Tag: Cultured sort crossword clue

Advertisement

Constructed by: Desirée Penner & Jeff Sinnock

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): On a First-Name Basis

Themed answers are common, two-word terms reinterpreted as replies to celebrities cited in the corresponding clues:

• 18A Reply when Mr. Nicholson asks, “How do you like your coffee?” : BLACK, JACK
• 24A Reply when Mr. Garfunkel asks how everyone is doing? : FINE, ART
• 39A Reply when Mr. Nye asks why there are so many wind turbines? : ELECTRICITY, BILL
• 51A Reply when Ms. Deeley mentions her new TV gig? : COOL, CAT
• 60A Reply when Mr. Hamill says, “May the Force be with you”? : DITTO, MARK

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

Bill’s time: 8m 00s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Biblical queen’s land : SHEBA

Sheba is referenced in the Bible several times. The Queen of Sheba is mentioned as someone who traveled to Jerusalem to behold the fame of King Solomon. No one knows for sure where the kingdom of Sheba was located, although there is evidence that it was actually the ancient Semitic civilization of Saba. The Sabeans lived in what today is Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula.

10A Mojito garnish : MINT

A mojito is a Cuban cocktail, although the exact origins appear to be unclear, as does the derivation of the name. Want one? Put 4 mint leaves in a glass, and add the juice of half a lime and a teaspoon of powdered sugar. Muddle the ingredients, smashing them together with a muddler or a spoon. Add some crushed ice, two ounces of white rum and stir. Top with a couple of ounces of club soda, and garnish with a sprig of mint and/or a slice of lime. Cheers!

14A Cultured sort? : PEARL

Nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, is the strong iridescent material laid down by some mollusks on the inside of their shells, and it’s also what makes up pearls. The creature lays down nacre as a defensive mechanism, protecting the soft tissue of its body from the rough surface of the outer shell. Similarly, it uses nacre to encapsulate harmful debris or a parasite that penetrates the shell, and that’s how a pearl is formed. Cultured pearls are made by inserting a tissue graft from a donor oyster, around which the nacre is laid down.

16A Chimps and gorillas : APES

The common chimpanzee is a species of great ape, i.e. a member of the Hominidae family (along with gorillas, humans and orangutans). The human and chimpanzee branches of the Hominidae family tree diverged 4-6 million years ago, making the chimp our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. There is a common misconception that chimps are monkeys, but they aren’t …

The gorilla is the largest primate still in existence, and is one of the nearest living species to humans. Molecular biology studies have shown that our nearest relatives are in fact the species in the genus Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo), which split from the human branch of the family 4-6 million years ago. Gorillas and humans diverged at a point about 7 million years ago. The term “gorilla” derives from the Greek “gorillai” meaning “tribe of hairy women”. Wow …!

18A Reply when Mr. Nicholson asks, “How do you like your coffee?” : BLACK, JACK

Jack Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award more times than any other male actor. He also became the youngest recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, when he was so honored in 1994. Nicholson had a quite unusual upbringing. When in his late thirties, he discovered that the person he knew as his older sister, June, was in fact his mother. And the woman who raised him as his mother, she was his grandmother.

21A Bam Adebayo’s team : HEAT

Edrice Femi “Bam” Adebayo earned his nickname long before he became an NBA player. His mother gave him the nickname “Bam Bam” when he was just one year old after watching him flip over a heavy coffee table in their home. He reminded her of the super-strong toddler Bamm-Bamm Rubble in “The Flintstones”.

23A Merchant stalls : KIOSKS

Our word “kiosk” came to us via French and Turkish from the Persian “kushk” meaning “palace, portico”.

24A Reply when Mr. Garfunkel asks how everyone is doing? : FINE, ART

Singer and actor Art Garfunkel is best-known for the years he spent performing with Paul Simon, although Garfunkel had a successful solo career after the duo split up. As well as singing and acting, he is fond of taking long, long walks while composing poetry. Garfunkel walked across Japan in the early 1980s, and across America in increments from 1983 to 1997. He then walked across Europe, also in increments, from 1998 to 2011.

27A Beer with a Grillo’s Pickles flavor, briefly : PBR

There’s a dive bar tradition in the Midwest of combining a relatively cheap lager with tomato juice or soup and then dropping in a pickle spear, creating a “South Dakota Martini”. Perhaps drawing on that tradition, Pabst released a limited edition Pabst Blue Ribbon Grillo’s Pickles beer in 2026.

33A Bicycle spokes, essentially : RADII

“Radius” (plural “radii”) is a Latin word, as one might expect, a word meaning “spoke of a wheel”. Makes sense, huh?

39A Reply when Mr. Nye asks why there are so many wind turbines? : ELECTRICITY, BILL

That would be “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. In addition to his career as a science educator, Nye is also a comedian. He performed stand-up comedy during his early years as an engineer.

42A Yahoo! alternative : AOL

Jerry Yang and David Filo called their company “Yahoo!” for two reasons. Firstly, a Yahoo is a rude unsophisticated brute from Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”. Secondly, Yahoo stands for “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”.

43A Midsize car : SEDAN

The American sedan car is the equivalent of the British and Irish saloon car. By definition, a sedan car has two rows of seating and a separate trunk (boot in Britain and Ireland), although in some models the engine can be at the rear of the car.

44A Great Grandma? : MOSES

“Grandma” Moses was the nickname of American folk artist Anna Moses. Anna’s moniker is perhaps particularly apt as she really only took up art as a career when she was 78 years old.

45A Lat neighbor : DELT

The deltoid “muscle” is actually a group of muscles, the ones that cover the shoulder and create the roundness under the skin. The deltoids (delts) are triangular in shape resembling the Greek letter delta, hence the name.

47A “Mean Girls” screenwriter Tina : FEY

“Mean Girls” is a teen comedy movie released in 2004 starring Lindsay Lohan. Tina Fey also puts in an appearance, which really isn’t surprising as Fey wrote the screenplay.

48A Center prefix : EPI-

The epicenter is the point on the surface of the Earth that is directly above the focus of an earthquake.

51A Reply when Ms. Deeley mentions her new TV gig? : COOL, CAT

Cat Deeley is a TV presenter from England who is best known in the US as host of the televised dance competition “So You Think You Can Dance”. Deeley married Irish comedian and TV presenter Patrick Kielty in 2012.

59A Director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

60A Reply when Mr. Hamill says, “May the Force be with you”? : DITTO, MARK

Actor Mark Hamill is best known (by far) for playing Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars” movies. That said, fans of “Batman: The Animated Series” will know him as the voice actor behind the Joker.

The Force is a metaphysical power much cited in all of the “Star Wars” movies. We may even hear someone in real life say “May the Force be with you”. Fans of the movie franchise even celebrate May 4th every year as Star Wars Day, using the pun “May the 4th be with you”!

65A Lake at the Detroit River’s end : ERIE

The Detroit River runs just under 30 miles from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, and so technically might be referred to as a strait. In fact, the waterway’s original name in French was “Rivière du Détroit”, which translates as “River of the Strait”.

66A Track star Bolt : USAIN

Usain Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter who won the 100m and 200m race gold medals in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. Back in Jamaica, Bolt was really into cricket, and probably would have been a very successful fast bowler had he not hit the track instead.

68A Informal claim : DIBS

The phrase “to have dibs on” expresses a claim on something. Apparently, the term “dibs” is a contraction of “dibstone”, which was a knucklebone or jack used in a children’s game.

69A Moore of “This Is Us” : MANDY

Mandy Moore is a singer turned actress from Nashua, New Hampshire. She co-stars in the TV comedy-drama “This Is Us”, playing Rebecca Pearson.

Down

1D “Weird Al” specialty : SPOOF

“Weird Al” Yankovic is a singer-songwriter who is noted for writing and performing parodies of popular songs. Of the 150 or so such songs, the best known are probably “Eat It” (parodying “Beat It” by Michael Jackson) and “Like a Surgeon” (parodying “Like a Virgin” by Madonna).

2D Postimpressionist painter Rousseau : HENRI

Henri Rousseau was a French postimpressionist painter. He was self-taught, only starting to paint seriously in his forties. He worked as a tax collector until he was 49 years old, when he retired to focus on his art. Rousseau’s most famous painting is “The Sleeping Gypsy”, a celebrated work that depicts a lion standing beside a sleeping woman in the moonlight. You can take a look at it in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

4D Wacoal garment : BRA

Wacoal is a Japanese company, founded in 1946, that manufactures lingerie and underwear for women. Founder Koichi Tsukamoto was the first President of Nippon Kaigi, a far-right lobbying group.

5D Cereal that once featured a crossword puzzle in magazine ads : ALPHA-BITS

Alpha-Bits is a Post breakfast cereal that was introduced in 1958, and taken off the shelves in 2006. The cereal was relaunched with “0% Sugar!” tagline, but I guess that didn’t sell too well. The original Alpha-Bits formulation was reintroduced in 2008. Sugar, sugar, sugar …

7D Curing agent : SALT

Salt is used to “cure” meats, which is a preservation process. The salt kills and inhibits the growth of microorganisms by sucking the water out of the microbe’s cells in the process of osmosis. Smoking is also cited as a curing process, although smoking alone is insufficient for preserving food as the antimicrobial smoke compounds only adhere to the outside of the meat or fish. Smoking is usually combined with salt-curing or drying.

12D Make out : NECK

The term “necking” applies to kissing and caressing. I like what Groucho Marx had to say on the subject:

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

19D Korean automaker : KIA

Kia Motors is the second-largest manufacturer of cars in South Korea, behind Hyundai (and Hyundai is a part owner in Kia now). Kia was founded in 1944 as a manufacturer of bicycle parts, and did indeed produce Korea’s first domestic bicycle. The company’s original name was Kyungsung Precision Industry, with the Kia name introduced in 1952.

26D “Bon appetit!” : DIG IN!

The phrase “Enjoy your meal” translates into French as “Bon appétit”, and into German as “Guten Appetit”.

31D River near the Great Pyramid : NILE

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and yet it is the only one of the Wonders that is basically intact today. Egyptologists believe that the structure took ten to twenty years to complete, and that it dates back to around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly 3,900 years, until it was surpassed by Lincoln Cathedral in England in 1311 AD.

35D “Hi-ho, the derry-o” locale : DELL

“The Farmer in the Dell” is a nursery rhyme and singing game that probably originated in Germany. The first verse is:

The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The farmer in the dell

The last verse is:

The cheese stands alone
The cheese stands alone
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The cheese stands alone

36D Heads and tails : SIDES

The two sides of a coin are known as the “obverse” and the “reverse”. The obverse is commonly referred to as “heads”, as it often depicts someone’s head. The reverse is commonly called “tails”, as it is the opposite of “heads”.

37D Academic gathering : SYMPOSIUM

In ancient Greece, a “drinking party” was called a “symposium” (just like today!). Often the drink was a mixture of water and wine that was placed in a large vase, called a krater, in the center of the room. Participants in the symposium would dip a smaller vessel into the krater to refill their drinking cups. And yes, “krater” is the root for our word “crater”.

50D “Yabba-dabba-__!” : DOO

“Yabba dabba doo!” is one of Fred Flintstone’s catchphrases.

51D Classic colas : COKES

The first cola drink to become a commercial success was Coca-Cola, soon after it was invented by a druggist in 1886. The first sales were in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, where a glass of the new beverage sold for five cents. That original Coca-Cola was flavored mainly with kola nuts and vanilla. The formulation was based on an alcoholic drink called Coca Wine that had been on sale for over twenty years.

52D Board game with settlers : CATAN

The Settlers of Catan (now just “Catan”) is a board game that was introduced in 1995, in Germany as “Die Siedler von Catan”. The game is very popular in the US and was called “the board game of our time” by the “Washington Post”. My son plays it a lot, and as a lover of board games, I am going to have to check it out …

54D Like some port : TAWNY

We tend to see two main styles of port (although there are several available): ruby and tawny. Ruby port is stored in concrete or stainless steel tanks that prevent oxidative aging, leaving the wine a bright red color. Tawny port is aged in wooden barrels, which allow gradual oxidation, leaving the wine a golden-brown color.

56D Body wash brand : DIAL

Dial was the first antibacterial soap introduced in the US. It was given the name “Dial” as it was touted as offering “round-the-clock” protection against any odors caused by perspiration.

61D Cal. neighbor : ARI

Most of the Arizona-California state line is defined by the winding path of the Colorado River, a boundary established when Arizona became a US territory in 1863. The river has shifted its course over the decades, but the official border remains in the middle of the main channel as it existed during the original surveys.

63D Codebreaker Challenge org. : NSA

The National Security Agency (NSA) runs an annual Codebreaker Challenge that is aimed mainly at the student population. As best I can tell, the focus of the challenge is reverse software engineering. Checking out the Codebreaker Challenge website suggests that the NSA runs this program in order to identify and attract potential new employees.