Constructed by: C.C. Burnikel
Edited by: Rich Norris
Quicklink to a complete list of today’s clues and answers
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Theme: e-Commerce
If we place the letter E before the last word in each of today’s themed answers, we come up with the name of an e-Commerce business:
- 64A…Online business, and a hint to the ends of the answers to starred clues..E-COMMERCE
- 17A…*On the same page..IN HARMONY (giving “eHarmony”)
- 40A…*Auto buyer’s consideration..CAR LOAN (giving “E-Loan”)
- 11D…*Illegal activity that threatens elephants..IVORY TRADE (giving “E*Trade”)
- 30D…*Jamaican resort..MONTEGO BAY (giving “eBay”)
Bill’s time: 6m 10s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
9…Tony who was a teammate of Carew and Killebrew..OLIVA
Tony Oliva is a former Major League baseball player who played his whole career for the Minnesota Twins.
Rod Carew is a former Major League Baseball player from Panama. Actually. Carew is a “Zonian”, meaning that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, a political entity that existed for decades from 1903.
Harmon Killebrew spent most of his profession baseball career with the Minnesota Twins. Killebrew was a power hitter, and earned the nicknames “The Killer” and “Hammerin’ Harmon”.
15…Little bit..IOTA
Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
17…*On the same page..IN HARMONY (giving “eHarmony”)
eHarmony is a high-profile online dating service based in Pasadena, California.
21…Where honorees may sit..DAIS
Ultimately our word “dais”, meaning “raised platform for a speaker”, comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that many a dais was disc-shaped …
23…Miss Chile’s title: Abbr…SRTA
Señorita (Srta.) is Spanish and mademoiselle (Mlle.) is French for “Miss”.
35…”Hey, sailor!”..AHOY!
“Ahoy!” is a nautical term used to signal a vessel. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, he suggested that “ahoy” be used as a standard greeting when answering a call. However, Thomas Edison came up with “hello”, and we’ve been using that ever since.
39…Actor McKellen..IAN
Sir Ian McKellen is a marvelous English actor, someone who is comfortable playing anything from Macbeth on stage to Magneto in an “X-Men” movie. On the big screen, McKellen is very famous for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of Rings”. In the UK Sir Ian is noted for being at the forefront of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, a role he has enthusiastically embraced since the eighties.
40…*Auto buyer’s consideration..CAR LOAN (giving “E-Loan”)
E-Loan used to be based just down the road from me in the San Francisco Bay Area, but after takeover by a Rosemont, Illinois company it was moved to the parent’s headquarters. E-Loan was founded in 1997 to provide customers access to mortgages over the Internet.
42…Andy’s doll pal..ANN
Raggedy Ann is a rag doll, created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 for his daughter, Marcella. He decided to name the doll by combining the titles of two poems by James Whitcomb Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan Annie”. Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann in a series of books three years later. Sadly, Marcella died at 13 years of age with her father blaming a smallpox vaccination she was given at school. Gruelle became very active in the movement against mass vaccination, for which Raggedy Ann became a symbol.
45…Base lullaby..TAPS
“Taps” is played nightly by the US military, indicating “lights out”. It’s also known as “Butterfield’s Lullaby” as it is a variation of an older bugle call named the “Scott Tattoo”, arranged during the Civil War by the Union Army’s Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. The tune is called “taps”, from the notion of drum taps, as it was originally played on a drum, and only later on a bugle. The whole tune comprises just 24 notes, with there only being four different notes within the 24, i.e. “low G”, C, E and “high G”. Minimalism at its best …
54…Silo filler..CROP
“Silo” is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English, originally coming from the Greek word “siros” that described a pit in which one kept corn.
56…Landlocked African nation..CHAD
The landlocked African country called Chad takes its name from the second largest wetland on the continent, which is known as Lake Chad.
66…Muscat native..OMANI
Muscat is the capital of Oman, and lies on the northeast coast of the state on the Gulf of Oman, a branch of the Persian Gulf.
68…”Very true!”..AMEN!
The word “amen” is translated as “so be it”. “Amen” is said to be of Hebrew origin, but it is likely to be also influenced by Aramaic and Arabic.
70…Biblical garden..EDEN
According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve lived in a garden “in” Eden, with Eden being geographically located by reference to four rivers including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Some scholars hypothesize that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, which encompasses much of modern-day Iraq.
71…Little shavers..TADS
Back in the 1800s (and sometimes still today), “tad” was used to describe a young child, and this morphed into our usage of “small amount” in the early 1900s. The original use of “tad” for a child is very likely a shortened version of “tadpole”.
“Shaver” is a slang term for a “fellow”, from the sense of “one who shaves”. The term may have arisen in the late 1500s, and over the centuries has come to refer to a younger male. Today we mainly say “little shaver” when referring to a young child of either sex.
Down
4…Journalism award..PEABODY
The Peabody Awards have been presented annually since 1941 to individuals and organizations for excellence in broadcasting. They are named for businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, who provided the funds to establish the awards program.
7…Volcano in Italy..ETNA
Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-guage railway, and two ski resorts.
9…Mo. for scary costumes..OCT
All Saints’ Day is November 1st each year. The day before All Saints’ Day is All Hallows Eve, better known by the Scottish term, “Halloween”.
10…Bib-wearer’s entrée..LOBSTER
Lobsters are usually cooked by placing them in boiling water. Some chefs stab the lobster through its “brain” to kill it or render it unconscious. However, the lobster has several nerve ganglia rather than a brain, so just destroying the frontal ganglion in the head doesn’t render the animal insensate. Boiling lobsters while they are alive is actually illegal in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia.
11…*Illegal activity that threatens elephants..IVORY TRADE (giving “E*Trade”)
E*Trade is mainly an online discount brokerage. It was founded in 1982 in Palo Alto, California, and I used to drive by its headquarters almost every day. The company is now run out of New York City. E*Trade produces those famous Super Bowl ads with the talking babies staring into a webcam.
22…Texas NBA team, on scoreboards..SAS
The Spurs are the professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. The team was founded as the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967.
25…Civil rights icon Parks..ROSA
Rosa Parks was one of a few brave African American women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.
27…Prom attendee..TEEN
A prom is a formal dance held upon graduation from high school (we call them “formals” over in Ireland). The term “prom” is short for “promenade”, the name given to a type of dance or ball.
29…Company with orange-and-white trucks..U-HAUL
The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now about 15,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.
30…*Jamaican resort..MONTEGO BAY (giving “eBay”)
Montego Bay is the second largest city on the island of Jamaica, after the capital Kingston. Montego Bay is a popular tourist destination with many cruise ships stopping there.
eBay is an online auction site with a twist. If you don’t want to enter into an auction to purchase an item, there’s a “Buy It Now” price. Agree to pay it, and the item is yours!
33…Fit automaker..HONDA
The Honda Fit (called the Jazz in some markets) is a subcompact hatchback. We looked at the Fit when shopping for a new car recently, but opted for the larger Toyota Prius instead, a choice we have not regretted …
34…Auditing giant __ & Young..ERNST
Ernst & Young is one of the Big Four accountancy firms, alongside Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ernst & Young is headquartered in London.
37…Ali boxing technique..ROPE-A-DOPE
The Rumble in the Jungle was the celebrated 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman that took place in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The fight was set in Zaire because of financial arrangements between promoter Don King and Zaire’s President Mobutu Seko. Ali coined the term “Rope-a-dope” to describe his incredibly successful strategy in the contest. From the second round onwards, Ali adopted a protected stance on the ropes letting Foreman pound him with blows to the body and head, with Ali using his arms to dissipate the power of the punches. He kept this up until the eighth round and then opened up and downed the exhausted Foreman with a left-right combination. I hate boxing but I have to say, that was an fascinating fight.
55…”__ Lama Ding Dong”: doo-wop hit..RAMA
“Rama Lama Ding Dong” was a hit in 1961, although it had been released in 1957 under the erroneous title “Lama Rama Ding Dong” and didn’t quite make it. The song was recorded by the doo-wop group called the Edsels, named after the latest (and “doomed”) Ford automobile. Before becoming the Edsels, the group was called the Essos, after the oil company.
59…Humorist Bombeck..ERMA
Erma Bombeck wrote for newspapers for about 35 years, producing more than 4,000 witty and humorous columns describing her home life in suburbia.
60…Kept in the loop, briefly..CCED
I wonder do the kids of today know that “cc” stands for carbon copy, and do they have any idea what a carbon copy was? Do you remember how messy carbon paper was to handle?
61…Bills with Hamilton on them..TENS
The US ten-dollar bill features the image of Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury, on the obverse. As such, ten-dollar bills are sometimes called “Hamiltons”. By the way, the $10 bill is the only US currency in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left. The reverse of the ten-dollar bill features the US Treasury Building.
63…Tyler of “The Leftovers”..LIV
Actress and model Liv Tyler is the daughter of Steven Tyler, lead singer with Aerosmith, and Bebe Buell, a celebrated model and singer. Liv Tyler plays the Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
“The Leftovers” is a television drama that is based on a novel of the same by Tom Perrotta. I haven’t seen the show or read the book, but the premise sounds very interesting. It is set in a small New York town and takes place three years after a global “Rapture”, an event in which two percent of the world’s population disappeared inexplicably. The focus is on those folks “left over”, and not the people who disappeared.
Complete List of Clues and Answers
Across
1…Piece of cake..SNAP
5…Forever and a day..AGES
9…Tony who was a teammate of Carew and Killebrew..OLIVA
14…Some bra fabric..LACE
15…Little bit..IOTA
16…Put a lid on..COVER
17…*On the same page..IN HARMONY (giving “eHarmony”)
19…Steakhouse order..T-BONE
20…”You never know”..MAYBE
21…Where honorees may sit..DAIS
23…Miss Chile’s title: Abbr…SRTA
24…Rowing pair..OARS
26…Ragged..TATTY
28…Gingerbread house roof toppers..GUMDROPS
32…Get really mad..SEETHE
35…”Hey, sailor!”..AHOY!
36…Glide above the clouds..SOAR
38…False step..ERROR
39…Actor McKellen..IAN
40…*Auto buyer’s consideration..CAR LOAN (giving “E-Loan”)
42…Andy’s doll pal..ANN
43…Eccentric..NUTSO
45…Base lullaby..TAPS
46…Likelihood..ODDS
47…Nods off..SLEEPS
49…Multiwinner race outcome..DEAD HEAT
51…Say hello to..GREET
53…Take down __: humble..A PEG
54…Silo filler..CROP
56…Landlocked African nation..CHAD
58…Like a soldier at attention..ERECT
62…Pigeonhole..LABEL
64…Online business, and a hint to the ends of the answers to starred clues..E-COMMERCE
66…Muscat native..OMANI
67…Ready for picking..RIPE
68…”Very true!”..AMEN!
69…Fee-based entertainment service..PAY-TV
70…Biblical garden..EDEN
71…Little shavers..TADS
Down
1…Like the chance of winning a lottery..SLIM
2…Grandpa’s love..NANA
3…In need of a massage..ACHY
4…Journalism award..PEABODY
5…Prepare to fire..AIM
6…Sore loser’s opposite..GOOD SPORT
7…Volcano in Italy..ETNA
8…”__ with flowers”..SAY IT
9…Mo. for scary costumes..OCT
10…Bib-wearer’s entrée..LOBSTER
11…*Illegal activity that threatens elephants..IVORY TRADE (giving “E*Trade”)
12…Blow off some steam..VENT
13…General vicinity..AREA
18…Tail end..REAR
22…Texas NBA team, on scoreboards..SAS
25…Civil rights icon Parks..ROSA
27…Prom attendee..TEEN
28…Profits..GAINS
29…Company with orange-and-white trucks..U-HAUL
30…*Jamaican resort..MONTEGO BAY (giving “eBay”)
31…Soup go-with, at lunch..SALAD
33…Fit automaker..HONDA
34…Auditing giant __ & Young..ERNST
37…Ali boxing technique..ROPE-A-DOPE
40…Deal with things..COPE
41…”Right this minute!”..ASAP
44…70-Across tempter..SERPENT
46…”Just my luck!”..OH GREAT!
48…”Just a __!”..SEC
50…Regard..DEEM
52…At that place..THERE
54…Hoofbeat sound..CLOP
55…”__ Lama Ding Dong”: doo-wop hit..RAMA
57…Battery fluid..ACID
59…Humorist Bombeck..ERMA
60…Kept in the loop, briefly..CCED
61…Bills with Hamilton on them..TENS
63…Tyler of “The Leftovers”..LIV
65…Fellows..MEN