe as the smaller surface area of the wine helps retain its carbonation.

37 Branch of Islam : SHIA

The Islamic sects of Sunni and Shia Muslims differ in the belief of who should have taken over leadership of the Muslim faithful after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Followers of the Sunni tradition agree with the decision that the Prophet Muhammad’s confidante Abu Bakr was the right choice to become the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. Followers of the Shia tradition believe that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet Muhammad’s own family, and favoured the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali.

38 One often seen in a parlor : PIANO

What was remarkable about the piano when it was invented, compared to other keyboard instruments, was that notes could be played with varying degrees of loudness. This is accomplished by pressing the keys lightly or firmly. Because of this quality, the new instrument was called a “pianoforte”, with “piano” and “forte” meaning “soft” and “loud” in Italian. We tend to shorten the name these days to just “piano”.

49 Soft leathers : SUEDES

Suede is leather made from the underside of an animal’s skin, usually the skin from a lamb. As such it is very soft, although not as durable as leather made from the exterior skin. The soft leather was, and is still used for making gloves. Back in 1859 these gloves were called “gants de Suede” in France, or “gloves of Sweden”. So, the name “suede” comes from the French word for Sweden.

54 Game with plenty of kicks : SOCCER

Soccer (also known as “association football”) is the most popular sport in the world. The term “association football” was introduced in 1863 in England, with the name chosen to distinguish the sport from rugby football. The term “soccer” started to appear about 20 years later in Oxford, as an abbreviation for “association”.

58 Window coolers : ACS

The modern form of air conditioning (AC) that is still used today was invented by Willis Carrier in 1902. He co-founded the Carrier Engineering Corporation in New York in 1915. The Carrier Corporation eventually moved to Syracuse, New York in 1937. Beyond the world of air conditioning, the Carrier name has been associated with Syracuse University’s famous Carrier Dome since it opened in 1980. The Carrier Dome is the largest on-campus basketball stadium in the country.

59 Some pvt. equity ventures : LBOS

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is a transaction in which an investor acquires a controlling volume of stock in a company, but buys that stock with borrowed funds (hence “leveraged”). Often the assets of the acquired company are used as collateral for the borrowed money. There is a special form of LBO known as a management buyout (MBO) in which the company’s own management team purchase the controlling interest.

69 Not Rep. or Dem. : IND

In the world of politics, an Independent (Ind.) is neither Republican (Rep.) nor Democrat (Dem.)

75 Alike, in Arles : EGAL

Quite a few years ago now, I had the privilege of living just a short car-ride from the beautiful city of Arles in the South of France. Although Arles has a long and colorful history, the Romans had a prevailing influence over the city’s design. Arles has a spectacular Roman amphitheater, arch, circus as well as old walls that surround the center of the city. In more modern times, it was a place Vincent van Gogh often visited, and was where he painted many of his most famous works, including “Cafe Terrace at Night” and “Bedroom in Arles”.

76 Tats : INK

The word “tattoo” (often shortened to “tat”) was first used in English in the writings of the famous English explorer Captain Cook. In his descriptions of the indelible marks adorning the skin of Polynesian natives, Cook anglicized the Tahitian word “tatau” into our “tattoo”. Tattoos are sometimes referred to as “ink”.

77 Letters on a tap : IPA

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

79 Basilica display : MOSAIC

In the Middle Ages, mosaics were often dedicated to the Muses. The term “mosaic” translates as “of the Muses”.

In its modern usage, the term “basilica” applies to a Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial rights by the Pope.

83 Horse hue : ROAN

A roan horse has an even mixture of white and colored hairs on the body with the head, lower legs, mane and tail having a more solid color.

85 “Manic” time in a 1986 hit : MONDAY

“Manic Monday” was a big hit for the Bangles in 1986. The song was actually written by Prince, and offered to the Bangles under the pseudonym “Christopher”.

95 WWII carrier : LST

The initialism “LST” stands for Landing Ship, Tank. LSTs are the large vessels used mainly in WWII that have doors at either ends through which tanks and other vehicles can roll off and onto beaches. The design concept persists to this day in the huge fleet of commercial roll-on/roll-off car ferries, all inspired by the LST.

96 Krishna, for Vishnu : AVATAR

In the Hindu tradition, Krishna is recognized as the eighth avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. Krishna is usually depicted as a boy or young man playing a flute.

98 Events with vandalism : RIOTS

A vandal is someone who destroys something beautiful or valuable. The term “vandal” comes from the Germanic tribe called the Vandals who sacked Rome in the year 455. Our contemporary term “vandalism” was coined by Henri Grégoire in 1794, when he was describing the destruction of artwork during the French Revolution.

102 “Inferno” part : CANTO

A canto is a section of a long poem, and is a term first used by the Italian poet Dante. “Canto” is the Italian for “song”.

Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” is an epic poem dating back to the 14th century. The first part of that epic is “Inferno”, which is the Italian word for “Hell”. In the poem, Dante is led on a journey by the poet Virgil, starting at the gates of Hell on which are written the famous words “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”.

103 Wall et al.: Abbr. : STS

New York’s famous Wall Street was originally named by the Dutch “de Waalstraat”.

108 Bento box staple : RICE

A bento is a single-person meal that is eaten quite commonly in Japan. A bento can be purchased as a take-out meal, or it may be packed at home. A bento is usually sold as a “bento box”.

112 Sad Rogaine result? : DOWN PATE (down pat + e)

Rogaine is a brand name for the drug Minoxidil. It was developed as an oral medication to treat high blood pressure, but was found to have an exploitable side-effect. It caused an increase in the rate of hair growth. A topical solution was marketed to promote growth of hair especially in balding men. The drug seems to work well, but when the patient stops using it, things go back to normal in about 60 days. Wouldn’t dream of touching the stuff myself …

118 Part of Xerxes I’s realm, nowadays : IRAN

Xerxes was the eldest son of Darius I of Persia. He succeeded to the throne in 486 BC as Xerxes I, and was later to be known as Xerxes the Great. It was Xerxes who fought against the Spartans in the famous Battle of Thermopylae.

121 “L.A. Law” actress : DEY

Actress Susan Dey first appeared on “The Partridge Family” when she was 17-years-old when she had no acting experience. Years later, Dey won a Golden Globe for playing the leading role of Grace Van Owen in “L.A. Law”.

“L.A. Law” ran on NBC from 1986 to 1994, and was one of the network’s most successful drama series. It took over from the equally successful “Hill Street Blues” in the Thursday night 10 p.m. slot until, after a six-year run, it was itself replaced by yet another respected drama, “E.R.” The opening credits showed that famous California licence plate. The plate was on a Jaguar XJ for most of the series, but moved onto a Bentley towards the end of the run. For each series the registration sticker was updated, so no laws were being broken.

123 Reactions to mosquitoes : SWATS

“Mosquito” is the Spanish for “little fly”. The female mosquito actually has to have a “blood meal” before she is able to lay her eggs. Mosquitoes are sometimes referred to as “skeeters”.

Down

1 Sizable : MASSY

The mass of an object differs from its weight. Mass measures the amount of matter present in the object, while its weight is the force exerted on the object by gravity. So, the mass of an object is the same on Earth as it is on the Moon. One the Moon, the same object weighs 16.5% of what it does on Earth.

2 Goddess of peace : IRENE

Eirene (also “Irene”) was the Greek goddess of peace, with “eirene” being the Greek word for “peace”. The Roman equivalent to Eirene was the goddess Pax.

4 Dope : INFO

Apparently, “to dope out” is a slang term meaning “to figure out, infer from available information”. Our use of the word “dope” to mean “inside information” probably comes from horse racing. The idea is that a bettor might have information about which horse has been drugged (doped) to influence its performance.

6 U.S. number-issuing agcy. : SSA

Social Security Administration (SSA)

A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot. Since 2011 SSNs are assigned randomly. However, some random numbers have been excluded from use, i.e. Area Numbers 000, 666 (!) and 900-999.

7 Ronnie of the Ronettes : SPECTOR

The Ronettes were a sixties girl group from New York City who worked with famed record producer Phil Spector. Their most famous hit was probably “Be My Baby” from 1963. The lead singer of the group was Veronica Bennett, who ended up marrying Spector in 1968, leaving him in 1974 to become “Ronnie” Spector, “the original bad girl of rock and roll”.

8 Actress Anouk : AIMEE

Anouk Aimée is a French film actress. Aimée’s most famous film outside of France is probably the internationally successful 1966 French hit “A Man and a Woman”, in which she played the female lead.

10 Geological period : EON

Geological time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

• supereon
• eon (also “aeon”)
• era
• period
• epoch
• age

18 House of Lords group : PEERAGE

The UK Parliament is divided into two houses, with the upper house known as the House of Lords and the lower house as the House of Commons. The members of the House of Commons are elected, but most new members of the House of Lords are appointed. Historically, a large proportion of the membership of the upper house were hereditary peers, but recent legislative changes are reducing the numbers who can sit in the House of Lords by virtue of birthright.

26 Places to buy stamps: Abbr. : POS

The US Postal Service (USPS) is a remarkable agency in many ways. For starters, the government’s right and responsibility to establish the Post Office is specifically called out in Article One of the US constitution. Also, the first postmaster general was none other than Benjamin Franklin. And, the USPS operates over 200,000 vehicles, which is the largest vehicle fleet in the world.

30 Romanticized 18th-century highwayman Dick : TURPIN

Dick Turpin was a highwayman in England who was executed by hanging in 1739. It was after his death, that Turpin became the subject of legend, with many of his exploits romanticized. One of his celebrated escapes, albeit a fictional one, involved a 200-mile, overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess. Legend has it that the trusty steed delivered her rider from the law, but died in the process.

34 Dogie catcher : LASSO

“Dogie” (sometimes “dogy”) is cowboy slang for a motherless calf in a herd.

36 Frequent auto race sponsor : STP

STP is a brand name of automotive lubricants and additives. The name “STP” is an initialism standing for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

41 One of a Biblical 150 : PSALM

The Greek word “psalmoi” originally meant “songs sung to a harp”, and gave us the word “psalms”. In the Jewish and Western Christian traditions, the Book of Psalms contains 150 individual psalms, divided into five sections.

43 Tyke : WEE ONE

“Tyke” has been used playfully to describe a young child since at least 1902, but for centuries before that a tyke was a cur or mongrel, or perhaps a lazy or lower-class man.

47 Workout ctrs. : YMCAS

The YMCA (“the Y”) is a worldwide movement that has its roots in London, England. There, in 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded with the intent of promoting Christian principles through the development of “a healthy spirit, mind and body”. The founder, George Williams, saw the need to create YMCA facilities for young men who were flocking to the cities as the Industrial Revolution flourished. He saw that these men were frequenting taverns and brothels, and wanted to offer a more wholesome alternative.

48 Grass used on some golf greens : FESCUE

Fescue is a genus of grass that has many uses. The Kentucky 31 cultivar of fescue is well-suited for controlling soil erosion, and played a key role in reclaiming land during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

55 Baskin-Robbins buy : CONE

The Baskin-Robbins chain of ice cream parlors is the largest in the word. The chain was founded by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in Glendale, California in 1945. The company started using the slogan “31 flavors” in 1953, suggesting that a customer could order a different flavor of ice cream on every day of every month.

58 Army-forming insect : ANT

Army ants are a collection of over two hundred different species of ants. Each species is known for aggressively raiding a certain area en masse, foraging for food. Army ants also stay on the move, never building permanent nests.

60 Like a monkey : SIMIAN

“Simian” means “pertaining to monkeys or apes”, from the Latin word “simia” meaning “ape”.

63 “Go __ Watchman”: Harper Lee novel : SET A

Nelle Harper Lee was an author from Monroeville, Alabama. For many years, Lee had only one published novel to her name, i.e. “To Kill a Mockingbird”. That contribution to the world of literature was enough to earn her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Pulitzer Prize. Harper Lee was a close friend of fellow author Truman Capote who was the inspiration for the character named “Dill” in her novel. Lee was all over the news in 2015 as she had published a second novel, titled “Go Set a Watchman”. The experts seem to be agreeing that “Go Set a Watchman” is actually a first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Lee passed away less than a year after “Go Set a Watchman” hit the stores.

64 Rwanda’s capital : KIGALI

Kigali is the capital of the African nation of Rwanda, and is located in the center of the country. That location led to the city being picked as the capital in 1962, over the traditional capital of Nyanza. The choice was made on the occasion of Rwanda’s independence from Belgium. Kigali was the center of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, in which half a million to one million Rwandans were killed. That was perhaps 20% of the country’s total population wiped out in the space of four months.

65 Pollen producer : STAMEN

The stamen is the male reproductive organ of a flower. The part of the stamen known as the anther sits on a stalk called the filament that carries the pollen. The pollen is picked up by insects, especially bees, who then transfer pollen from flower to flower. The pistil is the female reproductive organ, and it accepts the pollen.

67 Title Brooklyn lawyer in an Alabama courtroom : VINNY

“My Cousin Vinny” is a really fun film from 1992 starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei. In 2008, the American Bar Association rated “My Cousin Vinny” as the #3 Greatest Legal Movie of all time, after “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “12 Angry Men”!

70 Jazz guitarist Montgomery : WES

Wes Montgomery was a jazz guitarist from Indianapolis.

74 Little dogs : TOYS

The toy group of dogs is made up of the smallest breeds. The smallest of the small breeds are sometimes called teacup breeds.

81 18th/19th-century agricultural innovation : COTTON GIN

The term “cotton gin” is a contraction of “cotton eng-ine”. The gin is a machine that mechanically separates cotton fibers from the cotton seed. The modern version of the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1793.

83 Mount with carved heads : RUSHMORE

The four presidents whose faces are carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore are (from left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Each of the presidents is about 60 feet in height, although they might have been larger. The original intent was for each president to be depicted from head to waist, but the project lost funding.

90 Luck, to the Bard : HAP

One’s hap is one’s luck. So, to be hapless is to be out of luck, unfortunate.

The original bards were storytellers, poets and composers of music in medieval Britain and Ireland, with the term coming from the Old Celtic word “bardos” that described a poet or singer. I guess the most famous bard was William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon.

94 “__ a stinker?”: Bugs Bunny : AIN’T I?

Bugs Bunny first said “What’s up, Doc?” in the 1940 cartoon short “A Wild Hare”, while addressing the hunter Elmer Fudd.

97 Manhattan Project projects : A-TESTS

The Manhattan project was the joint US-Canada-UK project to develop an atomic bomb during WWII. Initially, the Army headquarters for the program was located on the 18th floor of a building on Broadway in New York City. Eventually, because of that first location, the project adopted the name “Manhattan”.

102 Heavenly body with a tail : COMET

Comets and asteroids are similar, both being relatively small celestial bodies orbiting the sun. Comets differ from asteroids in that they have a coma or tail, especially when they are close enough to the sun. The coma and tail are temporary fuzzy atmospheres that develop due to the presence of solar radiation. Comets are sometimes referred to as “dirty snowballs”, a reference to their composition: rock, dust, water ice and frozen gases.

103 Vampire’s undoing : STAKE

Legends about vampires were particularly common in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans in particular. The superstition was that vampires could be killed using a wooden stake, with the preferred type of wood varying from place to place. Superstition also defined where in the body should be staked. Most often, the stake was driven through the heart, but Russians and northern Germans went for the mouth, and northeastern Serbs for the stomach.

104 Slim candle : TAPER

I used to think that the word “taper” was used for a slender candle because said candle was “tapered” in shape, but it’s exactly the opposite. It turns out that our word “tapered” comes from the candle. “Taper” and “tapur” are Old English words meaning “candle”. From these nouns arose the verb “to taper” meaning “shoot up like flame”. This meaning evolved into “become slender” from the idea that a candle’s flame has such a shape.

105 Flexible Flyers, e.g. : SLEDS

“Flexible flyer” is now a generic term for a steel-runner sled that can be steered with the feet. The original Flexible Flyer was patented in 1889.

107 PR firm’s forte : SPIN

Public relations (PR)

109 Leaning Tower site : PISA

The city of Pisa sits right on the Italian coast, at the mouth of the River Arno. The city is perhaps most famous for its Leaning Tower. The tower is actually the campanile (bell tower) of the city’s cathedral, and it has been leaning since it was completed in 1173. Just shows you how important good foundations are …