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Constructed by: Erica Hsiung Wojcik & Brooke Husic
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

Read on, or bounce to …
… a whole record of solutions

Bill’s time: 8m 45s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Ceremonial champagne opener : SABER

The strategy of opening a bottle of champagne utilizing a sword is named sabrage, or sabering. It entails sliding the sword alongside the physique of the bottle in order that it hits the lip and separates the collar from the neck. Despite the necessity for a “sharp” motion of the sword, it is very important use the “blunt” aspect of the sword to supply most impression on the lip of the bottle.

6 Rich brown shade : MOCHA

Mocha is a port metropolis in Yemen on the Red Sea and was as soon as the principal port for the capital metropolis of Sana’a. Mocha was the key market on the planet for espresso till the 1600s, and gave its title to the Mocha espresso bean, which in flip gave its title to the mocha brown colour, and the flavour of espresso infused with chocolate.

11 Brazen private advert? : SHAMELESS PLUG

Someone described as brazen may also be described as shameless. The time period “brazen” comes from the Middle English “brasen” that means “made of brass”. The suggestion is {that a} shameless particular person has a hardened, brass-like face. And so, the similar-meaning phrase “brassy” has the identical etymology.

16 First title in jumps : EVEL

Daredevil Evel Knievel contracted hepatitis C from the numerous blood transfusions that he wanted after accidents incurred throughout stunts. He needed to have a liver transplant consequently, however his well being declined after that. Knievel finally handed away in 2007.

17 Hub served by BART : SFO

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) served as the principle base of operations for Virgin America (offered to Alaska Airlines), and can also be the upkeep hub for United Airlines. Even although SFO is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, the airport is situated to the south in San Mateo County.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a commuter rail system serving the San Francisco Bay Area.

18 Initial request for a solution? : RSVP

“RSVP” stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “answer, please”.

19 “You’re killing me, __!” : SMALLS

The slang phrase “You’re killin’ me, Smalls” is used to specific exasperation with somebody. The phrase comes from the 1993 baseball movie “The Sandlot”. It is used twice, with the identical that means, when addressing a boy named Scotty Smalls.

21 Something clasped for help : BRA

The phrase “brassière” is French in origin, nevertheless it isn’t the phrase that the French use for a “bra”. In France, what we name a bra is named a “soutien-gorge”, which may translate as “supporting the breast”. The phrase “brassière” is certainly utilized in France however there it describes a child’s undershirt, a lifebelt or a harness. “Brassière” comes from the Old French phrase for an “arm protector” in a army uniform (“bras” is the French for “arm”). Later “brassière” got here to imply “breastplate” and from there the phrase was used for a sort of girl’s corset. The phrase jumped into English round 1900.

27 Mystery-shrouded novelist Elena : FERRANTE

Elena Ferrante is an Italian writer, finest identified for her 4-part sequence referred to as the “Neapolitan Novels”. What could be very attention-grabbing about “Ferrante” is that the moniker is a pseudonym, and nobody appears to know the writer’s actual title. There is a few hypothesis that “Elena” is in truth a person.

29 Fancy affair : SOIREE

“Soir” is the French phrase for “evening” and a soirée is a night celebration. The French phrase “soirée” has an acute accent over the primary “e”, however we are likely to drop this when utilizing the phrase in English.

31 Symbol held aloft in an Emmy statuette : ATOM

The Emmy Awards are the tv equal of the Oscars from the world of movie, the Grammy Awards in music and the Tony Awards for the stage. Emmy Awards are offered all year long, relying on the sector of tv being honored. The most well-known of those ceremonies are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards. The distinctive title “Emmy” is a softened model of the phrase “immy”, the nickname given to the video digital camera tubes present in previous tv cameras. The Emmy statuette was designed by tv engineer Louis McManus in 1948, and depicts a lady holding up an atom. McManus used his spouse as a mannequin for the lady.

32 Indigenous Arizona individuals : APACHE

The Apache are a gaggle of Native American peoples initially from the Southwest US. The Navajo are a separate however associated individuals, by way of tradition and language, and are sometimes described as “Apachean”.

35 Minibar software : ICE TONGS

A pair of tongs is a software with a scissor-like hinge used to select up issues, like meat cooking on a barbecue grill or ice from an ice bucket. The verb “to tong” means “to handle with tongs”.

39 Number of World Series wins for every of Chicago’s groups : THREE

The Chicago White Sox Major League Baseball group was established in Chicago in 1900 and initially was referred to as the White Stockings. The title was modified as a result of the abbreviation “Sox” for “Stockings” was commonly utilized in newspaper headlines.

The Chicago Cubs are one in every of solely two constitution members of the baseball’s National League who’re nonetheless enjoying, the opposite being the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs gained the World Series in 2016 for the primary time since 1908, which is a very long time in the past. In reality, the Cubs had the longest championship drought of any skilled sports activities group in North America.

43 Having intercourse, maybe : RATED R

The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) film-rating system (PG-13, R, and so forth.) is solely voluntary and isn’t backed by any regulation. Movie theaters comply with abide by the principles that include the MPAA rankings in trade for entry to new motion pictures.

45 City within the Sonoran Desert : YUMA

The metropolis and county of Yuma, Arizona take their title from the Quechan (aka “Yuma”) Native American tribe that inhabited the realm.

Sonora is the state in Mexico mendacity simply south of the borders with Arizona and New Mexico. The Sonoran Desert really straddles the US-Mexico border, overlaying 120,000 sq. miles in components of the states of Sonora, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Arizona and California.

46 Chest bone : RIB

In the human rib cage, the highest seven units of bones are referred to as true ribs as they’re connected on to the sternum or breastbone. The 5 units beneath the true ribs are referred to as false ribs as they don’t have this direct connection. The backside two of the false ribs are additionally referred to as floating ribs as they don’t hook up with the sternum in any respect.

49 Entrance corridor : FOYER

“Foyer”, that means “lobby”, is a French phrase that we imported into English. In French, “foyer” is used for what we’d name a “green room”, a spot the place actors can collect when not on stage or on set.

53 Triumphant declaration : NOT TODAY, SATAN

“Not today, Satan” is an previous expression used when somebody has managed to keep away from disgrace or temptation. The phrase is probably derived from “Get behind me, Satan!”, phrases spoken by the apostle Peter within the Christian Bible. It gained extra common reputation with its latest use on the present “RuPaul’s Drag Race”.

54 Animals in Serta adverts : SHEEP

Serta was based in 1931 when a gaggle of 13 mattress producers got here collectively, primarily forming a cooperative. Today, the Serta firm is owned by eight unbiased licensees in the same association. Serta ads function the Serta Counting Sheep. Each numbered sheep has a distinct character, comparable to:

• #1 The Leader of the Flock
• #½ The Tweener
• #13 Mr. Bad Luck
• #53 The Pessimist
• #86 Benedict Arnold

Down

1 Chutzpah : SASS

Our phrase “chutzpah” that means “nerve, gall, impudence” is derived from the Yiddish “khutspe”, which has the identical that means.

2 Invoice no. : AMT

Amount (amt.)

An bill is an itemized invoice. The time period comes from the Middle French “envois” that means “dispatch (of goods)”. The root verb is “envoyer”, which interprets as “to send”.

3 Colossus : BEHEMOTH

A behemoth is one thing that’s big in dimension. The time period comes from the Hebrew phrase “b’hemoth”, which is a beast described within the Book of Job. It is usually recommended that the Biblical creature is an elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, crocodile or maybe one thing legendary.

A colossus (plural “colossi”) is an exceptionally giant statue, essentially the most well-known of which was the Colossus of Rhodes. This was a statue of the god Helios that stood over 100 toes tall, on the Greek island of Rhodes. New York’s Statue of Liberty was designed to have comparable dimensions. The Emma Lazarus poem that’s inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is in truth titled “The New Colossus”. We get our adjective “colossal”, that means “of exceptional size”, from “colossus”.

6 Food additive : MSG

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the sodium salt of a naturally-occurring,non-essential amino acid referred to as glutamic acid. It is used broadly as a taste enhancer, significantly in lots of Asian cuisines. Whether or not it’s dangerous appears to be nonetheless beneath debate. I say that one thing produced in a take a look at tube shouldn’t be in our meals …

8 Snack with a rock climber on its wrapper : CLIF BAR

A CLIF Bar is an vitality bar, and is the flagship product of Clif Bar and Company based mostly in Emeryville, California. The CLIF Bar was developed by baker and former mountain information Gary Erickson in 1990. He named it for his father Clifford.

11 Second place : SILVER

In the Ancient Olympic Games, the winner of an occasion was awarded an olive wreath. When the video games had been revived in 1896, the winners had been initially given a silver medal and an olive department, with runners-up receiving a bronze medal and a laurel department. The custom of giving gold, silver and bronze medals started on the 1904 Summer Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri.

12 Letters in a tab : HTTP

“http” are the primary letters in lots of Internet hyperlinks. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More safe and “safer” web sites (like this one!) use hyperlinks beginning with “https”, which stands for “http secure”).

13 Place for a plant : SILL

“Sill plate”, or just “sill”, is an architectural time period describing a backside horizontal member to which vertical members are connected. Window sills and door sills are particular sill plates discovered on the bottoms of home windows and door openings.

14 Sculptor Eva who pioneered postminimalism within the Nineteen Sixties : HESSE

Eva Hesse was a German-born, American sculptor related to the postminimal artwork motion of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies. Hesse used supplies comparable to latex, fiberglass and plastic in her sculptures. Some of those supplies don’t maintain up effectively over time, and so a few of her works have misplaced their form and are now not appropriate for exhibition.

22 King Kong or Kanzi : APE

1933’s “King Kong” actually is a basic. It stars Fay Wray because the younger girl (Ann Darrow) with whom Kong falls in love. Wray was very within the position as she was advised that she could be enjoying reverse the “tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood”. She thought it is likely to be Clark Gable. At least, that’s how the story goes …

Kanzi is a celebrated male bonobo that displays superior use of language. When he was eight years previous, he was studied by researchers alongside a two-year-old human baby over a interval of 9 months. Both topics got 660 verbal directions. The human baby responded accurately to 65 % of the directions, and Kanzi responded accurately to 74 %.

24 “__ Outspoken: My Life in the News”: 2012 memoir : RATHER

Journalist and former information anchor Dan Rather is from Texas, and commenced his profession as a reporter for the Associated Press in Huntsville, Texas. Rather was the person chosen to interchange Walter Cronkite as anchor and Managing Editor of “CBS Evening News” when Cronkite retired in 1981.

26 Long experience : LIMO

The phrase “limousine” derives from the title of the French metropolis of Limoges. The space round Limoges is named the Limousin, and it gave its title to a cloak hood worn by native shepherds. In early motor automobiles, a driver would sit outdoors within the climate whereas the passengers would sit within the coated compartment. The driver would usually put on a limousin-style protecting hood, giving rise to that kind of transportation being referred to as a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes …

28 Main ingredient of zongzi : RICE

Zongzi is a rice dish from conventional Chinese delicacies. It consists of glutinous rice full of a candy, savory or impartial filling, and wrapped in bamboo leaves. They might also be referred to as sticky rice dumplings.

29 Use a joystick, maybe : STEER

In an airplane, a joystick is the management system that operates the elevators and the ailerons. The phrase “joystick” additionally describes any management stick able to shifting in two or extra instructions. The time period originated as aviator slang within the early 1900s.

31 Quality assurance : ACID TEST

Gold is a metallic chemical component with the image “Au”. It is extraordinarily unreactive. Silver and different base metals dissolve in nitric acid, and so testing an unknown pattern with nitric acid can verify the presence of gold. This assaying apply gave rise to the figurative use of the time period “acid test” to explain any definitive take a look at.

36 Illustrator Dustin who gained an Eisner Award for “Descender” : NGUYEN

Dustin Nguyen is an illustrator of comedian books. He gained the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist for his work on the Image Comic sequence “Descender” written by Jeff Lemire.

44 Diagnosis which may be accommodated with an IEP : ADHD

The “official” title for the situation we generally nonetheless seek advice from as “attention deficit disorder” (ADD) is “attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder” (ADHD).

An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a doc created for any baby in a public college who has particular schooling wants.

45 With 42-Across, floor for shavasana : YOGA …
[42A See 45-Down : … MAT]

In yoga, shavasana is a pose (asana) that’s usually used on the finish of the session for rest. It is named corpse pose in English.

47 Gig fraction : BYTE

In the world of computing, a bit is the fundamental unit of data. It has a worth of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small assortment of “bits” (normally 8), the variety of bits wanted to uniquely establish a personality of textual content. The prefix mega- stands for 10 to the facility of 6, so a megabyte (meg) is 1,000,000 bytes. The prefix giga- means 10 to the facility of 9, and so a gigabyte (gig) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Well, these are the SI definitions of megabyte and gigabyte. The purists nonetheless use 2 to the facility of 20 for a megabyte (i.e. 1,048,576), and a couple of to the facility of 30 for a gigabyte.

50 Two out of 9? : ENS

There are two letters N (ens) within the phrase “nine”.

51 Polo, e.g. : TOP

René Lacoste was a French tennis participant who went into the clothes enterprise, and got here up with a extra snug shirt that gamers may use. This grew to become referred to as a “tennis shirt”. When it was adopted to be used within the sport of polo, the shirts additionally grew to become referred to as “polo shirts”. The “golf shirt” is principally the identical factor. The Lacoste line of clothes incorporates a crocodile emblem, as a result of René was nicknamed “The Crocodile”.

52 Korean for “kick” : TAE

Tae kwon do is the nationwide sport of Korea. “Tae” means “to strike or break with foot”; “kwon” means “to strike or break with fist”; “do” means “way” or “art”. Along with judo, tae kwon do is one in every of solely two martial arts included within the Olympic Games.

The put up LA Times Crossword 17 Dec 22, Saturday appeared first on LAXCrossword.com.

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