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Constructed by: Prasanna Keshava
Edited by: Patti Varol
Today’s Reveal Answer: Aftermath
Themed answers each end with a word often seen AFTER “MATH”:
- 60A Consequence, and where the ends of the answers to the starred clues can be found : AFTERMATH and AFTER “MATH”
- 17A *Cracker topper from Kraft : CHEEZ WHIZ (giving “math whiz”)
- 24A *Expensive travel option : FIRST CLASS (giving “math class”)
- 36A *”Anything wrong?” : IS THERE A PROBLEM? (giving “math problem”)
- 49A *Constellation that translates to “greater dog” : CANIS MAJOR (giving “math major”)
Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers
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Bill’s time: 5m 52s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
4 Like dive bars : SEEDY
We use the word “seedy” to mean “shabby”. The usage probably arose from the appearance of a flowering plant that has gone to seed.
We’ve been using the word “dive” in American English for a run-down bar since the latter half of the 19th century. The term comes from the fact that disreputable taverns were usually located in basements, so one had to figuratively dive into them. I’m a big fan …
9 Letters near a padlock in an address bar : HTTPS
“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”).
14 Quiet speech syst. : ASL
It’s really quite unfortunate that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different, and someone who has learned to sign in one cannot understand someone signing in the other.
16 “Home Alone” actress Catherine : O’HARA
Catherine O’Hara is an actress and comedian from Toronto, Ontario. One of O’Hara’s more famous film roles is Kevin’s mother in the Christmas classic “Home Alone”. She also plays a lead character (Moira) in the excellent sitcom “Schitt’s Creek” alongside Eugen Levy.
“Home Alone” is a 1990 film starring Macaulay Culkin that has become a Christmas classic. Culkin was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe for his performance, becoming the youngest actor ever to be so honored.
17 *Cracker topper from Kraft : CHEEZ WHIZ (giving “math whiz”)
The processed cheese spread called Cheez Whiz was introduced by Kraft in 1952. Believe it or not, it’s still around …
20 A’s, Jays, or Rays : TEAM
The Oakland Athletics (OAK) baseball franchise was founded back in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics. The team became the Kansas City Athletics in 1955 and moved to Oakland in 1968. Today, the Athletics are usually referred to as “the A’s”.
The Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise was founded in 1977. The Blue Jays are the only team based outside the US to have won a World Series, doing so in 1992 and 1993. And since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, the Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team now headquartered outside of the US.
The Tampa Bay Rays MLB team is a relatively young franchise, having been formed in 1998. The initial name of the franchise was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. While known as the Devil Rays, the team finished last in the league almost every year. The name was changed to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, and I am told the Rays started into a streak of winning seasons soon after.
22 Appease fully : SATE
“Sate” is a variant of the older word “satiate”. Both terms can mean either to satisfy an appetite fully, or to eat to excess.
24 *Expensive travel option : FIRST CLASS (giving “math class”)
Here’s another term that catches me out all the time, having done my schooling on the other side of the Atlantic. The term “mathematics” is shortened to “math” in the US, but to “maths” in Britain and Ireland.
28 Actor Guinness : ALEC
Sir Alec Guinness played many great roles over a long and distinguished career, but nowadays is best remembered (sadly, I think) for playing the original Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”. He won his only Best Actor Oscar for playing Colonel Nicholson in the marvelous 1957 WWII movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. Guinness did himself serve during the Second World War, in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He commanded a landing craft during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.
31 En __: as a group : MASSE
“En masse” is a French term, one that best translates as “as a group”
35 Lisbon greeting : OLA!
Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. It is the westernmost capital city in Europe, and indeed is the westernmost large city on the continent. Lisbon is also the oldest city in Western Europe, and was founded hundreds of years before London, Paris and Rome.
41 Women’s History Mo. : MAR
March is the third month in our Gregorian calendar. It takes its name from the Latin “Martius”, which was the first month of the earliest Roman calendar. In turn, Martius was named for Mars, the Roman god of war.
Here in the US, Women’s History Month is celebrated annually in March, and coincides with International Women’s Day on March 8th. In Canada, October was chosen for Women’s History Month, to coincide with the Canadian celebration of Persons Day on October 18th.
43 Ships’ tillers : HELMS
In its broadest sense, the term “helm” describes the whole of a ship’s steering mechanism, including the rudder and tiller. In a more specific sense, the helm is the handle, tiller or wheel that is used to control the steering gear.
44 Monogram part : INITIAL
A monogram is a design with two or more letters intertwined or combined in some way to make a single symbol. The term “monogram” comes from the Greek “mono” meaning “single” and “gramma” meaning “letter”.
49 *Constellation that translates to “greater dog” : CANIS MAJOR (giving “math major”)
Canis Major is Latin for “greater dog”, and is the constellation containing the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius. Because of its location in Canis Major, Sirius is also known as the Dog Star.
51 The Dalai __ : LAMA
The Dalai Lama is a religious leader in the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th to hold the office. He has indicated that the next Dalai Lama might be found outside of Tibet for the first time, and may even be female.
56 Cardinals, on NFL scoreboards : ARI
The Arizona Cardinals were founded in 1898 as the Chicago Cardinals. That makes the Cardinals the oldest, continuously-run, professional football team in the whole country.
58 Part of TNT : -NITRO-
“TNT” is an abbreviation for “trinitrotoluene”. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.
60 Consequence, and where the ends of the answers to the starred clues can be found : AFTERMATH and AFTER “MATH”
The suffix “math” evolved from an Old English word meaning “a mowing, cutting of grass”. So, as strange as it seems, an aftermath was a second crop of grass grown after harvesting the first. An aftermath was also known as an aftergrass or an aftercrop. By the 16th century, the term “aftermath” was being used figuratively to mean “period following a ruinous event”. That’s quite a leap …
63 Small game pieces : PAWNS
In the game of chess, the pawns are the weakest pieces on the board. A pawn that can make it to the opposite side of the board can be promoted to a piece of choice, usually a queen. Using promotion of pawns, it is possible for a player to have two or more queens on the board at one time. However, standard chess sets come with only one queen per side, so a captured rook is often used as the second queen by placing it on the board upside down.
64 Ball-bearing peg : TEE
A tee is a small device on which, say, a golf ball is placed before striking it. The term “tee” comes from the Scottish “teaz”, which described little heaps of sand used to elevate a golf ball for the purpose of getting a clean hit with a club.
65 Grown goslings : GEESE
A male goose is called a gander, with the female simply being referred to as a goose. Young geese are called goslings.
Down
2 “Just Mercy” actor __ Jackson Jr. : O’SHEA
Rapper Ice Cube’s real name is O’Shea Jackson. Since the year 2000, Ice Cube has gradually moved away from rap music and focuses more on acting. The 2015 movie “Straight Outta Compton” tells the story of the gangsta rap group N.W.A., of which Ice Cube was a member. Ice Cube co-produced the film, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. played his real-life Dad on screen.
“Just Mercy” is a 2019 legal drama movie that is based on a 2014 memoir of the same name by Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson, a defense attorney devoted to representing African American prisoners on death row, is portrayed by Michael B. Jordan. After the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Warner Bros. made the film available for free on several streaming platforms in an effort to educate the public about systemic racism. It’s a very powerful film …
5 Former spouse : EX-WIFE
Our word “spouse”, meaning “married person”, comes into English via French from the Latin “sponsus” and “sponsa”, meaning “husband” and “wife”.
8 Red Sox legend, to fans : YAZ
Carl Yastrzemski, who played his whole career with the Boston Red Sox, goes by the nickname “Yaz”.
9 “Ars Poetica” poet : HORACE
The full name of Horace’s work is “Ars Poetica, Epistula ad Pisones” (The Art of Poetry, Letters to the Pisos). The work describes the technical aspects of poetry in ancient Rome, and the term “ars poetica” has come to mean the poetry of that period.
18 Punctuation mark often used in pairs : EM DASH
In typography, there are em dashes and en dashes. The em dash is about the width of an “m” character, and an en dash about half that, the width of an “n’ character. An en dash is used, for example, to separate numbers designating a range, as in 5-10 years. The em dash seems to be going out of style, and indeed the application I am using to write this paragraph won’t let me show you one!
26 Beaver State capital : SALEM
Salem is the state capital of Oregon. It is thought that the city takes its name from the older city of Salem, Massachusetts.
Oregon’s most widely-known nickname is the Beaver State. However, it is also called the Union State, the Pacific Wonderland, the Sunset State and the Webfoot State.
27 Bombards with junk email : SPAMS
To bombard is to attack vigorously, especially with weapons. Back in the early 1600s, the noun “bombard” described a catapult designed to throw exceptionally large stones at an enemy. It’s not surprised then, that both “bombard” and “bomb” come from the same root, namely the Greek word “bombos” meaning “deep and hollow sound”.
29 “Da 5 Bloods” director Spike : LEE
Film director Spike Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia but has very much made New York City his home and place of work. Most of Lee’s films are set in New York City, including his first feature film, 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It”. That film was shot over two weeks with a budget of $175,000. “She’s Gotta Have It” grossed over $7 million at the US box office.
“Da 5 Bloods” is a 2020 Spike Lee film about four aging veterans of the Vietnam War who go back to Vietnam. Their mission is to find the remains of their fallen squad leader, and to find a stash of gold bars they hid during the conflict. I haven’t seen this one, but am putting it on “the list” …
32 Yoga pose : ASANA
“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.
38 Scat queen Fitzgerald : ELLA
Scat singing is a vocal improvisation found in the world of jazz. There aren’t any words as such in scat singing, just random nonsense syllables made up on the spot.
40 Pandemonium : BEDLAM
Bethlem Royal Hospital is a facility in London in the UK for treating mental illness. The original facility was a hospital way back in the 1300s, and had the name “Bedlam”. In the 1700s and 1800s the hospital actually made money out of its patients as it charged a penny to members of the public allowing them to visit the hospital and view the unfortunate inmates in their cells. Tens of thousands of such paid visits were made each year. Our word “bedlam”, meaning uproar and confusion, is derived from the hospital’s name, and it reflects the cruel and inhumane treatment endured by the inmates in days gone by.
The word “pandemonium” was coined in 1667 by John Milton in his epic poem “Paradise Lost”. It is the name he invented for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”.
50 “Aladdin” villain : JAFAR
Jafar is the bad guy in the animated film “Aladdin”. Jafar was important enough to get his name front and center in the sequel called “Aladdin 2”, which is usually referred to as “The Return of Jafar”.
52 Banded rock : AGATE
Agate is a micro-crystalline form of quartz (and so is related to sand/silica). Some agate samples have deposited layers that give a striped appearance, and these are called “banded agate”.
53 Parking lot device : METER
An early patent for a parking meter, dated 1928, was for a device that required the driver of the parked car to connect the battery of his or her car to the meter in order for it to operate!
60 Abbr. in a high-rise address : APT
Apartment (apt.)
61 __ feed: online news aggregator : RSS
Many websites and blogs publish content in a format known as Rich Site Summary (RSS). The “feed” can be read using an RSS reader. The advantage of using an RSS reader is that the user doesn’t have to check the website for new content. That new material is fed to the RSS reader as soon as it is published.
Read on, or …
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Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Visibility-reducing weather phenomenon : FOG
4 Like dive bars : SEEDY
9 Letters near a padlock in an address bar : HTTPS
14 Quiet speech syst. : ASL
15 More than needed : EXTRA
16 “Home Alone” actress Catherine : O’HARA
17 *Cracker topper from Kraft : CHEEZ WHIZ (giving “math whiz”)
19 Gathered, as leaves : RAKED
20 A’s, Jays, or Rays : TEAM
21 Suffix with elephant or serpent : -INE
22 Appease fully : SATE
23 Beach pailful : SAND
24 *Expensive travel option : FIRST CLASS (giving “math class”)
28 Actor Guinness : ALEC
30 Shoe lift : HEEL TAP
31 En __: as a group : MASSE
34 Opponent : FOE
35 Lisbon greeting : OLA!
36 *”Anything wrong?” : IS THERE A PROBLEM? (giving “math problem”)
41 Women’s History Mo. : MAR
42 Not new : OLD
43 Ships’ tillers : HELMS
44 Monogram part : INITIAL
47 Meat and potatoes : FOOD
49 *Constellation that translates to “greater dog” : CANIS MAJOR (giving “math major”)
51 The Dalai __ : LAMA
55 Missing sections : GAPS
56 Cardinals, on NFL scoreboards : ARI
57 Quite a long time : AGES
58 Part of TNT : -NITRO-
60 Consequence, and where the ends of the answers to the starred clues can be found : AFTERMATH and AFTER “MATH”
62 Solos often sung in Italian : ARIAS
63 Small game pieces : PAWNS
64 Ball-bearing peg : TEE
65 Grown goslings : GEESE
66 Easy running paces : TROTS
67 Urgent care ctrs. : ERS
Down
1 __ and figures : FACTS
2 “Just Mercy” actor __ Jackson Jr. : O’SHEA
3 Collect bit by bit : GLEAN
4 “Oh yeah? __ who?” : SEZ
5 Former spouse : EX-WIFE
6 Sharing a common culture : ETHNIC
7 More in need of moisturizer : DRIER
8 Red Sox legend, to fans : YAZ
9 “Ars Poetica” poet : HORACE
10 “__ teach ’em!” : THAT’LL
11 Have cumulative negative effects : TAKE A TOLL
12 __-game show : PRE
13 “That’s a shame” : SAD
18 Punctuation mark often used in pairs : EM DASH
22 Use handlebars : STEER
25 Hunt for bargains : SHOP
26 Beaver State capital : SALEM
27 Bombards with junk email : SPAMS
29 “Da 5 Bloods” director Spike : LEE
31 Ape : MIMIC
32 Yoga pose : ASANA
33 Thin neckwear : STRING TIE
34 Fleeting fashion : FAD
37 Roves about : ROAMS
38 Scat queen Fitzgerald : ELLA
39 “Caught you!” : OHO!
40 Pandemonium : BEDLAM
45 Sparkly crowns : TIARAS
46 “Reckon so” : I S’POSE
47 Like a table at a romantic restaurant : FOR TWO
48 Point in the right direction : ORIENT
50 “Aladdin” villain : JAFAR
52 Banded rock : AGATE
53 Parking lot device : METER
54 Fire pit remains : ASHES
58 Remind over and over again : NAG
59 Rage : IRE
60 Abbr. in a high-rise address : APT
61 __ feed: online news aggregator : RSS
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