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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Charlie Chaplin persona : TRAMP

Charlie Chaplin earned the nickname “The Tramp” (also “Little Tramp”) from the much-loved character that he frequently played on the screen. Chaplin was much-respected as a performer. The great George Bernard Shaw referred to him as “the only genius to come out of the movie industry”.

13 Knight shtick? : HONOR

A shtick is a routine, a bit, a piece of entertainment. The term comes from the Yiddish “shtick”, which has the same meaning and derives from the Middle High German word “stücke”, the word for “piece”.

14 Reaction to an unexpected bit of humor : SPIT-TAKE

The comic maneuver in which someone spits out a drink in response to a joke or a surprising statement, that’s called a “spit-take”.

15 Wonderland directive : EAT ME

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Alice follows the white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds a bottle labeled “DRINK ME”. When she drinks the contents, it causes her to shrink. She also sees a cake adorned with the words “EAT ME” written using currants, and when she eats the cake she grows so big she finds it hard to stand up. After eating the cake, she utters the words, “Curiouser and curiouser”.

18 Subjected to a waiting game, militarily : SIEGED

Our word “siege” comes from a 13th-century word for a “seat”. The military usage derives from the concept of a besieging force “sitting down” outside a fortress until it falls.

24 Frasier’s brother on “Frasier” : NILES

In the sitcom “Frasier”, Niles is the brother of the title character Frasier Crane. Frasier is played by Kelsey Grammer and Niles is played by David Hyde Pierce. Frasier was originally intended to be an only child in the show’s storyline, but the producers decided to add a brother when they noted the remarkable similarity in appearance between David Hyde Pierce and Kelsey Grammer.

25 Where hips do lie : ROSE BED

The fruit of the rose plant is known as the rose hip or rose haw. I remember drinking rose hip syrup when I was a kid …

32 Upton Sinclair novel that inspired the film “There Will Be Blood” : OIL

Upton Sinclair was a prolific American author, with almost 100 books to his name. Sinclair’s most famous work is probably “The Jungle”, a 1906 novel about the meatpacking industry. Revelations in “The Jungle” contributed to the Meat Inspection Act being passed by Congress a few months after the book was published. Sinclair also wrote “Oil”, published in 1927, which was the basis of the 2007 film “There Will Be Blood” that stars Daniel Day-Lewis.

42 Journeys of escape : HEGIRAS

“Hijra” (also “Hegira”) is an Arabic word meaning migration or flight. In the Islamic tradition, “Hijra” is the name given to the journey of Muhammad with his followers from Mecca to Medina, a journey necessitated by a threat to assassinate the prophet.

43 Singer Washington or Shore : DINAH

“Dinah Washington” was the stage name of the blues and jazz singer Ruth Lee Jones. She was also known as the “Queen of the Blues”, a title that Washington awarded herself.

Dinah Shore had a lot of success as a singer in the forties and fifties in the Big Band Era, and then in the sixties as a hostess of variety programs on television. Shore was also a big fan of golf, both as a player and a spectator. She founded the Colgate Dinah Shore golf tournament which is now the Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the four majors on the LPGA Tour.

52 ___ Locks, connection between Lake Superior and Lake Huron : SOO

In the summer of 2010, I spent a very interesting afternoon watching ships make their way through the Soo Locks and Soo Canals between Lake Superior and the lower Great lakes. The name “Soo” comes from the US and Canadian cities on either side of the locks, both called Sault Ste. Marie.

Down

1 Network on which “Gossip Girl” aired : THE CW

The WB Television Network was launched in 1995 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. Entertainment and Tribune Broadcasting. The WB (for “Warner Bros.”) was shut down in 2006 and replaced by the CW (for “CBS” and “Warner Bros.”).

2 Exterminator’s target : ROACH

The insect known as a cockroach is closely related to the termite. Although generally considered a pest, the lowly cockroach has at least one claim to fame. A cockroach named Nadezhda was sent into space in 2007 by Russian scientists, where it became the first terrestrial creature to give birth in space. Nadezhda bore 33 cockroaches.

3 Snack made with celery sticks, peanut butter and raisins : ANTS ON A LOG

Ants on a log is a snack food prepared by spreading something like peanut butter or cream cheese on celery and placing raisins on top. If you leave out the raisins, the snack becomes “ants on vacation”.

4 Band-Aid applier, perhaps : MOM

“Band-Aid” is a brand name owned by Johnson & Johnson, although like many popular brands “band-aid” has become the generic term for an adhesive bandage, at least here in North America. The generic term we use in Britain and Ireland for the same product is “plaster” …

8 QB stat: Abbr. : ATT

In football, one statistic (stat) used to track the performance of a quarterback (QB) is attempts (ATT).

11 They’re small and plucked : UKES

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

12 Philippine money : PESO

The writing on bank notes in the Philippines used to be in English, so the national currency was recorded as the “peso”. Since 1967 the language on the notes has been Filipino, and now the name of the currency is written as “piso”.

14 Beehive State flower : SEGO

The sego lily is the state flower of Utah. It is a perennial plant found throughout the Western United States.

When Mormon pioneers were settling what is today the state of Utah, they referred to the area as Deseret, a word that means “beehive” according to the Book of Mormon. Today Utah is known as the Beehive State and there is a beehive symbol on the Utah state flag. In 1959, “Industry” was even chosen as the state motto, for the term’s association with the beehive.

16 Classic pickup lines, familiarly : REOS

Pickup trucks are probably so called because they can be used to “pick up” bulky items from say a store, and then deliver them elsewhere. Here in North America, we call a pickup with four rear wheels (instead of two) a “dually”, a colloquial term. A dually can carry more weight on the rear axle than a regular pickup.

22 “Some rise by ___, and some by virtue fall”: Shak. : SIN

“Measure for Measure” is one of William Shakespeare’s plays, ostensibly a comedy. The title “Measure for Measure” is actually a quotation from the Bible found in the Gospel According to Luke.

28 Tanners’ stock : DYES

Leather is made from animal skins. When the flesh, fat and hair is removed from the skin and it is dried, the resulting product is rawhide. Further treatment of the skin with chemicals that permanently alter the protein structure of the skin is known as tanning, and the resulting product is leather.

29 Glam : POSH

No one really knows the etymology of the word “posh”. The popular myth that “posh” is actually an acronym standing for “port out, starboard home” is completely untrue, and is a story that can actually be traced back to the 1968 movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. The myth is that wealthy British passengers traveling to and from India would book cabins on the port side for the outward journey and the starboard side for the home journey. This trick was supposedly designed to keep their cabins out of the direct sunlight.

30 Some epizoa : LICE

Lice (singular “louse”) are small wingless insects, of which there are thousands of species. There are three species of lice affecting humans, i.e. head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Most lice feed on dead skin found on the body of the host animal, although some feed on blood. Ick …

31 Isaac Newton or Elton John, but not Olivia Newton-John : SIR

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most influential people in history, and the man who laid the groundwork for all of classical mechanics. The story about an apple falling on his head, inspiring him to formulate his theories about gravity, well that’s not quite true. Newton often told the story about observing an apple falling in his mother’s garden and how this made him acutely aware of the Earth’s gravitational pull. However, he made no mention of the apple hitting him on the head.

Elton John’s real name is Reginald Dwight. Sir Elton was knighted in 1998, not for his music per se, but for his charitable work. He founded his own Elton John AIDS Foundation back in 1992.

Olivia Newton-John was an Australian singer and actress, although she was born in Cambridge, England. Newton-John’s father was an officer in the British Security Services and worked on the Enigma code-breaking project during WWII. Through her mother, Olivia was also the granddaughter of Max Born, the atomic physicist and Nobel Prize winner.

37 Tear with gusto : RIP OPEN

“Gusto” is an Italian word meaning “taste”. We use it in English in the phrase “with gusto” meaning “with great enjoyment”.

38 French wine designation : CRU

“Cru” is a term used in the French wine industry that means “growth place”. So, “cru” is the name of the location where the grapes are grown, as opposed to the name of a specific vineyard. The terms “premier cru” and “grand cru” are also used, but the usage depends on the specific wine region. Generally it is a classification awarded to specific vineyards denoting their potential for producing great wines. “Grand cru” is reserved for the very best vineyards, with “premier cru” the level just below.

40 Truffula forest logger in “The Lorax” : ONCE-LER

The Once-ler is the antagonist in the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax”.

“The Lorax” is a 1971 children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. It is an allegorical work questioning the problems created by industrialization, and in particular its impact on the environment. At one point in the story, the Lorax “speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues”. “The Lorax” was adapted into an animated film that was released in 2012, with Danny DeVito voicing the title character.

He was shortish, and oldish, and brownish and mossy. And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy.

41 Foreign title with a tilde : SAO

In Portuguese, the word “são” can mean “saint”, as in São Paulo (Saint Paul) and São José (Saint Joseph). If the saint’s name starts with a letter H or with a vowel, then the word “santo” is used instead, as in Santo Agostinho (Saint Augustine) and Santo Antônio (Saint Anthony).

45 Disney’s ___ of Arendelle : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Spoiler alert: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles seems to be a good guy for most of the film, but turns out to be a baddie in the end. And, a snowman named Olaf provides some comic relief.

48 Española, por ejemplo : ISLA

The island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, shared between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is known in Spanish as “La Española”.

50 Variable in the Schrödinger equation : TIME

The Schrödinger equation has been described as the most fundamental equation in quantum mechanics. As I understand it, a Schrödinger equation describes how subatomic particles behave. The equation was proposed by Austrian-Irish physicist Erwin Shrödinger in 1925, and earned Shrödinger the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

54 Hit TV series with three spinoffs : CSI

The “CSI” franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, and seems to really have legs. “CSI: Miami” (the “worst” of the franchise, I think) was canceled in 2012 after ten seasons. “CSI: NY” (the “best” of the franchise) was canceled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” was set in Las Vegas, and hung in there until 2015 when it ended with a two-hour TV movie. Then there was “CSI: Cyber”. It lasted for two seasons, before being canceled in 2016. “CSI: Vegas”, a sequel to the original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, launched in 2021.

56 Suffix with oct- : -ANE

The difference between a premium and regular gasoline is its octane rating. This is a measure of the resistance of the gasoline to auto-ignition i.e. its resistance to ignition just by virtue of being compressed in the cylinder. This auto-ignition is undesirable as multiple-cylinder engines are designed so that ignition within each cylinder takes place precisely when the plug sparks, and not before. If ignition occurs before the spark is created, the resulting phenomenon is called “knocking”. We sometimes use the adjective “high-octane” to mean “intense, dynamic, high-powered”