Tag: Game show whose contestants are really driven? crossword clue

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Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Letter Enclosed

Themed answers are in the format X of Y, where X sounds like a letter highlighted in the clue, and Y is defined by the one-word clue:

• 20A Mer(c)y : SEA OF HUMANITY
• 59A (T)yke : KID’S TEE
• 25D (B)enefit : BE OF SERVICE
• 28D Trajector(y) : WHY OF COURSE
• 44D Bra(i)n : MIND’S EYE

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

Bill’s time: 10m 56s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15A “Se __ inglés” : HABLA

In Spanish, a sign on a business might read “Se habla inglés” (English is spoken).

19A Season celebrated by gifted kids? : YULE

Yule celebrations coincide with Christmas, and the words “Christmas” and “Yule” (often “Yuletide”) have become synonymous in much of the world. However, Yule was originally a pagan festival celebrated by Germanic peoples. The name “Yule” comes from the Old Norse word “jol” that was used to describe the festival.

20A Mer(c)y : SEA OF HUMANITY

The phrase “sea of humanity” is often used to describe vast and dense crowds. One of its early appearances in print was in coverage of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. A reporter for “Illustrated Weekly” described the scene on opening day as a “swelling sea of humanity” that “burst through the turnstiles …”. The term has also been used more symbolically to represent all the peoples and nations of the world.

23A Supplier of oil pans? : ART CRITIC

To pan something is to criticize it harshly.

24A Incantation syllables : ABRA

The incantation “abracadabra” has a long history. It was used as far back as the 2nd century AD in ancient Rome when the word was prescribed by a physician to be worn on an amulet to help his emperor recover from disease. “Abracadabra” is Aramaic, and roughly translates as “I will create as I speak”.

27A Garter snake prey : NEWT

The garter snake is found right across the continent, It is in fact the most widely distributed genus of reptile in North America, being found anywhere from Southeast Alaska to Central America.

30A Great beast : APE

The tailless primates known as apes (also “hominoids”) are divided into two main branches: gibbons (lesser apes) and hominids (great apes). The hominids are the great apes, and belong to the family of primates called Hominidae. Extant genera that make up the family Hominidae are:

• chimpanzees
• gorillas
• humans
• orangutans

33A Ins. option : HMO

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

35A “Open the pod bay doors, __” : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”. Even though Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

Reportedly, when Apple were planning the launch of their new music player in 2001, someone came up with the idea of the “iPod” name from the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”. The particular line that inspired the name is: “Open the pod bay doors, HAL”.

37A Mop alternative : ROOMBA

The Roomba vacuum cleaner is a cool-looking device that navigates its way around a room by itself, picking up dirt as it goes. Like I said, it’s cool-looking, but I am not sure how effective it is …

41A Romeo’s opening word? : ALFA

The “Alfa” in “Alfa Romeo” is actually an acronym, one standing for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (“Lombard Automobile Factory, Public Company”). ALFA was an enterprise founded in 1909 and which was taken over by Nicola Romeo in 1915. In 1920 the company name was changed to Alfa Romeo.

42A Mausoleums : TOMBS

Both a mausoleum and a cenotaph are buildings erected as monuments to a deceased person or people. They differ in that a mausoleum includes a tomb in which the remains are interred, whereas a cenotaph lacks a tomb.

47A Pear variety : BOSC

Bosc is a cultivar of the European pear that is grown mainly in the northwest of the United States. It is named for French horticulturist Louis Bosc. The cultivar originated in Belgium or France in the early 19th century. The Bosc is that pear with a skin the color of a potato, with a long neck.

50A Actress Jewell : GERI

Geri Jewell’s appearances on the TV show “The Facts of Life” were remarkable in that she was the first actor with a disability to have a regular role on a prime-time show. Jewell was born with cerebral palsy. More recently, Jewell had a recurring role in the western drama “Deadwood”.

52A Gasteyer of “Mean Girls” : ANA

Ana Gasteyer is an actress best known for being a cast member of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) from 1996 to 2002. Gasteyer was famous on SNL for playing Martha Stewart … topless!

“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.

53A Some mechanical pencils : BICS

Société Bic is a company based in Clichy in France. The first product the company produced, more than fifty years ago, was the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen that is still produced today. Bic also makes other disposable products such as lighters and razors.

54A Ada Lovelace’s father : BYRON

George Gordon Byron, known simply as “Lord Byron”, was an English poet active in the early 1800s. Byron was equally as famous for his poetry as he was for the wild excesses in his personal life. Byron lived much of that life outside of England, and fought for revolutionaries in both Italy and Greece. He died from a fever contracted while fighting for the Greeks against the Ottomans.

Ada Lovelace’s real name and title was Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. Lovelace was fascinated by mathematics and wrote about the work done by Charles Babbage in building his groundbreaking mechanical computer. In some of her notes, she proposed an algorithm for Babbage’s machine to compute Bernoulli numbers. This algorithm is recognized by many as the world’s first computer program and so Lovelace is sometimes called the first “computer programmer”. There is a computer language called “Ada” that was named in her honor. The Ada language was developed from 1977 to 1983 for the US Department of Defense.

56A Heavy dancing shoes : CLOGS

Clogs are shoes made from wood, at least in part. The clog originated as a protective item of footwear for use by farm, factory and mine workers.

58A Backroads ride, for short : ATV

All-terrain vehicle (ATV)

62A Need for a site visit? : URL

An Internet address (like NYXCrossword.com and LAXCrossword.com) is more correctly called a uniform resource locator (URL).

63A Two-time Newbery Medalist Lowry : LOIS

Lois Lowry is a writer of children’s fiction. Lowry doesn’t stick to “safe” material in her books, and has dealt with difficult subjects such as racism, murder and the Holocaust. Two of her books won the Newbery Medal: “Number the Stars” (1990) and “The Giver” (1993).

The Newbery is an annual award given by the Association for Library Service to Children for “distinguished contributions to American literature for children”. The award was inaugurated in 1922, and was named for John Newbery, an English 18th-century publisher of books for juveniles and children. Newbery is sometimes referred to as “the Father of Children’s Literature”.

65A Caterpillar rival : DEERE

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

Back in the early 1900s, Benjamin Holt invented a steam tractor that was able to move over soggy land. The new vehicle crawled over the ground using wheels that drove tracks. Someone apparently noted that the tractor moved along like a caterpillar, and so the enterprise that was to be known as the Caterpillar Tractor Company was born.

68A Travel website with the same name as a boat : KAYAK

KAYAK is a travel search engine that was founded in 2004 and has been owned by the Priceline Group since 2012.

71A Someone working around the House : REP

The number of seats in the US House of Representatives has been 435 since the year 1913, although there was a temporary increase to 437 seats at the time of the admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union. The number of representatives assigned to each state is proportional to that state’s population, except that each state is guaranteed a minimum of one delegate by the US Constitution.

72A Rocker Joan : JETT

“Joan Jett” is the stage name of rock guitarist and singer Joan Marie Larkin. She is best known as a member of the band Joan Jett & the Blackhearts that formed in 1979.

Down

1D Actor Kilmer : VAL

Val Kilmer’s first big leading role in a movie was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic “The Doors”. A few years later, Kilmer was chosen for the lead in another big production, “Batman Forever”. Things haven’t really gone as well for Kilmer since then, I’d say. Off the screen, he flirted with the idea of running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010. A Hollywood actor as a governor? Would never happen …

2D God with a quiver : EROS

A quiver is a container used to carry arrows.

4D Middle Eastern market : BAZAAR

Our word “bazaar”, meaning “market”, comes from the Persian “bazar” that means the same thing.

5D Hot rod rod : SHAFT

A hot rod is an American car that has been modified for speed by installing a larger than normal engine. A street rod is generally a more comfortable type of hot rod, with the emphasis less on the engine and more on custom paint jobs and interiors. By definition, a street rod must be based on an automobile design that originated prior to 1949.

6D Game show whose contestants are really driven? : CASH CAB

“Cash Cab” is a fun TV game show that originated in the UK and is now shown all over the world. The original, and most well-known, US version picked up contestants in a New York City taxi, and then the driver asked them quiz questions during their ride.

9D Occupied, as a hot desk : SAT AT

Offices that use the concept of hot desking make work spaces available for any worker, rather than assigning spaces to specific workers. The term “hot desking” probably comes from the “hot racking”, the system used by navies in which sailors on differing watches (shifts) use the same bunks in order to make more efficient use of available space.

10D Solid carbon dioxide : DRY ICE

Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide (CO2). The material’s main use is to preserve food and for cooling in general. It is also used in fog machines in theaters and haunted houses.

11D Drubbing : ROUT

A drubbing is a beating, one given either literally or figuratively. The term “drub” dates back in English to the 17th century when it was imported from the Arabic word for a beating, i.e. “darb”.

21D Floss brand : ORAL-B

The Oral-B toothbrush was introduced to the world in 1950, designed by a California periodontist. The first “model” was the Oral-B 60, a name given to reflect the 60 tufts in the brush. In 1969, the Oral-B was the first toothbrush to get to the moon as it was the toothbrush of choice for the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

Dental floss has been around a long time, with the term “dental floss” being introduced in the early 1800s. Anyone fond of the writings of James Joyce (that wouldn’t be me!) might recall a character using dental floss in his famous novel “Ulysses” that was published between 1918 and 1920.

30D Part of UAE : ARAB

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

32D Grains that may be steel-cut : OATS

Oat cereals all start out as “groats”, toasted oat grains with the hull still intact:

• Steel-cut oats, sometimes called “Irish oats”, are groats that have been chopped into chunks about the size of sesame seeds.
• Stone-ground oats, sometimes called “Scottish oats”, have been ground into smaller pieces, about the size of poppy seeds.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats are made by first steaming the toasted groats, and then rolling them into flakes.
• Quick-cooking oats are similar to rolled oats, but thinner flakes.
• Instant oats have been chopped, rolled, pre-cooked, dehydrated and often have salt and sugar added.

36D German entomologist Hermann : LOEW

Hermann Loew was a 19th-century German entomologist, and a foundational figure in the study of the order of flies (Diptera). He made an immense contribution to the understanding of North American flies, which he accomplished without ever setting foot in the Americas. He received vast collections of specimens from American naturalists, delivered to his home in Prussia (now part of Poland).

53D Dating initials : BCE

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.

54D Wood whose name comes from the Spanish for “raft” : BALSA

Balsa is a very fast-growing tree that is native to parts of South America. Even though balsa wood is very soft, it is actually classified as a hardwood, the softest of all the hardwoods (go figure!). Balsa is light and strong, so is commonly used in making model airplanes. In WWII, a full-size British plane, the de Havilland Mosquito, was built largely from balsa and plywood. No wonder they called it “The Wooden Wonder” and “The Timber Terror”.

60D “u tell me” : IDK

I don’t know (IDK)

64D Horn-heavy genre : SKA

Ska originated in Jamaica in the late fifties and was the precursor to reggae music. No one has a really definitive etymology of the term “ska”, but it is likely to be imitative of a sound.

66D __ Mahal : TAJ

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India is a magnificent marble mausoleum. It was built in the mid-17th century by the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to her 14th child in 1631. When Shah Jahan himself died in 1666, he was buried in the Taj Mahal, alongside his wife.