Constructed by: Kevin C. Christian
Edited by: Rich Norris
Quicklink to a complete list of today’s clues and answers
Quicklink to comments
Theme: Queen’s Domain
Today’s themed answers all have the same clue: “Queen’s domain”.
- 17A. Queen’s domain : CHESS GAME
- 26A. Queen’s domain : BEEHIVE
- 36A. Queen’s domain : DECK OF CARDS
- 51A. Queen’s domain : ENGLAND
- 60A. Queen’s domain : ARENA ROCK
Bill’s time: 12m 47s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
4. Shed door attachments : HASPS
The “hasp” of a lock might refer to more than one thing. The u-shape loop protruding from a padlock is often called a “lock hasp”, for example.
9. Like iceberg lettuce : CRISP
Iceberg lettuce is the most popular lettuce consumed in the US. Also known as “crisphead”, it is considered by many experts to be one of least flavorful varieties of lettuce available. I agree …
14. Freudian topic : EGO
Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The super-ego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.
16. Relative of bongos : TABLA
A tabla is a percussion instrument used in the Indian subcontinent. The tabla consists of a pair of hand drums and is similar to bongos.
17. Queen’s domain : CHESS GAME
In the game of chess, the pawns are the weakest pieces on the board. A pawn that can make it to the opposite of the board can be “promoted” to a piece of choice, usually a queen. Using promotion of pawns, it is possible for a player to have two or more queens on the board at one time. However, standard chess sets come with only one queen per side, so a captured rook is often used as the second queen by placing it on the board upside down.
19. Cause of a skid, perhaps : SLEET
Apparently “sleet” is a term used to describe two weather conditions. One is a shower of ice pellets, smaller than hail, and the second is a mixture of rain and snow, with the snow melting as it falls.
20. Tom Jones’ “__ a Lady” : SHE’S
“She’s a Lady” is a 1971 song composed by Paul Anka and released by Tom Jones.
Tom Jones, now he has a real voice and is a great showman. I saw him in Las Vegas many, many moons ago, one of the best Vegas shows I’ve ever attended. Although Tom Jones is a carefully selected stage name (he was born Thomas Woodward) the name isn’t too far from reality as Jones is his mother’s maiden name. The stage name was chosen by his manager to capitalize on the appeal of “Tom Jones”, a filmed version of the Henry Fielding novel that was having a successful run at the time. The name also emphasized Tom’s Welsh roots, as Jones is a very common name in Wales.
21. Payroll service co. : ADP
Automatic Data Processing (ADP) is an enterprise based in Roseland, New Jersey that provides business services to companies.
23. __-à-porter: ready-to-wear : PRET
“Prêt-à-Porter” is a common enough phrase over in Europe, a French expression meaning “ready-to-wear” that has made it into a number of other languages including English.
32. Hide from a hunter : PELT
A “pelt” is the skin of a furry animal.
33. Coppertone’s 30, e.g. : SPF
In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …
Coppertone is a brand of sunscreen owned by Bayer.
34. Bit of IM mirth : HEE
Even though instant messaging (sending IMs) has been around since the 1960s, it was AOL who popularized the term “instant message” in the eighties and nineties. The “AOL Instant Message” service was known as AIM.
40. Versailles monarch : ROI
“La reine” (the queen) is the wife of “le roi” (the king), in French.
Versailles is a city located just 10 miles from the center of Paris. It is famous as home to the magnificent Palace of Versailles. The palace started out as a hunting lodge built in the village of Versailles in 1624, built for Louis XIII. Louis XIII extended the lodge into a full-blown château, but it was Louis XIV who expanded it into one of the largest palaces on the planet. Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris to Versailles starting in 1678.
41. West __: high-end furniture retailer : ELM
West Elm is an upscale furniture store that is owned by Williams-Sonoma. The chain was founded in 2002.
45. Actress Arthur : BEA
Actress Bea Arthur’s most famous roles were on television, as the lead in the “All in the Family” spin-off “Maude” and as Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls”. Arthur also won a Tony for playing Vera Charles on stage in the original cast of “Mame” in 1966, two years after she played Yente the matchmaker in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof”.
51. Queen’s domain : ENGLAND
The terms “United Kingdom”, “Great Britain” and “England” can sometimes be confused. The official use of “United Kingdom” originated in 1707 with the Acts of Union that declared the countries of England and Scotland as “United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain”. The name changed again with the Acts of Union 1800 that created the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” (much to the chagrin of most of the Irish population). This was partially reversed in 1927 when the current name was introduced, the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, in recognition of an independent Irish Free State in the south of the island of Ireland.
54. De Matteo of “Sons of Anarchy” : DREA
Drea de Matteo is an actress who is most familiar to me for playing Adriana la Cerva on HBO’s wonderful series “The Sopranos”. De Matteo also played Joey’s sister on the short-lived “Friends” spin-off called “Joey”, and the character Angie Bolen on “Desperate Housewives”.
“Sons of Anarchy” is a popular FX crime series about an outlaw motorcycle club in California’s Central Valley. Apparently, it is the most successful FX show ever.
57. Baseball analyst Hershiser : OREL
Orel Hershiser is big into poker now that he has retired from Major League Baseball. Hershiser lives in Las Vegas and when he isn’t working for ESPN, apparently he is at the poker tables, playing professionally. When Hershiser is eliminated in a poker tournament, he is in the habit of presenting the person who ousts him with an autographed baseball.
58. Odyssey on the road : HONDA
The Honda Odyssey is a minivan that has been around since 1994. We had one for many years …
60. Queen’s domain : ARENA ROCK
“Arena rock” (also “stadium rock”) is a rock music played in large arenas. It is a phenomenon that dates back to the British Invasion when successful bands like the Beatles played to large audiences in places such as Shea Stadium in New York.
Queen is an English rock band that was formed back in 1970. With the help of lead singer Freddie Mercury (now deceased), Queen has a long list of great hits, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”. “Bohemian Rhapsody” spent a total of nine weeks at number one in the UK.
66. Writer who inspired the Raven Award : POE
The Raven Society is a University of Virginia Honor Society that was founded in 1904. It is named for the 1845 poem titled “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, who attended UVA for one semester. The Raven Society presents annual Raven Fellowships, and since 1933 has presented an annual Raven Award to outstanding UVA students, faculty or alumni.
67. Pineal or pituitary : GLAND
The pineal gland is a small gland located in the epithalamus, near the center of the brain. The gland gets its name from its shape, like a tiny pine cone. The pineal gland produces melatonin, a hormone that helps maintain our circadian rhythm, so varying levels of melatonin control our sleep-wake cycle.
The pituitary gland is found at the base of the brain and is about the size of pea. The pituitary secretes nine hormones in all, and so affects many aspects of bodily function.
69. Soufflé need : EGG
A soufflé is a French dish, usually served as a dessert. The verb “souffler” means “to blow, blow up”.
Down
1. 39th pres. : JEC
President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter (JEC) is a graduate of the US Naval Academy (USNA). Carter served in the Navy on surface ships and submarines, and chose to pursue a career in the submarine service as he was interested in nuclear power and believed it had a great future in submarine design. As a result, he became an expert in nuclear propulsion. In 1952, the Navy sent the young Carter to the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada to lead the US effort to shutdown the reactor after an accident and partial meltdown of a reactor core. He and his team had to be lowered into the leaking reactor core for mechanical disassembly, staying there for only seconds at a time to minimise exposure to radiation. Decades later as US President, it was this experience that influenced Carter’s decision not to complete the development of the neutron bomb.
3. Runs amok : GOES WILD
The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had good reason for that frenzy …
4. Uncouth types, in Canadian slang : HOSERS
The derogatory word “hoser”, meaning “foolish or uncultivated person”, is apparently attributed to Canadians. That said, I just read that the term is in fact rarely used north of the border.
6. Yellow __ : SEA
The Yellow Sea is the northern part of the East China Sea, and is located between the Korean peninsula and China. The water surface does indeed take on a golden yellow hue at times when it picks up sand particles from sand storms in the Gobi Desert, which lies to the west of the Yellow Sea.
7. Adidas rival : PUMA
Puma is a German company that sells athletic shoes worldwide. The company is most famous for its line of soccer boots.
The brand name Adidas dates back to when Adolf “Adi” Dassler started making his own sports shoes in his mother’s laundry room in Bavaria after returning from WWI. With his brother, Adi founded Dassler shoes. The company’s big break came in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics, when Adi persuaded American sprinter Jesse Owens to use his shoes, and with the success of Jesse Owens came success for the fledgling shoe company. After WWII the brothers split, acrimoniously. Adi’s brother, Ru-dolf Da-ssler, formed “Ruda” shoes (later to become Puma), and Adi Das-sler formed “Adidas”.
9. Nos. that are beside the point : CTS
When writing an amount of money, the two digits to the right of the decimal point signify a number of cents (cts.).
10. Actor Fiennes : RALPH
English actor Ralph Fiennes comes from a very aristocratic family, as one might guess from his full name, Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes. He is in fact an eighth cousin of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. Fiennes has played some nasty characters in his time, including the commandant of the concentration camp in “Schindler’s List” and the dreaded Lord Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” movies.
11. It’s across the Pyrenees from France : IBERIA
The Iberian Peninsula in Europe is largely made up of Spain and Portugal. However, also included is the Principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees, a small part of the south of France, and the British Territory of Gibraltar. Iberia takes its name from the Ebro, the longest river in Spain, which the Romans named the “Iber”.
The Pyrénées is a mountain range that runs along the border between Spain and France. Nestled between the two countries, high in the mountains, is the lovely country of Andorra, an old haunt of my family during skiing season …
13. Auction spiel : PATTER
A spiel is a lengthy speech or argument designed to persuade, like a sales pitch. “Spiel” comes to us from German, either directly (“spiel” is the German for “play”) or via the Yiddish “shpil”.
22. New York suburb bordering New Rochelle : PELHAM
The suburban town of Pelham lies about 14 miles northeast of Manhattan. The land on which the town now sits was purchased in 1654 by English-born physician Thomas Pell, who named the area in honor of his old tutor Pelham Burton.
24. Recipe amt. : TSP
Teaspoon (tsp.)
29. USCG rank : CPO
A Chief Petty Officer (CPO) is a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the Navy (USN) and Coast Guard (USCG). The “Petty” is derived from the French word “petit” meaning “small”.
33. Gossip : SKINNY
The use of the word “skinny” meaning information, comes from WWII military slang for “the truth”, probably a derivative of the expression “the naked truth” (evocative of “skinny-dipping”).
35. Santa portrayer in “Elf” : ED ASNER
“Elf” is a comedy movie released for the 2003 Christmas season. “Elf” was directed by Jon Favreau and stars Will Ferrell in the title role, with James Caan supporting and Ed Asner playing Santa Claus. It’s all about one of Santa’s elves who finds out he is human and goes to meet his father in New York City.
38. Cavs, on a scoreboard : CLE
The Cleveland Cavaliers are the professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavs joined the NBA as an expansion team in 1970.
43. Chem class suffix : -IDE
In chemistry, when a metal combines with a nonmetal, the nonmetal is often given the suffix “-ide”. One example would be iron sulfide, made from iron (a metal) and sulfur (a nonmetal).
44. “Game of Thrones” patriarch Stark : NED
Ned Stark is the protagonist in George R. R. Martin’s fantasy novel “A Game of Thrones”, although his character doesn’t exactly come out on top by the end of the story. Stark is played by actor Sean Bean in the HBO television adaptation of the novel.
47. Guide for a chair : AGENDA
“Agenda” is a Latin word that translates as “things to be done”, coming from the verb “agere” meaning “to do”.
53. __ boom : SONIC
Supersonic transports (SSTs) like the Concorde broke Mach 1, the speed of sound. As a plane flies through air, it creates pressure waves in front (and behind) rather like the bow and stern waves of a boat. These pressure waves travel at the speed of sound, so as an aircraft itself accelerates towards the speed of sound it catches up with the pressure waves until they cannot “get out of the way”. When the aircraft reaches the speed of sound, the compressed waves merge into one single shock wave, creating a sonic boom.
56. Met delivery : ARIA
The Metropolitan Opera (often “the Met”) of New York City is the largest classical music organization in the country, presenting about 220 performances each and every year. Founded in 1880, the Met is renowned for using technology to expand its audiences. Performances have been broadcast live on radio since 1931, and on television since 1977. And since 2006 you can go see a live performance from New York in high definition on the big screen, at a movie theater near you …
61. Critter on the Australian 50-cent coin : EMU
The Australian 50-cent coin is one of the largest coins in circulation in any country across the globe. It is a twelve-sided coin with a diameter of just under 1¼ inches. The obverse of the 50-cent piece features the profile of Queen Elizabeth II, and the reverse bears the Australian coat of arms.
The official symbol of Australia is a coat of arms that features a kangaroo and an emu.
Complete List of Clues and Answers
Across
1. Bleach container : JUG
4. Shed door attachments : HASPS
9. Like iceberg lettuce : CRISP
14. Freudian topic : EGO
15. Marginally ahead : ONE UP
16. Relative of bongos : TABLA
17. Queen’s domain : CHESS GAME
19. Cause of a skid, perhaps : SLEET
20. Tom Jones’ “__ a Lady” : SHE’S
21. Payroll service co. : ADP
23. __-à-porter: ready-to-wear : PRET
24. Keep from happening : THWART
26. Queen’s domain : BEEHIVE
28. Corporate big shots : SUITS
29. With false modesty : COYLY
31. Bubbly opener? : AER-
32. Hide from a hunter : PELT
33. Coppertone’s 30, e.g. : SPF
34. Bit of IM mirth : HEE
36. Queen’s domain : DECK OF CARDS
40. Versailles monarch : ROI
41. West __: high-end furniture retailer : ELM
42. Related : AKIN
45. Actress Arthur : BEA
48. Slyly disparaging : SNIDE
50. Back of a single : B-SIDE
51. Queen’s domain : ENGLAND
53. Picked up : SENSED
54. De Matteo of “Sons of Anarchy” : DREA
55. One in favor : YEA
57. Baseball analyst Hershiser : OREL
58. Odyssey on the road : HONDA
60. Queen’s domain : ARENA ROCK
64. Of yesteryear : OLDEN
65. Keep down : LIMIT
66. Writer who inspired the Raven Award : POE
67. Pineal or pituitary : GLAND
68. Chef’s creation : SAUCE
69. Soufflé need : EGG
Down
1. 39th pres. : JEC
2. “Bummer” : UGH
3. Runs amok : GOES WILD
4. Uncouth types, in Canadian slang : HOSERS
5. Severe anxiety : ANGST
6. Yellow __ : SEA
7. Adidas rival : PUMA
8. Left in the dust : SPED BY
9. Nos. that are beside the point : CTS
10. Actor Fiennes : RALPH
11. It’s across the Pyrenees from France : IBERIA
12. Tailor’s measure : SLEEVE
13. Auction spiel : PATTER
18. Destroy : SHATTER
22. New York suburb bordering New Rochelle : PELHAM
24. Recipe amt. : TSP
25. Tinge : HUE
27. Once-over giver : EYER
29. USCG rank : CPO
30. Took out : OFFED
33. Gossip : SKINNY
35. Santa portrayer in “Elf” : ED ASNER
37. Alguna __: something, in Spain : COSA
38. Cavs, on a scoreboard : CLE
39. White way : SKI SLOPE
43. Chem class suffix : -IDE
44. “Game of Thrones” patriarch Stark : NED
45. Covers stealer : BED HOG
46. Join the club : ENROLL
47. Guide for a chair : AGENDA
49. High standards : IDEALS
50. Scold : BERATE
52. Weighted down : LADEN
53. __ boom : SONIC
56. Met delivery : ARIA
59. “Then what happened?” : AND?
61. Critter on the Australian 50-cent coin : EMU
62. Machine part : COG
63. Beer source : KEG