Tag: Brings forward for display crossword clue

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Constructed by: Alan Olschwang

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Birdhouse

Themed answers each “HOUSE” (have within) a hidden BIRD, given in circled letters:

• 60A Handmade backyard nest box, and an apt description of 18-, 23-, 37-, and 50-Across : BIRDHOUSE

• 18A Rather often : QUITE A LOT (housing TEAL)
• 23A In large quantities : HAND OVER FIST (housing DOVE)
• 37A Taunting remark : EAT YOUR HEART OUT (housing RHEA)
• 50A NHL legend known as “The Great One” : WAYNE GRETZKY (housing EGRET)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Root beer brand owned by Coca-Cola : BARQ’S

When the Barq Brothers decided to go into the root beer business around 1900, they were faced with a dilemma as the Hires Root Beer Company was attempting to trademark the term “root beer”. So, the Barqs produced their beverage and called it simply Barq’s. They did indeed keep things simple, with an early advertising slogan of “Drink Barq’s. It’s good.” As the trademark issue dissipated, the company then introduced a slogan “Is it root beer?” before finally “coming out” and calling their drink “Barq’s root beer”.

14A Indigenous Alaskan : ALEUT

The Aleuts live on the Aleutian Islands of the North Pacific, and on the Commander Islands at the western end of the same island chain. The Aleutian Islands are part of the United States, and the Commander Islands are in Russia.

17A Roman robes : TOGAS

In ancient Rome, the toga was a highly symbolic garment, typically a semi-circular woolen cloth draped over the body. Different types of togas indicated a citizen’s status or role: the pure white “toga virilis” was worn by adult male citizens, the “toga praetexta” with a purple border was for magistrates and freeborn boys, and the “toga pulla” (dark-colored) was for mourning.

18A Rather often : QUITE A LOT (housing TEAL)

Several species of small, fast-flying dabbling ducks go by the name “teal”. As dabbling ducks, they feed in shallow water by tipping their heads down and tails up, rather than diving fully underwater. The familiar blue-green color “teal” is named after the iridescent patch on the wing of the Eurasian teal.

20A Jackie on the Hollywood Walk of Fame : CHAN

Jackie Chan is an actor from Hong Kong who is noted for his action and martial arts films. When Chan was 17-years-old he featured as a stunt actor in Bruce Lee movies. He also starred in the 1982 Hong Kong action film “Dragon Lord” which includes a fight scene that required an amazing 2900 takes, a record in the movie industry.

21A Mardi Gras, for one: Abbr. : TUE

“Mardi Gras” translates from French as “Fat Tuesday”, and the holiday gets its name from the practice of eating rich foods on the eve of the fasting season known as Lent. Lent starts on the next day, called Ash Wednesday.

23A In large quantities : HAND OVER FIST (housing DOVE)

Taxonomically, doves and pigeons are the only members of the order Columbidae. The terms “dove” and “pigeon” are often used interchangeably. Scientifically speaking, dove species tend to be smaller than pigeon species. Colloquially though, many refer to doves as the white or nearly white species in the family.

27A Name on a former lake in Central Asia : ARAL

The Aral Sea is a great example of how humankind can have a devastating effect on the environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

28A “Guys and Dolls” composer Frank : LOESSER

Frank Loesser was a songwriter who was famous for penning both lyrics and music for the Broadway show “Guys and Dolls” and “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”. Loesser also wrote the marvelous song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.

“Guys and Dolls” is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. It was first produced on Broadway, in 1950, and ran for 1200 performances. The show was based on a book written by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, which in turn was inspired by the short stories “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” and “Blood Pressure” by Damon Runyon. “Guys and Dolls” was chosen as winner of a Pulitzer in 1951, but the award was canceled as Abe Burrows was having problems with the House Un-American Activities Committee at the time.

35A Chapel bench : PEW

A pew is a church bench, usually one with a high back. The original pews were raised and sometimes enclosed seats in the church used by women and important men or families. “Pew” comes from the Old French “puie” meaning “balcony, elevation”.

36A Med plan option : HMO

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

37A Taunting remark : EAT YOUR HEART OUT (housing RHEA)

The rhea is a flightless bird that is native to South America. It takes its name from the Greek Titan Rhea. That’s an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word meaning “ground”.

42A Chicken __ king : A LA

A dish prepared “à la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is prepared in a cream sauce with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.

43A Hundred Acre Wood joey : ROO

In A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” collection of stories, Pooh has many friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. Besides Christopher Robin, who doesn’t actually live in the woods, the list includes Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Tigger and Owl.

45A Antarctic body of water with penguin rookeries : ROSS SEA

The Ross Sea is a bay in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica. It was discovered by one James Ross in 1841. A more recent discovery, in the waters of the Ross Sea, was a 33 feet long giant squid that was captured in 2007.

48A “Othello” frenemy : IAGO

In William Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Iago is the villain of the piece. At one point he readily admits this, saying “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse”. Here he is claiming to make money out of making fools of others. In this case, he takes money from Roderigo, who believes that Iago will help him bed Othello’s wife Desdemona.

50A NHL legend known as “The Great One” : WAYNE GRETZKY (housing EGRET)

Wayne Gretzky is regarded by many as the greatest ever player of ice hockey, and indeed he has the nickname “The Great One”. At the time of his retirement, he held an amazing 61 NHL records.

58A Final tally : SUM

Back in the mid-1600s, a tally was a stick marked with notches that tracked how much one owed or paid. The term “tally” came from the Latin “talea” meaning “stick, rod”. The act of “scoring” the stick with notches gave rise to our word “score” for the number in a tally.

59A Prefix with -gram : SONO-

A sonogram is an image made using ultrasound. “Ultrasound” is the name given to sound energy that has frequencies above the audible range.

66A Blender setting for pumpkin pie filling : PUREE

A purée is a food that has been made smooth by straining or blending. “Purée” is a French term, which I believe is now used to mean “pea soup” (more completely written as “purée de pois”). The French verb “purer” means “to strain, clean”, from the Latin “purare” meaning “to purify, clean”.

68A “Devil Inside” band : INXS

“Devil Inside” is a 1988 song by the Australian band INXS. It peaked at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, helped along by a music video directed by celebrated Hollywood movie director Joel Schumacher.

69A Ring-shaped island : ATOLL

An atoll is a coral island that is shaped in a ring that encloses a lagoon. There is still some debate as to how an atoll forms, but a theory proposed by Charles Darwin while on his famous voyage aboard HMS Beagle still holds sway. Basically, an atoll was once a volcanic island that had subsided and fallen into the sea. The coastline of the island is home to coral growth which persists even as the island continues to subside inside the circling coral reef.

Down

2D “Welcome to Maui!” : ALOHA!

Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian islands. It is sometimes called the “Valley Isle” as it is composed of two volcanoes to the northwest and southeast of the island, each with numerous beautiful valleys carved into them.

3D Middle daughter of King Lear : REGAN

In William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, Regan is the king’s second daughter. Regan vies with her older sister for influence over her father, and for the attention of Edmund, illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester.

7D Rutger of “Blade Runner” : HAUER

Rutger Hauer is a Dutch actor, one famous in the US for his Hollywood roles. He was born in Breukelen in the Netherlands, which is the town that gave its name to the borough of Brooklyn in New York City.

8D Ocean State sch. : URI

The University of Rhode Island (URI) was chartered as an agricultural school back in 1888. Rhody the Ram was chosen as the school’s mascot in 1923, a nod to URI’s agricultural past. As a result, the school’s sports teams are known as the Rams. URI’s main campus today is located in the village of Kingston, with smaller campuses in Providence, Narragansett and West Greenwich.

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, and is the second-most densely populated. (after New Jersey). Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State (and more informally “Little Rhody”), largely because about 14% of the state’s area is made up of ocean bays and inlets. Exactly how Rhode Island got its name is a little unclear. What is known is that way back in 1524, long before the Pilgrims came to New England, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano likened an island in the area to the Island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. There were subsequent references to “Rhode Island” in English publications, before the colonists arrived.

13D “The Simpsons” creator Groening : MATT

Matt Groening is a cartoonist. He created two successful animated shows for television, namely “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” (neither of which I really appreciate!).

21D FDR energy project : TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has to be one of America’s great success stories when it comes to economic development. Created in 1933, the TVA spearheaded economic development in the Tennessee Valley at the height of the Great Depression. Central to the success was the federally-funded construction of flood-control and electricity-generation facilities.

24D Dirt pie cookie : OREO

Dirt cake (sometimes “dirt pie, dirt pudding”) is a dessert usually made by breaking up Oreo cookies and scattering the pieces over chocolate pudding, and then adding gummy worms on top. Sounds delicious …

26D Ames locale : IOWA

The Iowa city of Ames was founded as a stop on the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad in 1864. It was named for US Congressman Oakes Ames from the state of Massachusetts in honor of the role that Ames played in the building of the transcontinental railroad.

33D Saintly glow : HALO

The Greek word “halos” is the name given to the ring of light around the sun or moon, which gives us our word “halo” that is used for a radiant light depicted above the head of a saintly person.

35D Vietnamese soup : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food, and the nation’s unofficial national dish. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

38D Manhattan Project scientist Harold : UREY

Harold Urey won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the hydrogen isotope deuterium. Urey also speculated that the Earth’s early atmosphere might have consisted of ammonia, methane and hydrogen. One of Urey’s students conducted the Miller-Urey experiment, which showed that such a mixture of gases can produce amino acids if exposed to electric sparks and water. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and are sometimes referred to as the building blocks of life.

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”.

39D Multicolored horse : ROAN

In horses, there are two types of roan: red roan, which has a mixture of red and white hairs, and blue roan, which has a mixture of black and white hairs.

46D Country between Finland and Norway : SWEDEN

The country of Sweden emerged during the Middle Ages, and became one of the great powers of Europe in the days of the Swedish Empire in the 17th and early 18th century. Since then Sweden’s influence has waned. What was the eastern part of Sweden was lost to Russia in the early 1800s, and is now modern-day Finland. In the 20th century Sweden has adopted a very non-aggressive stance and was neutral in both World Wars. Sweden is a member of the European Union, although the country does not use the euro as its currency. And, Sweden joined NATO in 2024, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

51D English county south of Suffolk : ESSEX

Essex is a county in England that is referred to as one of the home counties, one of the counties that surround the city of London. The name “Essex” comes from the Old English “Eastseaxe”, referring to the Kingdom of the East Saxons founded in the 6th century.

52D Masked vigilante whose name is Spanish for “fox” : ZORRO

The character Zorro was created by Johnston McCulley in 1919 for a series of stories and pulp fiction, the first title being “The Curse of Capistrano”. The name “Zorro” (Spanish for “fox”) is the secret identity of a Spanish colonial nobleman called Don Diego de la Vega. Famously, Zorro had the habit of carving the letter Z on some object after defeating a foe.

53D Genuflect : KNEEL

Our verb “to genuflect” means “to bend the knee, in worship”. The term comes to us via French from the Latin “genu” meaning “knee” and “flectere” meaning “to bend”.

56D Aswan’s river : NILE

The Egyptian city of Aswan lies in the south of the country, on the River Nile. It is famous for its stone quarries, going back to ancient times. The most celebrated granite rock from the area is called syenite. Stone from Aswan was shipped northwards along the Nile and used in the construction of the pyramids. From ancient times right up to 1970, the annual flooding of the Nile was a significant event in Egypt. The flooding allowed the deposition of fertile silt far beyond the banks of the river, helping the region’s agriculture. However, the flooding was unpredictable. So the Aswan Dam was built in the sixties and from 1970 the flooding was brought under control.

62D Top Gun org : USN

The “Top Gun” school, the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (SFTI), was founded in 1969. The program’s core mission is to “train the trainers,” where the Navy’s top 1% of pilots learn elite tactics and then return to their home squadrons to pass on that knowledge. Established at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego, the school is now located at NAS Fallon in Nevada. The famous nickname “TOPGUN” (officially one word) was the callsign for the original unit.

63D Audit firm pro : CPA

Certified public accountant (CPA)