Tag: Astute attorney crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 27s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Mary Oliver, e.g. : POET

Mary Oliver is a writer, mainly of petry, who has been described as America’s best-selling poet. Oliver won a Pulitzer for poetry in 1984 for her collection of poems called “American Primitive”.

14. Prefix with sphere : ATMO-

An atmosphere is the layer of gases surrounding a body, usually a planet. The word “atmosphere” comes from the Greek “atmos” meaning “vapor, steam”. The term was first applied to the Moon, which is a real paradox as the Moon doesn’t have any atmosphere.

15. Self-moving vacuum : ROOMBA

The Roomba vacuum cleaner is a cool-looking device that navigates its way around a room by itself, picking up dirt as it goes. Like I said, it’s cool-looking but I am not sure how effective it is …

20. Bygone Persian rulers : SHAHS

“Shah” was a title used by Persian emperors that translate into English as “king”. The full title in Persian is “Sahahsah”, which means “King of Kings”.

21. Long-jawed fish : GAR

“Gar” was originally the name given to a species of needlefish found in the North Atlantic. The term “gar” is now used to describe several species of fish with elongated bodies that inhabit North and Central America and the Caribbean. The gar is unusual in that it is often found in very brackish water. What I find interesting is that the gar’s swim bladders are vascularized so that they can actually function as lungs. Many species of gar can actually be seen coming to the surface and taking a gulp of air. This adaptation makes it possible for them to live in conditions highly unsuitable for other fish that rely on their gills to get oxygen out of the water. Indeed, quite interesting …

27. Man-horse hybrid : CENTAUR

A centaur is a creature from Greek mythology. It is a creature with the upper body of a human and lower body of a horse.

30. Synagogue reading : TORAH

The Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, are traditionally believed to have been written by Moses. As such, they are sometimes referred to as the Law of Moses, or Mosaic Law.

31. Country between Vietnam and Thailand : LAOS

Lao is the official language of Laos. Lao is also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, but there the language is known as Isan.

34. Type of coffee or whiskey : IRISH

Despite rumors to the contrary, I choose to believe that the Irish coffee cocktail was invented in my homeland, and specifically in Foynes flying-boat station in the west of Ireland. The terminal at Foynes was one of the busiest in Europe back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in the days when airlines such as Pan Am were using flying-boats for transatlantic crossings. Joe Sheridan, chef at the terminal’s restaurant, started to serve coffee laced with whiskey to warm the incoming passengers, especially those who landed on a wet and blustery west of Ireland day. Sheridan, it is said, coined the term “Irish coffee” for the drink.

38. Military IDs … or what 17-, 23-, 51- and 61-Across have : DOG TAGS

The identification tags worn by soldiers are often called “dog tags”, simply because they do resemble tags worn by dogs. US military personnel are required to wear dog tags when in the field. Each soldier wears either two tags or a special tag that breaks easily into two identical pieces. The idea is that if a soldier is killed then one half can be removed for notification and the remaining half stays with the body. Each tag contains basics such as name and ID number, medical information like blood type, and possibly a religious preference.

42. Moby-Dick, e.g. : WHALE

The full title of Herman Melville’s novel is “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale”. Note that the convention is to hyphenate “Moby-Dick” in the title, as that was how the book was first published, in 1851. However, there is no hyphen in the name of the whale “Moby Dick” as reproduced throughout the text.

44. Hula strings : UKE

The ukulele (uke) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

The hula is a native dance of Hawaii that uses arm movements to relate a story. The hula can be performed while sitting (a noho dance) or while standing (a luna dance).

46. Rice dish : PILAF

“Pilaf” is a Persian word, one that we use to describe rice that is browned in oil and then cooked in a seasoned broth.

49. “The Shawshank Redemption” extras : INMATES

Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” was adapted into a 2009 stage play and a 1994 film, both of which were titled “The Shawshank Redemption”. The Ohio State Reformatory was used for exterior shots of the fictional Shawshank Prison. That same facility was used for the prison scenes in the 1997 film “Air Force One”.

51. Court long shot : THREE-POINTER

That would be basketball.

55. Org. whose returns were never sales : IRS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.

60. Trellis climber : IVY

The species of flowering plant Hedera helix is variously referred to as common ivy, English ivy, or usually just plain “ivy”. “Hedera” is the generic term for “ivy”, and “helix” is Greek for “spiral, twist, turn”.

65. Long cold spell : ICE AGE

Ice ages are periods in the Earth’s history when there are extensive ice sheets present in the northern and southern hemispheres. One might argue that we are still in an ice age that began 2.6 million years ago, as evidenced by the presence of ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica.

69. Pre-Easter season : LENT

In Latin, the Christian season that is now called “Lent” was termed “quadragesima” (meaning “fortieth”), a reference to the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. When the church began its move in the Middle Ages towards using the vernacular, the term “Lent” was introduced. “Lent” comes from “lenz”, the German word for “spring”.

Down

1. D.C. influence gps. : PACS

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

2. “However,” in tweets : OTOH

On the other hand (OTOH)

3. “Handsome, clever, and rich” Jane Austen character : EMMA

Here is the opening paragraph of the novel “Emma”, by Jane Austen:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

6. Stag’s mate : DOE

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and females cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

7. Longtime Univision news anchor Ramos : JORGE

Jorge Ramos is perhaps the best-known Spanish-language news anchor working in the US. Ramos is based in Miami, where he anchors Univision’s flagship daily news program “Noticias Univision”. Ramos has held that position since 1987.

8. Two dots above a vowel : UMLAUT

An “umlaut” (also “diaeresis”) is a diacritical mark consisting of two horizontal dots placed over a letter, usually a vowel. Here in the West, we are perhaps most familiar with umlauts in German, as in “Schön”.

9. Pizza chain in many food courts : SBARRO

The Sbarro chain of pizza restaurants was founded by Italian immigrants, Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro.

10. Bar bill : TAB

When we run a tab at a bar say, we are running a “tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

11. Madagascar!, in the Bronx : ZOO EXHIBIT

The Bronx Zoo in New York City is the largest metropolitan zoo in the country, and is located right on the Bronx River.

“Madagascar!” is an exhibit that opened in 2008 in the Bronx Zoo in New York City. The exhibit houses several forms of wildlife that are native to the island of Madagascar, including lemurs, Nile crocodiles and radiated tortoises. There are also over 100,000 hissing cockroaches in the exhibit, and you can actually name one for a few bucks on Valentine’s Day. Romantic …

13. Pan in Neverland : PETER

Neverland is the fictional location where Peter Pan lives in the works of J. M. Barrie. The name actually evolved in Barrie’s works, starting out as “Peter’s Never Never Never Land”. Also, Barrie used the names “the Never Never Land”, “the Neverland” and “the Neverlands”. Famously, entertainer Michael Jackson renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch as Neverland Valley Ranch when he took ownership in 1988, in a nod to “Peter Pan”.

18. Inst. with the fight song “On, Brave Old Army Team” : USMA

“On, Brave Old Army Team” is the fight song of the US Military Academy (USMA). The director of the West Point Band, Phili Egner, composed the song in 1910. You can see the first seven notes of the song’s chorus etched into Egner’s tombstone in the West Point Cemetery.

22. Frost : HOAR

The Old English word “har” meant “gray, venerable, old”, and came into English as “hoar” (and later “hoary”) with the same meaning. The term “hoar-frost” dates back to the 13th century, and reflects the similarity of the white feathers of frost to the gray/white of an old man’s beard.

24. Jay-Z’s “D.O.A. (Death of __-Tune)” : AUTO

Jay-Z, as well as being a successful and very rich rap artist, is married to singer Beyoncé. Jay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter in Brooklyn, New York. As Carter was growing up, he was nicknamed “Jazzy”, a reference to his interest in music. “Jazzy” evolved into the stage name “Jay-Z”. Jay-Z and Beyoncé have a daughter named Blue Ivy Carter, and twins named Rumi and Sir Carter.

Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio process that is primarily used to alter pitch in a recorded track. One of the main uses of Auto-Tune is to correct voice tracks that are slightly off-pitch, which probably explains why even professional singers tend to sound better on a recording than they do live. More extreme levels of Auto-Tune adjustment are now quite common, creating a sound effect that distorts vocals. Such sound effects really took off with the release of Cher’s 1998 hit song “Believe”, in which you can really notice the vocal distortion.

25. H.S. subject that covers all the angles? : TRIG

Trigonometry (trig) is a branch of mathematics dealing with triangles, and calculations based on the relationships between a triangle’s angles and the lengths of its sides.

26. Jewish ritual : BRIS

A mohel is a man who has been trained in the practice of brit milah (circumcision). Brit milah is known as “bris” in Yiddish. The brit milah ceremony is performed on male infants when they are 8-days old.

27. Jaguar’s weapon : CLAW

The four “big cats” are the tiger, lion, jaguar and leopard. The largest of the big cats is the tiger, and the smallest is the leopard.

33. “The Simpsons” disco devotee : STU

On “The Simpsons”, the character of Disco Stu is voiced by Hank Azaria, although he was voiced for a while by Phil Hartman. Disco Stu is described as “a black, wrinkly John Travolta”.

38. Mark for omission : DELE

“Dele” is the editorial instruction to delete something from a document, and is often written in red.

53. Actor Oscar __ of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” : ISAAC

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 plays X-wing pilot Poe Dameron in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy of movies.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is a 2017 movie from the “Star Wars” film franchise, and the second installment of the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy. The title character is Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill. Ah, but is Luke in fact the “last Jedi”?

57. Pulitzer-winning author James : AGEE

James Agee was a noted American film critic and screenwriter. Agee wrote an autobiographical novel “A Death in the Family” that won him his Pulitzer in 1958, albeit posthumously. He was also one of the screenwriters for the 1951 classic movie “The African Queen”.

62. Alternative to JFK or EWR : LGA

The three big airports serving New York City (NYC) are John F. Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR).

63. Perfecta or trifecta : BET

To win a bet called an exacta (also called “perfecta”), the person betting must name the horses that finish first and second, and in the exact order. The related bet called the trifecta requires naming of the first, second and third-place finishers in the right order.