Tag: Pinch as a pooch crossword clue

Bill’s time: 7m 05s

Bill’s errors: 0

Advertisement

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Like Joe Cocker’s voice : RASPY

Joe Cocker is an English rock and blues singer from Sheffield in the North of England who is noted for his gritty and raspy voice. Cocker has had many hits, several of which are cover versions of songs. Included in the list is “With a Little Help from My Friends”, “Cry Me a River”, “You Are So Beautiful” and “Up Where We Belong”.

9. Assists in arson, say : ABETS

The word “abet” comes into English from the Old French “abeter” meaning “to bait” or “to harass with dogs” (it literally means “to make bite”). This sense of encouraging something bad to happen morphed into our modern usage of “abet” meaning to aid or encourage someone in a crime.

14. Waldorf salad ingredient : APPLE

15. Waldorf salad ingredient : NUT

As one might expect, the Waldorf salad was created at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City (now the Waldorf-Astoria), back in the 1890s. The classic version of the Waldorf salad is made from apples, celery and walnuts dressed in mayonnaise and served on a bed of lettuce. Anyone who is a fan of the BBC sitcom “Fawlty Towers” will remember how much trouble Basil Fawlty had coming up with a Waldorf salad for an American guest, as the kitchen was “out of Waldorfs” …

17. Terrain feature of permafrost regions : GROUND ICE

By definition, permafrost is soil that has been below the freezing point of water for two years or more. Usually permafrost is covered by a thin layer of soil that thaws during the warmer months and which can sustain life. Plants can grow in the active layer, but their roots cannot penetrate the permafrost below.

19. Harry who led Wrigley crowds in “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” : CARAY

The announcer Harry Caray was famous for exclaiming “Holy cow!” during baseball games, and used the same phrase for the title of his autobiography.

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is a 1908 song that is traditionally sung during the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game. Even though the song has is now inextricably linked to baseball, neither of the two composers had ever been to a game before they wrote it.

21. Patriots’ gp. : AFC

American Football Conference (AFC)

The New England Patriots football team was founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots. The “Patriots” name was selected from suggestions made by football fans in Boston. The team played at several different stadiums in the Boston area for just over ten years, before moving to their current home base in Foxborough, Massachusetts. At the time of the move, the “Boston” name was dropped and changed to “New England”.

22. “Trading Spaces” topic : DECOR

The American reality show “Trading Spaces” is a spinoff of the BBC production “Changing Rooms”. Both shows involve the redecoration of a room in neighboring houses. The idea is that each couple redecorates the neighbors’ room without input from that neighbor. Each two-person team has the assistance of a professional design and a carpenter.

23. Units measured in BTUs : ACS

In the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), the power of a heating or cooling unit can be measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs). This dated unit is the amount of energy required to heat a pound of water so that the water’s temperature increases by one degree Fahrenheit.

24. Staples competitor : OFFICE DEPOT

Office Depot is a retail chain based in Boca Raton, Florida that sells office supplies. We might be forgiven for thinking that Office Depot’s biggest competitor is OfficeMax, well, Office Depot has actually owned the OfficeMax brand since 2013.

29. It usually has four strings : UKE

The ukulele (“uke”) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

30. Madrid mama bear : OSA

Madrid is the largest city in Spain and the capital. Madrid is located very close to the geographical center of the country. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (after London and Paris). People from Madrid called themselves Madrileños.

38. Some turkeys : TOMS

A male turkey is called a “tom”, taking its name from a “tomcat”. The inference is that like a tomcat, the male turkey is relatively wild and undomesticated, sexually promiscuous and frequently gets into fights. A female turkey is called a “hen”.

41. Saturated __ : FATS

Saturated fats (“bad” fats) differ from unsaturated fats (“good” fats) chemically in that saturated fats have chains of fatty acids that are relatively straight, allowing individual molecules to pack closely together. This close packing largely explains why saturated fats are solid at room temperature. Unsaturated fatty acids on the other hand have “kinks” in the chains of their fatty acids, so that they cannot pack together closely. Unsaturated fats are generally liquid at room temperature. Food manufacturers have learned that humans get sick by consuming saturated fats (i.e. fats from animal sources). So, they market “healthy” vegetable fats (naturally unsaturated and liquid at room temperature) that they have magically transformed in solid fats (like vegetable spreads). All they did was saturate the healthy fats, so that now it solidifies at room temperature, and in your arteries. There should be a law …

42. Apply crudely : DAUB

“To daub” is to coat a surface with something thick and sticky, like say plaster or mud.

45. DuVernay who created TV’s “Queen Sugar” : 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 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.

“Queen Sugar” is a TV drama that is based on a 2014 novel of the same name by Natalie Baszile. It’s all about three estranged siblings who reunite to save their family’s failing sugarcane farm in Louisiana.

49. “Star Wars” ruling body : JEDI COUNCIL

The Jedi are the “good guys” in the “Star Wars” series of movies. The most famous Jedi knights from the films are Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Alec Guinness, and later Ewan McGregor) and Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz). Well, they’re my favorites anyway …

53. Lynx coat : FUR

The lynx is a wild cat, of which there are four species. These are:

• The Eurasian lynx: the biggest of the four species.
• The Canada lynx: well-adapted to life in cold environments.
• The Iberian lynx: a native of the Iberian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and the most endangered cat species in the world.
• The Bobcat: our North American wildcat, the smallest of the four lynxes

54. Flat fees : RENTS

“Flat”, in the sense of an apartment or condominium, is a word more commonly used in the British Isles than on this side of the pond. The term “flat” is Scottish in origin, in which language it used to mean “floor in a house”.

56. Asian desert : GOBI

The large desert in Asia called the Gobi lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. The Gobi desert is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

57. Colleague of Gorsuch : ALITO

Associate Justice Samuel Alito was nominated to the US Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. Alito is the second Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court (Antonin Scalia was the first). Alito studied law at Yale and while in his final year he left the country for the first time in his life, heading to Italy to work on his thesis about the Italian legal system.

Neil Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme court by the Trump administration, and assumed office in 2017. Gorsuch took the seat on the court that was left vacant with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Gorsuch is the first Supreme Court justice to serve alongside another justice for whom he once clerked, doing so for Anthony Kennedy from 1993 to 1994.

58. Casino plays … and events that occur as you work your way down through the four sets of circles : DICE-ROLLS

The numbers on dice are arranged so that the opposite faces add up to seven. Given this arrangement, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 all meet at a common vertex. There are two ways of arranging the 1, 2 and 3 around the common vertex, a so called right-handed die (clockwise 1-2-3) or a left-handed die (counterclockwise 1-2-3). Traditionally, dice used in Western cultures are right-handed, whereas Chinese dice are left-handed. Quite interesting …

62. Long range : ANDES

The Andes range is the longest continuous chain of mountains in the world, as it runs down the length of the west coast of South America for about 4,300 miles, from Venezuela in the north to Chile in the south. The highest peak in the Andes is Mt. Aconcagua, at an elevation of 22,841 feet. Interestingly, the peak of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest point on the Earth’s surface from the center of the planet. That’s because of the equatorial “bulge” around the Earth’s “waist”.

64. Spelling event : BEE

Back in 18th-century America, when neighbors would gather to work for the benefit of one of their group, such a meeting was called a bee. The name “bee” was an allusion to the social nature of the insect. In modern parlance, a further element of entertainment and pleasure has been introduced, for example in a quilting bee, or even a spelling bee.

Down

1. Disheveled : RAGTAG

“Ragtag and bobtail” is a colorful phrase that’s used to describe the lowest classes, or the rabble. A “bobtail” is a horse that has had its tail cut short, a word that goes back as least as far as Shakespeare as he used it in “King Lear”. A “tag” is a piece of cloth that is torn and hanging, which was readily combined with “rag” in the original phrase “tag, rag and bobtail”. This idiom, perhaps originally quoted from Samuel Pepys in his diary in 1659, referred to the lower classes as “tag, rag and bobtail, dancing, singing and drinking”. The phrase evolved, giving us our contemporary word “ragtag” meaning ragged and unkempt.

5. Ginza tender : YEN

The Korean Won, the Chinese Yuan, and the Japanese Yen (all of which are Asian currencies) take their names from the Chinese written character that represents “round shape”.

Ginza is a district in Tokyo that is noted for its western shops, and especially the leading fashion stores.

7. Stanley of “The Lovely Bones” : TUCCI

Stanley Tucci is a UK-based American actor. Of his many fine performances, my favorite is in 2009’s “Julie & Julia” in which he plays the husband of celebrity chef Julia Child. Tucci is quite the cook himself in real life and released “The Tucci Cookbook” in 2012. He is also a co-owner of the Finch Tavern restaurant in Croton Falls, New York.

“The Lovely Bones” is a remarkable film directed by Peter Jackson (of “Lord of the Rings” fame). It stars the incredibly talented Irish actress, Saoirse Ronan, who plays a 14-year-old girl who has been murdered and is living in a surreal “in-between” world that is neither Heaven nor Earth. I usually find computer-generated graphics in movies overpowering and distracting, but this movie uses the technique to create a beautiful backdrop that really brings the story to life.

9. Knuckle under : ACCEDE

The verb “to knuckle” was coined in the 18th century to describe the motion of kneeling down with a knuckle on the ground to play the game of marbles. The derivative phrasal verb “to knuckle down” came to mean “to apply oneself earnestly”, as in the game. The related verbal phrase “to knuckle under”, meaning “to submit, give in”, seems also to refer back to game, and refers to the action of kneeling.

11. Ace of Base genre : EUROPOP

Ace of Base is a pop group from Sweden. The band had several names before settling on “Ace of Base”, which was inspired by the Motörhead song “Ace of Spades”.

Europop is a genre of pop music that is mainly associated with Sweden, but also applies to several other European countries. The most famous group associated with the genre is ABBA.

12. Prickly hybrid : TEA ROSE

The first tea roses were so called because they had a fragrance reminiscent of Chinese black tea.

18. Inane : DAFT

Our word “inane” meaning silly or lacking substance comes from the Latin “inanitis” meaning “empty space”.

22. Faked in the rink : DEKED

A deke, also known as a dangle, is a technique used to get past an opponent in ice hockey. “Deke” is a colloquial shortening of the word “decoy”.

24. Inauguration Day pledge : OATH

Inauguration Day is on January 20th in the year following the November election of a US President. This date is called out in the Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution, which was ratified by the states in 1933.

26. Middle of a winning trio : -TAC-

When I was growing up in Ireland we played “noughts and crosses” … our name for the game tic-tac-toe.

28. Dropbox files, casually : DOCS

Dropbox is a big name in the world of cloud data storage.

32. Complete fiasco : SNAFU

SNAFU is an acronym standing for “situation normal: all fouled up” (well, that’s the polite version!). As one might perhaps imagine, the term developed in the US Army, during WWII.

Back in the mid-1800s, “fiasco” was theater slang meaning “failure in performance”. The meaning morphed soon after into any kind of failure or flop. The term evolved from the Italian “far fiasco”, a phrase that the same meaning in Italian theater, but translated literally as “make a bottle”. It turns out that “fiasco” and “flask” both derive from the Latin “flasco” meaning “bottle”.

33. Leaf-peeping mo. : OCT

“Leaf peeping” is the name given to the activity of viewing and photographing the change in the colors of foliage during the fall. Leaf peepers usually head for New England and the American Midwest in order to enjoy the rich colors exhibited by deciduous trees and shrubs in the autumn months.

34. John Deere logo animal : STAG

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.

38. __ Mahal : TAJ

“Mahal” is the Urdu word for “palace”, as in “Taj Mahal” meaning “crown of palaces”. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum holding the body of Mumtaz Mahal, the third wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The name “Mumtaz Mahal” translates as “the chosen one of the palace”.

39. Venn diagram feature : OVERLAP

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.

40. European archipelago known for its wine : MADEIRA

Madeira is a Portuguese-owned archipelago that lies to the southwest of mainland Portugal. Madeira is famous for its fortified wine, which is known as Madeira wine.

44. Showy trinkets : BAUBLES

Trinkets and baubles are small ornaments, and often pieces of jewelry.

47. Bank management aid? : DIKE

A dike is an embankment that is used to prevent floods. It is usually made of earth and rock.

48. Overly proper : PRISSY

The first known use of the word “prissy” in print, meaning “overly prim”, is in the 1895 children’s book “Mr. Rabbit at Home” by Joel Chandler Harris.

[“]Then Mrs Blue Hen rumpled up her feathers and got mad with herself, and went to setting. I reckon that’s what you call it. I’ve heard some call it ‘setting’ and others ‘sitting.’ Once, when I was courting, I spoke of a sitting hen, but the young lady said I was too prissy for anything.”
“What is prissy?” asked Sweetest Susan.
Mr. Rabbit shut his eyes and scratched his ear. Then he shook his head slowly.
“It’s nothing but a girl’s word,” remarked Mrs. Meadows by way of explanation. “It means that somebody’s trying hard to show off.”
“I reckon that’s so,” said Mr. Rabbit, opening his eyes. He appeared to be much relieved.

52. Hidden trove : CACHE

A cache is a secret supply. We imported the term into English from French Canadian trappers in the 17th century. Back then, “cache” was a slang term for a “hiding place for stores”, derived from the French verb “cacher” meaning “to hide”.

The term “treasure trove” comes from the Anglo-French “tresor trové “ meaning “found treasure”.

57. Core muscles : ABS

The abdominal muscles (abs) are more correctly referred to as the rectus abdominis muscles. They might be referred to as a “six-pack” in a person who has developed the muscles and who has low body fat. In my case, more like a keg …

59. Big name in trucks : RAM

Chrysler put ram hood ornaments on all of its Dodge branded vehicles starting in 1933. When the first line of Dodge trucks and vans were introduced in 1981, they were named “Rams” in honor of that hood ornament.