Tag: First name in scat crossword clue

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Constructed by: Michael Torch & Kevin Christian
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Um, Yeah

Themed answers sound like common phrases, but with an “UM” sound inserted:

• 26A Switching out tedious people?: ROTATING THE TIRESOME (from “rotating the tires”)
• 37A Classroom ennui?: SCHOOL BOREDOM (from “school board”)
• 45A Extremely powerful networking device?: BEAST MODEM (from “beast mode”)
• 68A Strange guy at a class reunion?: WEIRD ALUM (from “Weird Al”)
• 90A “Life is short, don’t drink Coke,” e.g.?: PEPSI MAXIM (from “Pepsi Max”)
• 98A Visual aids for treating snake bites?: VENOM DIAGRAMS (from “Venn diagrams”)
• 112A Responses to questions at an anglers’ conference?: FISHING FORUM ANSWERS (from “fishing for answers”)

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

Bill’s time: 17m 52s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9 Last name of football brothers J.J. and T.J.: WATT

The Watt brothers, J.J., T.J., and Derek, are quite the footballing trio. Hailing from Pewaukee, Wisconsin, the brothers each carved out successful professional football careers in the NFL. Beyond the gridiron, they came together to host the short-lived television game show “Ultimate Tag”.

18 Start to fall?: PRAT-

“Prat” is a slang term for the buttocks. A “prat-fall” is when someone falls and lands on the buttocks. The term “prat” is also British slang for “contemptible person”.

22 “Voyage to India” Grammy winner: ARIE

“Voyage to India” is a 2002 studio album released by singer India Arie. The album’s title is the name of an instrumental written and released by Stevie Wonder, a performer much admired by Arie.

23 Actress Rowlands: GENA

Gena Rowlands was an actress best known for the films made with her husband, actor and director John Cassavetes. Notably, Rowlands played a lead role opposite James Garner in the weepy, weepy 2004 film “The Notebook”. “The Notebook” was directed by her son Nick Cassavetes. Rowlands was nominated for Oscars for her performances in two films: “Gloria” (1980) and “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974).

25 Braces (oneself): GIRDS

The phrase “gird your loins” dates back to ancient Rome. The expression describes the action of lifting “one’s skirts” and tying them between the legs to allow more freedom of movement before going into battle. Nowadays, “gird your loins” (or sometimes just “gird yourself”) is a metaphor for “prepare yourself for the worst”.

26 Switching out tedious people?: ROTATING THE TIRESOME (from “rotating the tires”)

The accepted routine for rotating tires is to swap the back tires with the front tires. When moving the front tires to the back, it is usual to cross them from left to right, and right to left.

30 1948 presidential election winner: TRUMAN

Harry S. Truman became vice president under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January of 1945. He was in office for only 82 days when he was informed at the White House by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt that her husband had died in Warm Springs, Georgia. Truman was sworn in as US president, and served out the remainder of Roosevelt’s term without naming a replacement vice president. When Truman ran for president in his own right in 1948, he shared the ticket with Alben W. Barkley. Truman and Barkely won that election, and were in office until 1953.

31 “Money __”: Spanish Netflix crime series: HEIST

“Money Heist” (“La casa de papel” in Spanish) is a very successful crime drama series from Spain that transferred to Netflix, after which the show’s run was extended. The show was so successful that Netflix made a documentary called “Money Herist: The Phenomenon”.

32 TripTik output: AAA MAP

“TripTik” is the brand name for customized travel maps provided by AAA for its members.

34 Egyptian viper: ASP

We use the term “asp” today to refer to several venomous species of snakes found in the Nile region. Even though “asp” comes from the Greek “aspis” meaning “viper”, the asp that we know as the symbol of ancient Egyptian royalty was not a viper at all. Rather, it was the Egyptian cobra.

37 Classroom ennui?: SCHOOL BOREDOM (from “school board”)

“Ennui” is the French word for “boredom”, and is a term that we now use in English. It’s one of the few French words we’ve imported and haven’t anglicized, and actually pronounce “correctly”.

43 Verdi opera: AIDA

“Aida” is a celebrated opera by Giuseppe Verdi that is based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. Mariette also designed the costumes and stages for the opening performance. The opera was first staged in 1871 in an opera house in Cairo. In the storyline, Aida is an Ethiopian princess brought into Egypt as a slave. Radamès is an Egyptian commander who falls in love with her, and then complications arise!

45 Extremely powerful networking device?: BEAST MODEM (from “beast mode”)

A modem is a device that is used to facilitate the transmission of a digital signal over an analog line. At one end of the line, a modem is used to “modulate” an analog carrier signal to encode digital information. At the other end of the line, a modem is used to “demodulate” the analog carrier signal and so reproduce the original digital information. This modulation-demodulation gives the device its name: a MOdulator-DEModulator, or “modem”.

“To go beast mode” means “to unleash your inner beast”. It’s about tapping into a primal, aggressive energy to achieve a goal, usually in a competitive or challenging situation. The phrase is often used in sports and fitness, but it can apply to any situation where someone is giving it their all and dominating.

51 Home of Arizona State: TEMPE

Tempe is a city in the metropolitan area of Phoenix. It is named for the Vale of Tempe in Greece.

54 Company with brown trucks: UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS) is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia and has its own airline that operates out of Louisville, Kentucky. UPS often goes by the nickname “Brown”, because of its brown delivery trucks and brown uniforms.

55 PetSmart brand: ALPO

PetSmart is a chain of retail facilities offering supplies and services for pets. The chain opened in 1987 as the PetFood Warehouse. Services offered include grooming, dog training, boarding and daycare.

56 Strikingly strange: EXOTIC

The word “exotic” means “belonging to another country”, and is derived from the Greek “exo-” meaning “outside”. Exotica are things that are excitingly strange, often from foreign parts.

67 Obama daughter: SASHA

Sasha is the younger of the two Obama children, having been born in 2001. She was the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy, Jr. moved in with his parents as a small infant. Sasha’s Secret Service codename is “Rosebud”, and her older sister Malia has the codename “Radiance”.

68 Strange guy at a class reunion?: WEIRD ALUM (from “Weird Al”)

“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).

77 Home of the Sherpa people: NEPAL

In the Tibetan language, “Sherpa” means “eastern people” (sher = east, pa = people). Sherpas are an ethnic group from Nepal, but the name is also used for the local guides who assist mountaineers in the Himalayas, and particularly on Mount Everest.

78 Steeplechase barrier: OBSTACLE

Back in the 1700s there was a race called a “steeplehunt”, a horse race from a fixed location to some church in the distance which had a steeple visible. This evolved into the race that we know today as a “steeplechase”.

82 “Drag Race” host: RUPAUL

RuPaul is a famous drag queen who has developed a diverse career beyond performing on stage. He works as an actor, model, author and a recording artist. Famously, RuPaul doesn’t mind whether one addresses him as “he” or as “she” …

You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathie Lee; I don’t care! Just as long as you call me.

He currently hosts his own reality TV show called “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which is billed as a search for “America’s next drag superstar”.

85 Lugosi of “Dracula” fame: BELA

Bela Lugosi was a Hungarian stage and screen actor who was perhaps best known for playing the title role in the 1931 film “Dracula” and for playing the same role on Broadway. Lugosi found himself typecast for the rest of his career and almost always played the role of the villain, often in horror movies. When he passed away in 1956, his wife had him buried in the costume he wore playing Count Dracula on Broadway.

92 R&B singer Braxton: TRACI

Singer Traci Braxton began her career with the quintet of sisters known as the Braxtons. Traci is perhaps best known these days for her appearance on the reality show “Braxton Family Values”.

97 Till stack: TENS

What we usually call a cash register here in North America, we mostly call a “till” in Ireland and the UK. I haven’t heard the word “till” used much here in that sense …

98 Visual aids for treating snake bites?: VENOM DIAGRAMS (from “Venn diagrams”)

Englishman John Venn was an expert in the field of logic, and introduced the Venn diagram in his book “Symbolic Logic” in 1881. Venn diagrams are used in set theory, to illustrate the logical relationships between sets of variables.

103 Rust shade: RED

Rust is iron oxide. It forms when iron oxidizes, reacts with oxygen.

107 “Rocky” role: ADRIAN

You might remember Rocky Balboa saying, “Yo, Adrian!” in the original “Rocky” movie. Adrian was Rocky’s wife, played by Talia Shire, sister of director Francis Ford Coppola.

110 Amp handler: ROADIE

A “roadie” is someone who loads, unloads and sets up equipment for musicians on tour, on the “road”.

116 Target Field team: TWINS

Target Field is a baseball park in Minneapolis, Minnesota that has been home to the Minnesota Twins since the stadium opening in 2010. Target Corporation, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, paid an undisclosed sum to get the naming rights of the park.

118 Durable jacket material: DENIM

Denim fabric originated in Nîmes in France. The French phrase “de Nîmes” (meaning “from Nîmes”) gives us the word “denim”. Also, the French phrase “bleu de Genes” (meaning “blue of Genoa”) gives us our word “jeans”.

119 Prefix with bot: NANO-

Nanorobots (also “nanobots”) are tiny devices that range from 0.1 to 10 micrometers in size. The technology of nanorobotics is in its infancy, but it is hoped that nanobots might be used (for example) in medicine one day. The oft-cited application is the use of nanobots inserted inside the body to identify and destroy cancer cells.

122 Linney of “Ozark”: LAURA

Actress Laura Linney is a native New Yorker from Manhattan. The performances of hers that I most admire are in “The Truman Show” and “Love Actually” on the big screen, and in “John Adams” and “Ozark” on the small screen.

“Ozark” is an excellent TV crime show starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as a married couple who relocate from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks. The couple fall foul of a Mexican drug lord after a money laundering scheme goes awry. The show is set at a lake resort in the Ozarks, although filming actually takes place at lakes in the Atlanta area in order to take advantage of tax breaks offered by the State of Georgia.

124 Academic acronym: STEM

The acronym “STEM” stands for the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. An alternative acronym with a similar meaning is MINT, standing for mathematics, information sciences, natural sciences and technology. The acronym STEAM adds (liberal) arts to the STEM curriculum.

127 Tart fruit used to make gin: SLOE

The sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn bush, and the main flavoring ingredient in sloe gin. A sloe looks like a small plum, but is usually much more tart in taste.

Down

1 Peloponnesian city-state that warred with Athens: SPARTA

The Peloponnese is a peninsula in southern Greece that was once home to the ancient city-state Sparta. Technically, the Peloponnese has been an island since 1893 when the Corinth Canal was completed, separating the peninsula from the mainland.

A city-state, as opposed to a nation-state, is a state comprising the city itself as well the surrounding territory. Famous city-states of the past include Rome, Athens, Sparta and Carthage. In the modern world, we might classify Monaco, Singapore and Vatican City as city-states.

3 Call from a slowpoke: WAIT UP!

Back in the early 1800s, a “poke” was a device attached to domestic animals such as pigs or sheep to keep them from escaping their enclosures. The poke was like a yoke with a pole, and slowed the animal down, hence the term “slowpoke”.

4 Cook bao, say: STEAM

A baozi (also “bou, bao”) is a steamed, filled bun in Chinese cuisine.

7 Golfer Vijay: SINGH

Vijay Singh is a professional golfer from Fiji who led the list of PGA money winners in 2003, 2004 and 2008.

10 Piedmont wine center: ASTI

Piedmont in the northwest of Italy is one of the nation’s twenty administrative regions. It is a mountainous region that is surrounded on three sides by the Alps. The Italian name for the region, “Piemonte”, translates as “foot of a mountain”. Piedmont’s capital city is Turin.

11 Ruler until 1917: TSAR

Imperial Russia was a period of Russian history that lasted from 1721 to 1917, when Russia was ruled by a series of Emperors known as tsars. The Russian Empire was officially claimed by Emperor Peter I, known as Peter the Great, after the defeat of the Swedish Empire and the end of the Great Northern War. The tsars lost their power when the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918 during the Russian Civil War. When the war ended in 1923, the Bolsheviks established the Soviet Union, which covered most of the territory occupied by the Russian Empire.

12 Rare blood designation: TYPE AB

Here is an approximate distribution of blood types across the US population:

• O-positive: 38 percent
• O-negative: 7 percent
• A-positive: 34 percent
• A-negative: 6 percent
• B-positive: 9 percent
• B-negative: 2 percent
• AB-positive: 3 percent
• AB-negative: 1 percent

17 Fishy, in slang: SUS

The slang term “sus” is a shortened form of “suspicious” or “suspect”.

20 Title role for Brandy Norwood: MOESHA

“Moesha” is a sitcom that originally aired in the late nineties starring singer Brandy Norwood in the title role, a high school student in LA. “Moesha” may be a sitcom, but it had a reputation for dealing with very real social issues such as teen pregnancy, race relations, and infidelity.

28 Hawaiian Punch rival: HI-C

Hi-C orange drink was created in 1946 and introduced to the market in 1948, initially in the south of the country. The name “Hi-C” was chosen to emphasize the high vitamin C content in the drink, as it contained added ascorbic acid (vitamin C).

29 __ Tomé and Príncipe: SAO

The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe is an island nation off the west coast of Africa comprising mainly two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe. São Tomé and Príncipe is located in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Gabon. It was colonized by Portugal after POrtuguese explorers discovered the islands in the 15th century. After gaining independence in 1975, São Tomé and Príncipe became the smallest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.

33 State flower of California: POPPY

The California poppy is also known as the golden poppy, and is native to the US and Mexico. It was named the state flower of California in 1903.

36 Kentucky fort: KNOX

Fort Knox is actually a US Army base that lends its name to the adjacent facility that is more correctly called the United States Bullion Depository. Most of the US gold reserves are in “Fort Knox”, although it isn’t the biggest gold repository in the US. That honor goes to the vault under the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan. Most of the gold stored in the New York vault belongs to foreign nations and banks.

45 Adam Clayton’s instrument: BASS

Adam Clayton is best known as the bassist for the Irish rock band U2. Born in England, he moved to Ireland as a child and later became a founding member of U2 in Dublin.

46 First name in scat: ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, made her real stage debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Amatuer Night when she was just 17 years old. She had intended to perform a dance routine, but decided to sing instead after seeing a superior dance act. She won the Amatuer Night competition.

47 “Planet of the __”: APES

The “Planet of the Apes” franchise of films is based on a French novel by Pierre Boulle called “La Planète des singes”. The book was published in English as “Monkey Planet”, but was re-released as “Planet of the Apes” when Hollywood had made its choice for a movie title.

50 Bishop’s hat: MITRE

A miter (also “mitre”) is a traditional headdress worn by bishops in some Christian traditions. The term “miter” comes from a Greek word for “headband, turban”.

52 __ reader: PALM

The practice of telling fortunes by studying palms is known as palmistry, palm reading, chiromancy or chirology. The term “chiromancy” comes from the Greek “kheir” (hand) and “mateia” (divination).

57 __ chest: CEDAR

Cedar is used for the manufacture of some wardrobes and chests as it has long been believed that the fragrant oil in the wood is a moth-repellent. However, whether or not cedar oil is actually effective at keeping moths away seems to be in doubt.

59 “Freak on a Leash” band: KORN

Korn is an alternative-metal band from Bakersfield, California. The band’s name is derived from a fan suggestion of “Corn”. The suggested name was considered too bland and so was prettied up to Korn, with the letter “r” capitalized and written backwards.

60 Blob on a microscope slide: AMOEBA

An ameba (also “amoeba”) is a single-celled microorganism. The name comes from the Greek “amoibe”, meaning change. The name is quite apt, as the cell changes shape readily as the ameba moves, eats and reproduces.

Microscope slides are thin pieces of glass on which are mounted samples for examination. Often a “cover slip”, a smaller and thinner sheet of glass, is placed on top of the sample. Originally called “sliders”, such specimens would “slide” into the gap between the stage and the objective lens on a microscope.

62 “Born to Fly” singer Evans: SARA

Sara Evans is a country singer/songwriter from Boonville, MIssouri. Evans was a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2006, but left the show after about a month. Evans had filed for divorce from her husband on the same day she left the show. It turned out to be a very messy divorce. Sad …

68 Corduroy ridge: WALE

Wales are parallel ribs in a fabric, such as the ribs in corduroy.

There’s a myth that the name of the textile known as “corduroy” comes from the French “corde du roi” (the cord of the king). It’s more likely that “corduroy” comes from a melding of “cord” and “duroy” (a coarse fabric that used to be made in England).

72 Senegal neighbor: MALI

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in western Africa located south of Algeria. Formerly known as French Sudan, the nation’s most famous city is Timbuktu. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold on the continent, after South Africa and Ghana.

73 Poetry event: SLAM

A poetry slam is a competition in which poets read their own work (usually), with winners being chosen by members of the audience. Apparently the first poetry slam took place in Chicago in 1984. Now there is a National Poetry Slam that takes place each year, with representatives from the US, Canada and France.

79 Liberal arts college in Kentucky: BEREA

Berea College is located in Berea, Kentucky, just south of Lexington. It is a remarkable university that is focused on providing a low-cost education to students from low-income families. There are no tuition fees and instead students must work at least ten hours a week on campus and in service jobs. Berea was also the first college in the Southern US to become coeducational and the first to become racially integrated.

84 Factoid in a CD booklet: LINER NOTE

These days, the term “liner notes” is used for the informational booklet which comes with a music CD. The original liner notes (also “sleeve notes”) were the informational text printed on the inner sleeve (“liner”) of a 12-inch vinyl record.

88 1990s fad disc: POG

The game of pogs was originally played with bottle caps from POG fruit juice. The juice was named for its constituents, passion fruit, orange and guava.

91 Windows precursor: MS-DOS

MS-DOS (short for “Microsoft Disk Operating System”) was the main operating system used by IBM-compatible PCs in the eighties and for much of the nineties. Microsoft introduced the Windows operating environment in 1985 to sit above MS-DOS as a graphical user interface (GUI). That move was made in response to the success of Apple’s GUI released with the Lisa and Macintosh platforms. A court case ensued, one that was eventually settled in court in favor of Microsoft.

93 “Put Your Records On” singer Bailey Rae: CORINNE

Corinne Bailey Rae is a British singer from Yorkshire in northern England.

96 Cocktail of tequila and grapefruit soda: PALOMA

The paloma is a cocktail made from tequila, lime juice and grapefruit soda. The name “paloma” translates from Spanish as “dove”.

99 Morse code unit: DAH

Samuel Morse came up with the forerunner to modern Morse code for use on the electric telegraph, of which he was the co-inventor. Morse code uses a series of dots and dashes to represent letters and numbers. The most common letters are assigned the simplest code elements e.g. E is represented by one dot, and T is represented by one dash. When words are spelled aloud in Morse code, a dot is pronounced as “dit”, and a dash is pronounced as “dah”.

104 “___ Fideles”: ADESTE

The lovely Christmas hymn “Adeste Fideles” (entitled “O Come, All Ye Faithful” in English) was written by one John Francis Wade in the 13th century. Well, he wrote the original four verses, with four more verses being added over time. A kind blog reader pointed out to me that the English translation is in fact a little “off”. The term “adeste” best translates from Latin as “be present, attend”, rather than “come”. The verb “come” appears later in the lyrics in “venite adoremus”, meaning “come, let us worship”.

109 Yahoo! service: EMAIL

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”.

113 “Snow Crash” novelist Stephenson: NEAL

Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel “Snow Crash” is set in a virtual realm that he dubs the Metaverse. A key element of Stephenson’s Metaverse is the use of “avatars,” which are the visual representations of users within the virtual world. Stephenson’s novel significantly popularized the use of the term “avatar” in the context of virtual reality.

114 Wildebeests: GNUS

The gnu is also known as the wildebeest, and is an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is a Dutch word meaning “wild beast”.

115 Part of A.D.: ANNO

The designations Anno Domini (AD, “year of Our Lord”) and Before Christ (BC) are found in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The dividing point between AD and BC is the year of the conception of Jesus, with AD 1 following 1 BC without a year “0” in between. The AD/BC scheme dates back to AD 525, and gained wide acceptance soon after AD 800. Nowadays a modified version has become popular, with CE (Common/Christian Era) used to replace AD, and BCE (Before the Common/Christian Era) used to replace BC.