Tag: Coins of the realm crossword clue

Advertisement

Constructed by: Ben Wildman-Tobriner & Shaun Phillips

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Periodic Updates

Themed answers are common phrases that include names of PERIODIC table elements, with the name replaced by the elements atomic symbol:

• 69A Advantage in some situations, or an alternate title for this puzzle : ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

• 22A Upside found periodically in a bad situation? : AG LINING (silver lining)
• 29A Queen singer played periodically by Rami Malek? : FREDDIE HG (Freddy Mercury)
• 41A Baking ware that’s only used periodically? : MUFFIN SN (muffin tin)
• 46A Cary Grant film that airs periodically on classic movie channels? : AS AND OLD LACE (“Arsenic and Old Lace”)
• 96A Dickens novel that’s only read periodically? : DAVID CU FIELD (“David Copperfield”)
• 100A Perfect stand-up material performed periodically? : COMEDY AU (comedy gold)
• 115A Hairstyling device applied periodically? : CURLING FE (curling iron)
• 124A Periodically prone to breaking the speed limit? : PB-FOOTED (lead-footed)

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

Bill’s time: 12m 51s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Wrigley product : GUM

The Wrigley Company is the largest manufacturer of chewing gum in the world. The company was founded in 1891 in Chicago by William Wrigley, Jr. to sell scouring soap. Wrigley switched to baking powder, and then began to offer two packs of gum as an incentive to buy a can of baking powder. The gum turned out to be more popular than the baking powder.

13A Brazilian coins : REALS

The Brazilian real was officially launched in 1994, as part of a plan to reduce hyperinflation. It replaced the cruzeiro real, with one real equal to 2,750 cruzeiros reais, and equal to one US dollar on the day of its introduction. Most world currencies feature images of historical figures, but the real sticks to indigenous wildlife, such as jaguars and sea turtles.

20A Per __ : CAPITA

“Per capita” is a Latin term used to mean “per person, per unit of population”. The literal translation of the term is “by heads”.

21A Kaitlin of “High Potential” : OLSON

Actress and comedian Kaitlin Olson is perhaps best known to TV audiences, playing Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds on the sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and the lead character Morgan Gillory on the entertaining crime comedy show “High Potential”. Olson started dating the creator and star of “It’s Always Sunny …”, Rob McElhenney, during the show’s second season, and the couple married in 2008.

“High Potential” is a comedy crime procedural that centers on Morgan Gillory, a single mother with a 160 IQ who transitions from cleaning the precinct to solving its most complex cases. It is a remake of a Franco-Belgian show “HPI: Haut potentiel intellectuel”, with the subtitle translating as “high intellectual potential”. Kaitlin Olson plays the lead role, supported by Daniel Sunjata, who plays a detective who is partnered with Olson’s character.

22A Upside found periodically in a bad situation? : AG LINING (silver lining)

The idiom “every cloud has a silver lining” suggests that there is something good to be found in every bad situation. The phrase “silver lining” was coined by English poet John Milton in “Comus”, a piece of dramatic entertainment that was first performed in 1634. The relevant lines are:

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

25A Shelter org. : ASPCA

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

26A __ turtle : SEA

Sea turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until they are decades old. Turtles mate at sea and then the females head to the shore to lay their eggs. Oftentimes, the female turtle returns to the very same beach where she herself hatched.

29A Queen singer played periodically by Rami Malek? : FREDDIE HG (Freddie Mercury)

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is an outstanding 2018 film about the life of Freddie Mercury, lead singer with the British rock band Queen. Rami Malek portrayed Mercury, in an Oscar-winning performance. The original choice to play Mercury was Sacha Baron Cohen, the title character in the “Borat” mockumentary films.

46A Cary Grant film that airs periodically on classic movie channels? : AS AND OLD LACE (“Arsenic and Old Lace”)

“Arsenic and Old Lace” is a Frank Capra film released in 1944. The movie is based on a 1939 stage play by Joseph Kesselring. The film stars Cary Grant as a completely madcap and frantic Mortimer Brewster. Grant was only the fourth choice for the role, after Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Ronald Reagan. That’s quite an eclectic mix of actors …

62A Pagoda instrument : GONG

Pagodas are tiered (“storied”) towers, found in various parts of Asia, that are usually built for religious purposes.

63A Fancy tie : ASCOT

An ascot is a wide tie that narrows at the neck, which these days is only really worn at weddings or part of a dress uniform. The tie takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race at which punters still turn up in formal wear at Ascot Racecourse in England.

65A Tyler of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” : AISHA

Aisha Tyler is an actor and comedian who was a co-host on “The Talk” for several years starting in 2011. She began hosting a reboot of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” in 2013.

The American improv comedy TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” is a spin-off of a very successful British show of the same name. The British TV show is itself a spin-off of a BBC radio show that I well remember. Lots of fun …

67A Anise aperitif : OUZO

Ouzo is an apéritif from Greece that is colorless and flavored with anise. It is similar to French pastis and Italian sambuca. All three liqueurs turn cloudy with the addition of water.

75A Beauty aisle brand : OLAY

Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1952. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

77A Coins of the realm? : PENCE

The official name of our smallest denomination coin is “cent”, and our use of the word “penny” is just a colloquialism derived from the British coin of the same name. In the UK, the plural of penny is “pence”, whereas we have “pennies” in our pockets in the US.

83A Civil rights icon Mandela : NELSON

As a young man, Nelson Mandela led the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela was eventually arrested and admitted to charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He remained behind bars for 27 years, mainly in the infamous prison on Robben Island. As the years progressed, Mandela became a symbol of the fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990, and immediately declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with South Africa’s white minority population. Mandela was elected president of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in 1994, an office that he held until 1999. Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5, 2013.

86A Olaf’s creator in “Frozen” : ELSA

In the original 2013 “Frozen” movie, the snowman named Olaf was the snowy creation of young sisters Anna and Elsa. He turns up later in the story as an anthropomorphic snowman, having been brought to life by Elsa’s magical ice powers. Olaf is voiced by Josh Gad.

90A Physicist Newton : ISAAC

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most influential people in history, and the man who laid the groundwork for all of classical mechanics. The story about an apple falling on his head, inspiring him to formulate his theories about gravity, well that’s not quite true. Newton often told the story about observing an apple falling in his mother’s garden and how this made him acutely aware of the Earth’s gravitational pull. However, he made no mention of the apple hitting him on the head.

92A __ Quixote : DON

The full name of Cervantes’s novel is “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”. In the story, Don Quixote is a retired country gentleman who heads out as a knight-errant and who renames himself Don Quixote of La Mancha. In his mind he designates a neighboring farm girl called Aldonza Lorenzo as his lady love, and renames her Dulcinea del Toboso.

93A Bee keeper : APIARY

An apiary is an area where bees are kept, apiculture is beekeeping, and an apiphobe has a fear of bees. The Latin word for “bee” is “apis”.

95A “Rocky III” actor : MR T

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

“Rocky III” is the movie in which Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) goes up against Clubber Lang (Mr. T). It is a forgettable film, but Mr. T was grateful for his role no doubt, as it launched his career and landed him a spot on television’s “The A-Team”. Also making an appearance was professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, an appearance that raised his profile as well and kick-started his career outside of the ring. But for me, the most memorable thing is the song “Eye of the Tiger”, which was commissioned for “Rocky III”. A great tune …

96A Dickens novel that’s only read periodically? : DAVID CU FIELD (“David Copperfield”)

“David Copperfield” is the eighth novel penned by English author Charles Dickens, first published in serial form from 1849 to 1850. The novel is seen as a somewhat autobiographical work, with many characters and events mirrored in Dickens’ own life.

105A “All the Light We Cannot See” novelist Anthony : DOERR

American author Anthony Doerr won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his 2014 novel “All the Light We Cannot See”. The book is all about a blind French girl and a German boy who meet in occupied France during WWII.

115A Hairstyling device applied periodically? : CURLING FE (curling iron)

There are three types of hair irons:

• Curling irons … make the hair curly
• Straightening irons … make the hair straight
• Crimping irons … create crimps in the hair

Believe it or not, this bald old man used to curl his hair in his teens …

118A Like tiramisu and cannoli : ITALIAN

Tiramisu is an Italian cake. The name “tiramisu” translates from Italian as “pull me up”, and is often translated into our English phrase “pick-me-up”.

Cannoli (singular “cannolo”) are Italian sweet pastries that originated in Sicily. Cannoli are made by filling tubes of fried pastry dough with a creamy filling that usually contains ricotta cheese. “Cannolo” is Italian for “little tube”.

121A Desert near the Sinai Peninsula : NEGEV

The Negev is a desert region in southern Israel. The largest city in the region is Beersheba. The Negev covers about 4,700 square miles, which is about 55% of Israel’s landmass.

The Sinai Peninsula is in the eastern part of Egypt, and is a triangular landform bounded by the Mediterranean to the north and the Red Sea to the south. It is the only part of Egypt that lies in Asia as opposed to Africa. The eastern land border of the peninsula is shared with Israel, and Israel occupied the Sinai during the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Six-Day War of 1967.

126A Elevator stop, in Paris : ETAGE

In France, the “rez-de-chaussée” is the ground level of a building. The floor above, the “premier étage” (first floor), is what we’d called the “second floor”. Very confusing …

130A Broadway awards : TONYS

The Tony Awards are more completely referred to as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Broadway Theatre. The awards are named for Mary Antoinette “Tony” Perry, who was a co-founder of the American Theatre Wing.

131A Bristlelike grippers on gecko feet : SETAE

The word “gecko” comes from an Indonesian/Javanese word “tokek”, which is imitative of the reptile’s chirping sound. In making such a sound, geckos are unique in the world of lizards. More interesting to me than a gecko’s chirping is its ability to cling to walls and other vertical surfaces. Their feet are specially adapted with “toes” that make extremely intimate, close contact to a surface. The toes have millions of hairs called setae that enable the clinging. It isn’t suction that supports them, but rather electrostatic interaction.

133A Soapmaking supplies : LYES

Soap is basically made by adding a strong alkali (like lye) to a fat (like olive oil or palm oil). The fats break down in the basic solution in a process called saponification. The crude soap is extracted from the mixture, washed, purified and finished in molds.

Down

2D Olympic sleds : LUGES

“Luge” is a French word meaning “sled”. It describes a small sled used by one or two people, on which one lies face up and feet first. The luge can be compared to the skeleton, a sled for only one person and on which the rider lies face down and goes down the hill head-first. Yikes!

3D God of Islam : ALLAH

The name “Allah” comes from the Arabic “al-” and “ilah”, meaning “the” and “deity”. So, “Allah” can be translated as “God”.

4D Agnus __ : DEI

“Agnus Dei” is Latin for “Lamb of God”. The expression is used in Christian traditions to describe Jesus Christ, hence symbolizing his role as a sacrificial offering (sacrificial lamb) to atone for the sins of man.

5D Choice when the Tide runs out? : GAIN

Gain is a detergent that was introduced in 1969 by Procter & Gamble. Gain was originally positioned in the market as the most powerful stain remover. That focus evolved into Gain being the detergent with the unique, fresh scent.

7D Pre-eruption lava : MAGMA

Magma is the molten material below the Earth’s surface. When magma cools, it forms igneous rock. “Magma” is a Greek term that describes a thick ointment.

8D Conspirator in “Julius Caesar” : CASSIUS

In discussing Roman history, when we refer to “Cassius”, we are usually talking about Gaius Cassius Longinus. He was a senator, and one of the leaders in the successful plot to kill Julius Caesar. After the assassination, Cassius was defeated in the Battle of Philippi by Marc Antony. The vanquished senator then killed himself, using the very same dagger that he used against Julius Caesar.

10D Carrier whose primary hub is Charles de Gaulle : AIR FRANCE

Air France is my favorite airline. Okay … after Aer Lingus, the Irish airline. I used to fly Air France a lot (I lived in France for a while), but haven’t done so since the company merged with KLM in 2004. Back in 2008, Air France-KLM was the world’s largest airline in terms of revenue.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is located just outside Paris in Roissy-en-France, and is known locally as Roissy Airport. It is the second busiest airport in Europe (after London Heathrow) in terms of passenger traffic. It is a popular airport for sure, and hosts more individual airlines than any other in the world.

12D Diggs of “All American” : TAYE

Taye Diggs is an actor most associated with the Broadway show “Rent”, in which he played the nasty landlord Benny. He then co-starred on the television show “Private Practice”. Diggs’ given name is “Scott”, and the nickname “Taye” comes from saying the given name as “Scottay”.

“All American” is a sports drama TV series that is rooted in the true story of NFL linebacker Spencer Paysinger. The main character in the show is Spencer James, played by Daniel Ezra. James is an all-star football player with a working class background who ends up at the privileged Beverley Hills High School. Real-life Paysinger even makes recurring cameo appearances as an assistant coach.

13D Surfaces that hold tracks and ties : ROADBEDS

The term “roadbed” can apply to a road, but more commonly applies to a railroad line. In the context of transportation by rail, roadbeds are the foundations of tracks, typically topped off with a thick layer of sharp-edged crushed stones. The jagged shapes allow the stones to interlock, providing a stable base that prevents the heavy wooden ties from shifting as weighty trains progress along the rails.

14D Borden mascot : ELSIE

Elsie the Cow is the mascot of the Borden Company. Elsie first appeared at the New York World’s Fair in 1939, introduced to symbolize the perfect dairy product. She is so famous and respected that she has been awarded the degrees of Doctor of Bovinity, Doctor of Human Kindness and Doctor of Ecownomics. Elsie was also given a husband named Elmer the Bull. Elmer eventually moved over to the chemical division of Borden where he gave his name to Elmer’s Glue.

16D Scottish waters : LOCHS

“Loch” is the Scottish-Gaelic word for “lake”. The Irish-Gaelic word is “lough”, and the Welsh word is “llyn”.

17D Hiccup : SNAG

Hiccups is a series of forced intakes of breath, the result of spasms in the muscles of the chest and throat. The most common cause of hiccups is some sort of irritation to the stomach or esophagus, usually taking place while eating. Apparently, we don’t really understand the reason why we hiccup, but a favored suggestion is that it may be something that we inherited from our ancestors of long ago who didn’t stand up quite as straight as we do. Gravity helps us swallow our food, but animals who walk on all fours don’t have that advantage as the food moves horizontally down the throat and into the stomach. Such beasts are in greater need of an involuntary hiccup should some food get stuck. Just a theory …

23D Greenhorn : NEWBIE

A greenhorn is a young-horned animal. “Greenhorn” is also a term that is now applied to any inexperienced person.

39D BlackBerrys, e.g.: Abbr. : PDAS

The PDA (personal digital assistant) known as a BlackBerry was given its name because the keyboard on the original device resembled the surface on the fruit of a blackberry.

40D Can opener : POP-TOP

The term “pop-top” refers to a whole family of designs for opening the top of a soda can. The oldest method is the “pull tab” or “ring pull”, invented in Canada in 1956. The design was long-lived, but it had its problems, so the world heaved a sigh of relief with the invention of the stay-on-tab in 1975. The new design led to fewer injuries and eliminated all those used pull tabs that littered the streets.

42D Great Basin people : UTES

The Great Basin is a large region of the US covering most of Nevada, much of Utah and some parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and California. The 200,000 square mile area drains internally, with all precipitation sinking underground or flowing into lakes. Most of the lakes in the Great Basin are saline, including the Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake and the Humboldt Sink.

44D __ shed : SHE

A “she shed” is the equivalent of a “man cave”. It is somewhere that “she” can use as her own space within a home.

45D Sports podcaster Katie : NOLAN

Katie Nolan is a sports media personality who moved up from podcasting to gigs with Fox Sports and ESPN. She also holds the unlikely Guinness World Record for stacking seven donuts in one minute while blindfolded!

47D The 587-piece Pokémon Eevee, e.g. : LEGO SET

The Pokémon species named “Eevee” is the “Evolution” Pokémon, hence the name. Apparently, it can evolve into several different “Eevolutions”, due to an unstable genetic code.

Lego produces some wonderful specialized sets with which you can build models of celebrated structures, including:

• The Statue of Liberty (2,882 pieces)
• The Sydney Opera House (2,989 pieces)
• The Eiffel Tower (3,428 pieces)
• Tower Bridge (4,295 pieces)
• The Taj Mahal (5,922 pieces)
• The World Map (11,695 pieces)

50D Cornwall lang. : ENG

Cornwall is a county in the very southwest of England. Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people, a Celtic nation who have a very distinct cultural identity. The Cornish language is in the same Celtic language family as Welsh and Breton.

57D Fifth-largest Hawaiian island : MOLOKAI

Molokai is the fifth largest of the Hawaiian Islands. Famously, Molokai was home to a leper colony that was managed by Father Damien, a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium. Father Damien cared for the victims of Hansen’s Disease (then known as “leprosy”) for sixteen years before succumbing to the illness himself in 1889. Father Damien was declared a saint in 2009.

72D The Miners of the NCAA : UTEP

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was founded in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. To this day, there is a mine shaft on the campus. The mascot of the school’s sports teams is Paydirt Pete, a prospector from the mining industry. The teams are also known as the UTEP Miners and Lady Miners.

74D Syndrome in “The Incredibles,” e.g. : ENEMY

In the 2004 animated superhero film “The Incredibles”, Buddy Pine is a character who descends from Mr. Incredible’s number one fan to become a bitter enemy. As an enemy, Pine adopts the moniker “Syndrome”.

78D Model Delevingne : CARA

Cara Delevingne is a model and actress from England. One might say that Delevingne was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She is descended from two Lord Mayors of London, her maternal grandmother was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, and her godmother is actress Joan Collins.

81D Mex. neighbor : USA

The Mexico-US border is the most frequently-crossed border in the world, although it is only the tenth longest border in the world between two countries.

82D Pt. of USNA : NAV

The United States Naval Academy (USNA) is located in Annapolis, Maryland. It was founded in 1845 and educates officers for both the US Navy and the US Marine Corps. The motto of the USNA is “Ex Scientia Tridens”, which translates as “From Knowledge, Sea Power”.

87D __ Paulo, Brazil : SAO

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

97D Home of the Large Hadron Collider : CERN

“CERN” is an acronym standing for “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” (European Council for Nuclear Research. CERN’s mission is to provide the largest particle physics lab in the world, and it does just that, having built several enormous particle accelerators. The CERN particle accelerator most in the news these days is the Large Hadron Collider located near Geneva.

The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest particle accelerator. It is located on the French-Swiss border near Geneva, in a circular tunnel that is a whopping 17 miles in circumference.

103D Intel org. : NSA

The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense (DoD) since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

106D Church instrument : ORGAN

The organ that we often see in churches, synagogues and concert halls is a pipe organ. Sound is produced by pressurized air driven through particular pipes selected by keys on a keyboard.

107D John Milton’s “Lycidas,” for one : ELEGY

John Milton penned his pastoral elegy “Lycidas” in 1637. He wrote it in memory of Edward King, a Cambridge classmate who drowned in a shipwreck earlier that year. The poem’s final line is “Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new”. This is an oft-quoted line today, but frequently misquoted as “Tomorrow to fresh fields, and pastures new”.

110D Lower leg bone : TIBIA

The tibia is the shinbone, and is the larger of the two bones right below the knee. It is the strongest weight-bearing bone in the human body. “Tibia” is the Roman name for a Greek flute and it is thought that the shinbone was given the same name because flutes were often fashioned out of the shinbones of animals.

115D Tech news site : CNET

CNET is a technology website, with the acronym “CNET” standing for “computer network”. It started out in 1994 as a television network specializing in technology news. The host of “American Idol”, Ryan Seacrest, started off his career as host of a CNET show.

123D Legal org. : ABA

American Bar Association (ABA)

125D Snake __ : OIL

There is actually a real snake oil, a Chinese medicine made of fat extracted from snakes. You can buy snake oil at traditional Chinese pharmacies and it is supposed to be very efficacious in the treatment of joint pain. Snake oil was introduced into the US by Chinese laborers working on the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Medicine salesmen started to ridicule the snake oil as it competed with their own remedies, and in time the term “snake oil” became associated with any cure-all potion.