letter_trainer_0_3 Flashcards
R_E
RAE. Charlotte Rae is an American actress, best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called ‘Edna’s Edibles’.
S_L
SNL. NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to pull together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.
ES_
ESP. Extra Sensory Perception (ESP).
O_LO
OSLO. Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city of Oslo burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.
E_P
ESP. Especially (esp.)
E_EN
EDEN. In the Christian tradition, the ‘fall of man’ took place in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, against the bidding of God. As a result, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden to prevent them becoming immortal by eating from the tree of life. The first humans had transitioned from a state of innocent obedience to a state of guilty disobedience.
AL_
ALE. The brand most closely associated with ginger ale is Canada Dry. “Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale” was first formulated in 1904 by a Canadian chemist called John McLoughlin from Ontario. Prohibition in the United States helped sales of the drink as it was particularly effective in masking the taste of illegally-produced homemade liquor.
E_EN
EDEN. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve lived in a garden “in” Eden, with Eden being geographically located by reference to four rivers including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Some scholars hypothesize that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, which encompasses much of modern-day Iraq.
E_S
ELS. The Chicago “L” is the second largest rapid transit system in the US, with the New York City Subway being the largest. The “L” is also the second oldest, again with the New York City Subway system having the honor of being around the longest. Note that the official nickname for the system is the “L” (originally short for “elevated railroad”), although the term “El” is also in common use (especially in crosswords as “ELS”). The L is managed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
_LI
ALI. Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. He changed his name to Muhammed Ali when he converted to Islam in 1964. Who can forget Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame for the 1996 games in Atlanta? Ali won a gold medal in the 1960 games, which he threw into the Ohio River after being refused service at a “whites only” restaurant. He was presented with a replacement medal during the 1996 Games.
ARI_
ARIA. Andrea Bocelli is a classically-trained tenor who sings popular music, a so-called cross-over artist. Bocelli was born with poor eyesight and then became totally blind at the age of 12 when he had an accident playing soccer.
_NA
RNA. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by what is called transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA.
AR_
ARI. Aristotle Onassis was born to a successful Greek shipping entrepreneur in Smyrna in modern-day Turkey. However, his family lost its fortune during WWI and so Aristotle worked with his father to build up a new business empire centered on the importation of tobacco. In 1957, Aristotle founded the Greek national airline, what is today called Olympic Air, and he also got into the business of shipping oil around the world. He married Athina Livanos in 1946, the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate. They couple had two children together, with one being the famous Christina Onassis. Livanos divorced Onassis on discovering him in bed with the opera singer Maria Callas. Onassis ended his affair with Callas in order to marry Jackie Kennedy in 1968.
_NS
ENS. Ensign is (usually) the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the armed forces. The name comes from the tradition that the junior officer would be given the task of carrying the ensign flag.
_EE
LEE. The Lee company famous for making jeans was formed in 1889, by one Henry David Lee in Salina, Kansas.
EN_
ENS. 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. Th 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!
AL_
ALE. “Quaff” is both a verb and a noun. One quaffs (takes a hearty drink) of a quaff (a hearty drink).
A_E
ABE. President Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in Kentucky. The young Lincoln was given no middle name, and “Abraham” was chosen in honor of his paternal grandfather. Grandfather Abraham Lincoln was a captain in the militia during the American Revolution, and one of the pioneers who settled what is now the state of Kentucky.
IR_
IRA. Ira Berkow is a sports reporter and writer.
ER_
ERA. Earned run average (ERA)
E_A
ETA. A Global Positioning System (GPS) provides an estimated time of arrival (ETA).
A_A
ANA. Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city.
_RIE
ERIE. Cleveland, Ohio was named after the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.
OS_O
OSLO. The 1952 Winter Olympic Games took place in Oslo, Norway. One of the firsts at the 1952 games was the first use of a purpose-built athletes’ village. The 1952 Games also marked the return of Japan and Germany to the Olympic family after being excluded from the 1948 games following WWII.
ER_
ERA. Earned run average (ERA)
_LS
ELS. The Chicago “L” is the second largest rapid transit system in the US, with the New York City Subway being the largest. It is also the second oldest, again with the New York Subway system having the honor of being around the longest. Note that the official nickname for the system is the “L” (originally short for “elevated railroad”), although the term “El” is also in common use. (especially in crosswords as “ELS”). The L is managed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
A_I
ALI. The boxer Muhammad Ali was classified as ineligible for the draft in 1964 due to poor writing and spelling skills. The standards were lowered in 1965, and Ali was notified in 1966 that he was eligible to serve in the US Armed Forces. When notified as such, Ali publicly declared himself a conscientious objector on religious grounds. Ali was in fact drafted and refused to serve in 1967. At that point his boxing license was suspended and he was stripped of his World Heavyweight title. Ali was convicted for refusing to to report for induction during the Vietnam War. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court reversed the decision to convict on the grounds that the government had failed to properly specify why Ali’s application for conscientious objector classification had been denied.
L_D
LSD. The drug LSD is often sold impregnated into blotter paper. The paper blotter is usually divided into squares with ¼-inch sides, with each square referred to as a ‘tab’.
_NL
SNL. NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to pull together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he come up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.
E_S
ENS. Ensign is (usually) the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the armed forces. The name comes from the tradition that the junior officer would be given the task of carrying the ensign flag.
A_I
ARI. Aristotle Onassis was born to a successful Greek shipping entrepreneur in Smyrna in modern-day Turkey. However, his family lost its fortune during WWI and so Aristotle worked with his father to build up a new business empire centered on the importation of tobacco. In 1957, Aristotle founded the Greek national airline, what is today called Olympic Air, and he also got into the business of shipping oil around the world. He married Athina Livanos in 1946, the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate. They couple had two children together, with one being the famous Christina Onassis. Livanos divorced Onassis on discovering him in bed with the opera singer Maria Callas. Onassis ended his affair with Callas in order to marry Jackie Kennedy in 1968.
_TE
STE. Sainte-Adèle is a municipality located about 70 kilometres northwest of Montreal in Quebec. The town was really built on the back of the skiing and tourism industries, with the first ski area opening up in 1914.
E_A
ERA. Era was the first liquid laundry detergent produced by Procter & Gamble.
_SLO
OSLO. Oslo, the capital of Norway, is an ancient city that was founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV and renamed to Christiana. In 1877 there was an official change of the spelling of the city’s name to “Kristiana”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have almost gone full circle and now the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, has apparently been renamed to Christiana.
_IO
RIO. The 2011 animated movie ‘Rio’ takes its name from the setting of the story, Rio de Janeiro.
ON_
ONO. Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Ono’s father moved around the world for work and Yoko lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII. There Yoko lived through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.
T_T
TNT. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner are two much-loved cartoon characters from Warner Bros. Wile E. Coyote was created first, and Road Runner was invented as someone for Wile E. to play off. I love this cartoon; definitely one of the best …
E_IE
ERIE. The Beaver Wars fought in the middle of the 1600s were the result of the Iroquois expanding their territory in the northeastern part of North America. The Iroquois were largely incited to take such steps by their trading partners, the Dutch and English, who profited from the gains in territory. On the losing side of the expansion were the Huron, Neutral, Erie and Susquehannock tribes.
EP_E
EPEE. ‘En garde’ is a French term that has been absorbed into the sport of fencing. Originally a warning ‘on guard!’, it is spoken at the start of an encounter to warn the fencers to take a defensive position.
E_U
EMU. The emu has had a tough time in Australia since man settled there. There was even an “Emu War” in Western Australia in 1932 when migrating emus competed with livestock for water and food. Soldiers were sent in and used machine guns in an unsuccessful attempt to drive off the “invading force”. The emus were clever, breaking their usual formation and adopting guerrilla tactics, operating as smaller units. After 50 days of “war”, the military withdrew. Subsequent requests for military help for the farmers were ignored. The emus had emerged victorious …
LE_
LEE. Edgar Lee Masters was a poet and biographer from Kansas. His best known collection of poems is ‘Spoon River Anthology’, which was first published in 1915. He also wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.
SN_
SNL. NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, under the title “NBC’s Saturday night”. The show was created in the first place in order to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. In those days, “The Tonight Show” has a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday episodes and hold them for weeknights in which Carson was taking a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to pull together a variety show to fill the vacant slot.
_LI
ALI. ‘Ali’ is a 2001 biographical movie about Muhammad Ali, with Will Smith in the title role. Among other things, the film is noted for its realistic fight scenes. The scenes were realistic because Smith was really being hit, as hard as his opponents could manage.
ET_
ETE. In French, spring (printemps) is followed by summer (été).
E_A
EPA. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno composed the music for the 2009 film “The Lovely Bones”.
O_O
ONO. Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Her father moved around the world for work, and she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, before moving on to New York, Hanoi, and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war, the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.
AN_
ANN. Ann Rule is a true crime writer, who comes from a crime-fighting family with sheriffs, a medical examiner and a prosecutor around her as she grew up. She started off writing with a male pen name (Andy Stack) as it was perceived that she would have more success in the genre, after a virtual “sex change”.
_SLO
OSLO. Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city of Oslo burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.
_LE
ALE. A stein is a type of beer glass. The term is German in origin, and is short for ‘Steinkrug’ meaning ‘stone jug’. ‘Stein’ is the German for ‘stone’.
EP_E
EPEE. The original pentathlon of the ancient Olympic games consisted of a foot race, wrestling, long jump, javelin and discus. When a new pentathlon was created as a sport for the modern Olympic Games, it was given the name the “modern pentathlon”. First introduced in 1912, the modern pentathlon consists of:
_RA
ERA. 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.
ET_
ETE. One might spend the summer (été) under the sun (le soleil) in France, and “juillet” is French for July (note that the name of months aren’t capitalized in French).
ER_S
EROS. 433 Eros is the second-largest of the near-Earth asteroids, with 1036 Ganymed being the largest. The NASA spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker went into orbit around Eros in 2000, and then landed on the asteroid in 2001. That makes Eros the first asteroid orbited and soft-landed on by a spacecraft.
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, Eno’s most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up. Eno might have annoyed the Microsoft folks when he stated on a BBC radio show:
AN_
ANA. All Nippon Airways (ANA) is a Japanese airline, second in size only to Japan Airlines (JAL).
LE_
LEE. Lee Majors plays Steve Austin, the title character on the sci-fi show from the seventies called ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’. The series is based on a 1972 novel called ‘Cyborg’.
E_O
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, Eno’s most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up. Eno might have annoyed the Microsoft folks when he stated on a BBC radio show:
ON_
ONO. Yoko Ono is an avant-garde artist. Ono actually met her future husband John Lennon for the first time while she was preparing her conceptual art exhibit called ‘Hammer a Nail’. Visitors were encouraged to hammer in a nail into a wooden board, creating the artwork. Lennon wanted to hammer in the first nail, but Ono stopped him as the exhibition had not yet opened. Apparently Ono relented when Lennon paid her an imaginary five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail into the wood.
_RIA
ARIA. The La Scala Opera House opened in 1778. It was built on the site of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which gave the theater its name, “Teatro alla Scala” in Italian.
R_O
RIO. The Rio casino in Las Vegas was opened in 1990, originally targeting the local population as it is located off the famous Strip where most of the tourists hang out. Famously, the Rio opened up the adults-only Sapphire Pool in 2008, a pay-to-enter (only men paid) topless pool club that featured music and dancers. A year later the Sapphire Pool was closed down after there were eleven arrests for drugs and prostitution offences during an undercover police operation.
AL_
ALI. “Love Story” was released in 1970, and has to be one of the most romantic films of all time. The film stars Ryan O’Neill and Ali McGraw, with the screenplay written by Erich Segal. Erich Segal wrote a the novel “Love Story” after the screenplay, and as the novel was published before the film was released, there’s a popular misconception that the movie is based on the book. If you watch “Love Story” anytime soon, keep an eye out for Tommy Lee Jones who has a small role, his film debut.
_TE
ETE. In French, ‘été’ (summer) is ‘la saison chaude’ (the warm season).
_BE
ABE. Before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, his political campaign used the nick-name “the Rail-Splitter” to emphasize his humble upbringing. Lincoln has worked at splitting fence rails in his youth.
A_A
ANA. The Santa Ana winds are the very dry air currents that sweep offshore late in the year in Southern California. Because these air currents are so dry, they are noted for their influence over forest fires in the area, especially in the heat of the fall. The winds arise from a buildup of air pressure in the Great Basin that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Under the right conditions, that air spills over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada and basically “falls” down the side of the Sierra range, heading for the ocean. As the air falls it becomes drier and heats up so that relative humidity can fall to below 10% by the time it hits the coast.
AL_
ALI. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had three memorable fights. The first was billed as the “Fight of the Century” and took place in 1971 in Madison Square Garden. It was a fight between two great boxers, both of whom were undefeated up till that point. Frazier won in a unanimous decision after fifteen rounds. A couple of years later, in 1973, Frazier lost his title to George Foreman. Ali and Frazier had a non-title rematch in 1974, with Ali coming out ahead this time, also in a unanimous decision. Later that year, Ali grabbed back the World Heavyweight Title in “The Rumble in the Jungle”, the famous “rope-a-dope” fight against George Foreman. That set the stage for the third and final fight between Ali and Frazier, “The Thrilla in Manila”. Ali won the early rounds, but Frazier made a comeback in the middle of the fight. Ali took control at the end of the bout, so much so that Frazier wasn’t able to come out of his corner for the 15th and final round. He couldn’t come out of his corner because both of his eyes were swollen shut, giving Ali a victory due to a technical knockout (TKO).
A_A
ANA. The Santa Ana winds are the very dry air currents that sweep offshore late in the year in Southern California. Because these air currents are so dry, they are noted for their influence over forest fires in the area, especially in the heat of the fall. The winds arise from a buildup of air pressure in the Great Basin that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Under the right conditions, that air spills over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada and basically “falls” down the side of the Sierra range, heading for the ocean. As the air falls it becomes drier and heats up so that relative humidity can fall to below 10% by the time it hits the coast.
EL_
ELI. In the Bible, Eli is a High Priest of Shiloh, and the teacher of Samuel. As such, his story is told in the Book of Samuel.
A_E
ABE. There is a story that just before Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, he received a letter from a 12-year-old girl who criticized Lincoln’s appearance and his pock-marked, gaunt face. The little girl, Grace Bedell from New York, promised to get her brothers to vote for Lincoln if he would just grow a beard. However, Lincoln waited until after the election to grow his famous whiskers, a distinctive look that would forever be associated with his presidency.
_RI
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.
AN_
ANA. Ana Ivanovic is a Serbian tennis player, and former world number one. As well as playing tennis, she also studies finance at university in her native Belgrade.
E_EN
EDEN. In the Christian tradition, the ‘fall of man’ took place in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, against the bidding of God. As a result, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden to prevent them becoming immortal by eating from the tree of life. The first humans had transitioned from a state of innocent obedience to a state of guilty disobedience.
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, his most oft played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system starts up.
E_E
ETE. One might spend the summer (été) under the sun (le soleil).
AR_
ARI. Ari Shapiro is the very able White House correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR).
_LS
ELS. Ernie Els is a South African golfer. Els a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. He has a child who suffers from autism and so Els has been very effective in raising money for charities that focus on the condition.
LS_
LSD. LSD (colloquially known as ‘acid’) is short for lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist called Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …
AR_
ARI. The Arizona Diamondbacks joined Major League Baseball’s National League in 1998. By winning the World Series in 2001, the Diamondbacks became the fastest expansion team to do so in Major League history.
R_O
RIO. Ipanema is a beach community in the south of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The name Ipanema is a local word meaning ‘bad water’, signifying that the shore is bad for fishing. The beach became famous on release of the song ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ written in 1965.
_NO
ENO. Brian Eno is a musician, composer and record producer from England who first achieved fame as the synthesizer player with Roxy Music. As a producer, Eno has worked with David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2.
EP_
EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set up during the Nixon administration and began operation at the end of 1970.
_RA
IRA. I have to tell you, when I first came to the US from Ireland, it was pretty confusing seeing big signs along the freeway advocating IRA contributions. Back in Ireland, that was pretty illegal (where IRA stands for the outlawed Irish Republican Army!).
ST_
STE. Sault Ste. Marie is the name of two cities on either side of the Canada-US border, one in Ontario and the other in Michigan. The two cities were originally one settlement in the 17th century, established by Jesuit Missionaries. The missionaries gave the settlement the name ‘Sault Sainte Marie’, which can be translated as ‘Saint Mary’s Falls’. The city was one community until 1817, when a US-UK Joint Boundary Commission set the border along the St. Mary’s River.
RA_
RAE. John Rae was a Scottish explorer, who took on the task of searching for the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. The Franklin Expedition was itself searching for the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. John Rae stirred up much controversy back in England when he reported evidence of cannibalism among the ill-fated Franklin explorers.
_DE
ODE. John Keats wrote a whole series of odes in 1819, including the very famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, “Ode to Psyche” and “Ode to a Nightingale”.
E_P
ESP. Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
E_A
ERA. Discotheques started up during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.
E_I
ELI. Eli Manning plays as quarterback for the New York Giants. Eli’s brother Peyton Manning is quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Eli and Peyton’s father is Archie Manning, who was also a successful NFL quarterback.
_LS
ELS. ‘Els’ are elevated trains.
ER_
ERA. The Reconstruction Era followed the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. Reconstruction ended in 1877 when President Rutherford B. Hayes removed the last federal troops from the capitals of the Reconstruction states soon after taking office.
E_E
ETE. In French, the longest days (journées) are in summer (été).
E_A
ERA. Geological time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:
_SP
ESP. Extrasensory perception (ESP)
ERO_
EROS. As always seem to be the case, the Greek gods Eros and Aphrodite have overlapping spheres of influence. Aphrodite was the goddess of love between a man and a woman, but Eros was the god who stirred the passions of the male.
ET_
ETE. Giverny is a commune in northern France, most famous as the location of artist Claude Monet’s home. It was in Giverny that Monet painted his famous ‘Water Lilies’.
_NA
RNA. A virus is an infective agent, composed of RNA protected by a coating of protein. A viroid is a smaller pathogen, also composed of RNA, but without the protection of proteins.
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno was one of the pioneers of the ‘ambient’ genre of music. Eno composed an album in 1978 called ‘Ambient 1: Music for Airports’, the first in a series of four albums with an ambient theme. Eno named the tracks somewhat inventively: 1/1, 2/1, 2/1 and 2/2.
E_EN
EDEN. In the Christian tradition, ‘original sin’ is the state of sin that exists in all humanity as a result of Adam’s first disobedience in the Garden of Eden. According to the Roman Catholic faith, three people were born without original sin: the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and John the Baptist.
E_S
ENS. There are two letters N (ens) in the name ‘Annie’.
_SLO
OSLO. The Storting is the Norwegian parliament, located in the capital of Oslo. The Storting differs in structure from say the US Congress and the British Parliament in that is “unicameral”, has only one legislative chamber.
ET_
ETE. Georges Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist. His most famous work, in the pointillist style, can be viewed in the Art Institute of Chicago, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884”. If you’ve seen the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, it features quite prominently in a wonderful, wonderful scene shot at the gallery.
A_E
ABE. The US five-dollar bill is often called an ‘Abe’, as President Lincoln’s portrait is on the front. An Abe is also referred to as a ‘fin’, a term that has been used for a five-pound note in Britain since 1868.
AN_
ANA. An ana (or plural anas) is a collection, including literature, that represent the character of a particular place or a person. Ana can be used as a noun, or as a suffix.
AN_
ANA. Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city. The Santa Ana winds are the very dry air currents that sweep offshore late in the year in Southern California. Because these air currents are so dry, they are noted for their influence over forest fires in the area, especially in the heat of the fall. The winds arise from a buildup of air pressure in the Great Basin that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Under the right conditions, that air spills over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada and basically “falls” down the side of the Sierra range, heading for the ocean. As the air falls it becomes drier and heats up so that relative humidity can fall to below 10% by the time it hits the coast.
EL_
ELI. Eli is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.
ERI_
ERIE. Lake Erie is the second smallest of the Great Lakes (after Lake Ontario). The lake takes its name from the Erie tribe of Native Americans that used to live along its southern shore. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, something for which nearby residents must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to the lake effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.
ERI_
ERIE. The Battle of Lake Erie was fought during the War of 1812 just off the Ohio coast. The outcome of the action was a defeat for the British and American control of Lake Erie for the remainder of the war.
N_A
NRA. National Rifle Association (NRA)
_RA
IRA. Ira Gershwin was a lyricist who worked with his brother George to create such American classics as the songs “I Got Rhythm” and “Someone to Watch Over Me”, as well as the opera “Porgy and Bess”. After George Gershwin died, Ira continued to create great music, working with the likes of Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.
EM_
EMU. Emu eggs are very large, with a thick shell that is dark-green in color. One emu egg weighs about the same as a dozen chicken eggs.
E_EE
EPEE. The épée that is used in today’s sport fencing is derived from the old French dueling sword. In fact, the the sport of épée fencing is very similar to the dualing of the 19th century. The word ‘épée’ translates from French as ‘sword’.
ST_
STE. Sault Ste. Marie is the name of two cities on either side of the Canada-US border, one in Ontario and the other in Michigan. The two cities were originally one settlement in the 17th century, established by Jesuit Missionaries. The missionaries gave the settlement the name ‘Sault Sainte Marie’, which can be translated as ‘Saint Mary’s Falls’. The city was one community until 1817, when a US-UK Joint Boundary Commission set the border along the St. Mary’s River.
E_P
ESP. Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
LE_
LEE. Robert E. Lee is of course renowned as a southern officer in the Civil War. Lee was a somewhat reluctant participant in that he opposed the secession of his home state of Virginia from the Union. At the beginning of the war, President Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the whole Union Army but Lee declined, choosing instead to stay loyal to his home state.
_LI
ALI. The Disney animated feature “Aladdin” was released in 1992 and is one of the best features to come out of the studio, in my opinion, largely due to the great performance by Robin Williams who voiced the Genie. “Aladdin” was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $500 million worldwide, an unusual feat for an animated movie.
O_E
ODE. Pindar was an Ancient Greek poet, best known perhaps for composing a series of Victory Odes that celebrated triumph in competition, most notably the Olympian Games of the day.
R_E
RAE. “Norma Rae” is a 1979 movie starring Sally field, a tale of union activities in a textile factory in Alabama. The film is based on the true story Crystal Lee Sutton told in a 1975 book called “Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance”.
E_E
ETE. Ete, the French word for summer.
A_A
ANA. Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city.
_NT
TNT. 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.
AL_
ALI. The boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he converted to Islam in 1964. Who can forget Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame for the 1996 games in Atlanta?
E_EN
EDEN. In the Christian tradition, the ‘fall of man’ took place in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, against the bidding of God. As a result, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden to prevent them becoming immortal by eating from the tree of life. The first humans had transitioned from a state of innocent obedience to a state of guilty disobedience.
T_T
TNT. 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.
ET_
ETE. In French, one might toast, get overheated, in the ‘été’ (summer).
ET_
ETE. One might spend the summer (été) in Roquefort in France.
E_O
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, his most oft played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up.
AB_
ABE. The US five-dollar bill is often called an ‘Abe’, as President Lincoln’s portrait is on the front. An Abe is also referred to as a ‘fin’, a term that has been used for a five-pound note in Britain since 1868.
O_O
ONO. Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Ono’s father moved around the world for work and Yoko lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII. There Yoko lived through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.
_NT
TNT. TNT is an abbreviation for trinitrotoluene. The explosive chemical was first produced by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand in 1863, who used it 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.
AR_
ARI. Jackie Kennedy Onassis was born into a privileged family, the daughter of Wall Street stock broker John Vernou Bouvier III. Ms. Bouvier moved in the same social circles as the Kennedy clan, and first met the then-US Representative John Kennedy at a dinner party hosted by mutual friends. Years later, after she saw her husband assassinated and then her brother-in-law (Bobby Kennedy) suffer the same fate, Jackie declared that she feared for the life of her children as they bore the Kennedy name. She left the country, eventually meeting and marrying Aristotle Onassis. Reportedly she was very satisfied that the Greek shipping magnate was able to provide privacy and security for her children.
EL_
ELI. 2010’s “The Book of Eli” is one of those “end of the world” type movies, with Denzel Washington playing a tough guy traveling across what is left of the United States after some apocryphal event.
EP_E
EPEE. The épée that is used in today’s sport fencing is derived from the old French dueling sword. In fact, the the sport of épée fencing is very similar to the dualing of the 19th century. The word ‘épée’ translates from French as ‘sword’.
ES_
ESP. Extrasensory perception (ESP)
E_I
ELI. The inventor Eli Whitney is a best known for inventing the cotton gin. Whitney also came up with the important concept of ‘interchangeable parts’. Parts that are interchangeable can be swapped out of equipment or perhaps used in related designs.
_RA
NRA. The National Rifle Association (NRA) used the slogan ‘I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands’. These words became quite famous when they were used at an NRA convention in 2000 by Charlton Heston, who was then president of the NRA. Heston ended a speech he made with the words ‘From my cold, dead hands!’ while holding up into the air a replica of a Sharps rifle.
EL_
ELI. “Eli Stone” was a comedy drama on ABC, that ran for a year and a half on ABC, finishing up in 2009. Eli Stone was played by Jonny Lee Miller. Miller is English actor, ex-husband of Anglina Jolie. I saw him recently play Mr. Knightly in the latest BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma”, the best version of “Emma” that I have seen (and I think I’ve seen them all!).
TN_
TNT. 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.
A_A
ANA. Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city. The Santa Ana winds are the very dry air currents that sweep offshore late in the year in Southern California. Because these air currents are so dry, they are noted for their influence over forest fires in the area, especially in the heat of the fall. The winds arise from a buildup of air pressure in the Great Basin that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Under the right conditions, that air spills over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada and basically “falls” down the side of the Sierra range, heading for the ocean. As the air falls it becomes drier and heats up, so that relative humidity can fall to below 10% by the time it hits the coast.
_RI
ARI. The name ‘Ari’ appears in several languages. In Hebrew ‘ari’ translates as ‘lion’. However, in Azerbaijani ‘ari’ means ‘bee’, in Albanian it means ‘gold’, in German it means ‘eagle’ and in HIndi it means ‘not of sin’.
E_U
EMU. The emu has had a tough time in Australia since man settled there. The aborigines used emus for food and are very adept at hunting them using a variety of traditional techniques. There was even an “Emu War” in Western Australia in 1932 when migrating emus competed with livestock for water and food. Soldiers were sent in using machine guns in an unsuccessful attempt to drive off the emus. The emus were clever, and broke their usual formation and adopted guerrilla tactics, operating as small units. After 50 days of “war”, the military withdrew. Subsequent requests for military help for the farmers were ignored.
_NS
ENS. The bumpers (letters at either end) of the word ‘Nissan’ are two letters N (en).
RA_
RAE. Carly Rae Jepsen is a singer/songwriter from Mission, British Columbia. Jepsen got her start on TV’s ‘Canadian Idol’ when she placed third in the show’s fifth season.
E_A
ETA. Los Angeles International Airport is the sixth busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger traffic, and the busiest here on the West Coast of the US. The airport was opened in 1930 as Mines Field and was renamed to Los Angeles Airport in 1941. On the airport property is the iconic white structure that resembles a flying saucer. This is called the Theme Building and I believe it is mainly used as a restaurant and observation deck for the public. The airport used to be identified by the letters ‘LA’, but when the aviation industry went to a three-letter standard for airport identification, this was changed to ‘LAX’. Apparently the ‘X’ has no significant meaning.
A_E
ALE. The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is powered almost exclusively by solar energy, and even has a charging station for electric vehicles at its brewery. The company also uses the cooking oil from its restaurant as biodiesel for its delivery trucks. Discarded yeast is used to make ethanol fuel, and spent grain is used as food for livestock. For its efforts to preserve the environment, Sierra Nevada won the EPA’s ‘Green Business of the Year’ award for 2010.
OD_
ODE. John Keats is famous for writing a whole series of beautiful odes. The most famous are the so-called ‘1819 Odes’, a collection from the year 1819 that includes famous poems such as ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, “Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Ode to Psyche’.
EN_
ENS. Ensign (ens.)
A_A
ANA. The Santa Ana winds are the very dry air currents that sweep offshore late in the year in Southern California. Because these air currents are so dry, they are noted for their influence over forest fires in the area, especially in the heat of the fall. The winds arise from a buildup of air pressure in the Great Basin that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Under the right conditions, that air spills over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada and basically “falls” down the side of the Sierra range, heading for the ocean. As the air falls it becomes drier and heats up so that relative humidity can fall to below 10% by the time it hits the coast.
E_O
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, his most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up.
AN_
ANA. Ana Alicia is an actress best known for playing Melissa Agretti, the heiress on the TV series “Falcon Crest” in the eighties.
E_S
ENS. Ensign is (usually) the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the armed forces. The name comes from the tradition that the junior officer would be given the task of carrying the ensign flag.
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, his most oft played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you’d hear when the Windows 95 system starts up.
RN_
RNA. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by what is called transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA.
_NO
ONO. Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the Emperors of Japan. Her father moved around the world for work, so she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, then moved onto New York, Hanoi, and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war, the family was far from prosperous. While her father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, Yoko’s mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. But, when her father returned, life started to return to normal. Yoko was able to attend university, and was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.
_NN
ANN. “Ask Ann Landers” was an advice column written by Eppie Lederer from 1995 to 2002. Eppie was the twin sister to Pauline Phillips, the person behind “Dear Abby”. Eppie took over the “Ask Ann Landers” column from Ruth Crowley who started it in 1943.
_PA
EPA. The 1980 law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is more usually referred to as ‘Superfund’. Superfund gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to compel polluters to clean up contaminated sites.
E_S
ELS. Ernie Els is a South African golfer. Els a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. He has a child who suffers from autism and so Els has been very effective in raising money for charities that focus on the condition.
_LI
ELI. “The Book of Eli” is one of those “end of the world” type movies, with Denzel Washington playing a tough guy traveling across what is left of the United States after some apocryphal event.
_SD
LSD. LSD (colloquially known as ‘acid’) is short for lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist called Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …
_RA
NRA. ‘Bowling for Columbine’ is a 2002 documentary written and directed by Michael Moore. The ‘bowling’ name was chosen because there were reports (later shown to be untrue) that the two students who committed the Columbine High School massacre actually attended a bowling class a few hours before carrying out their terrible crime.
AL_
ALI. Ali was the cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as his son-in-law. After Muhammad received his divine revelation, Ali was the first man to convert to Islam.
EL_
ELS. Elevated railroad (El)
E_E
ETE. One might spend the summer (été) under the sun (le soleil) in France.
_RIE
ERIE. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, something for which nearby residents must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to the lake effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.
EN_
ENO. Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, his most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “start-up jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up.
_TE
STE. Sainte-Chapelle is a beautiful Gothic chapel located on the Île de la Cité, the same island in the Seine that is home to Notre-Dame Cathedral. The name ‘Sainte-Chapelle’ is usually translated as ‘Holy Chapel’. The chapel was built in the mid-1200s by Louis IX to house a relic that he believed to be the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus just prior to the Crucifixion.
EM_
EMU. The emu has had a tough time in Australia since man settled there. There was even an “Emu War” in Western Australia in 1932 when migrating emus competed with livestock for water and food. Soldiers were sent in and used machine guns in an unsuccessful attempt to drive off the “invading force”. The emus were clever, breaking their usual formations and adopting guerrilla tactics, operating as smaller units. After 50 days of “war”, the military withdrew. Subsequent requests for military help for the farmers were ignored. The emus had emerged victorious …
EPE_
EPEE. The épée that is used in today’s sport fencing is derived from the old French dueling sword. In fact, the the sport of épée fencing is very similar to the dualing of the 19th century. The word ‘épée’ translates from French as ‘sword’.
_BE
ABE. In “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”, Abe was played by Raymond Massey in the 1940 biopic, a role that he also played in the original Broadway play of the same name. The film also starred Ruth Gordon as Mary Todd Lincoln, her screen debut.
RN_
RNA. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by what is called transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA.
_RIA
ARIA. “Celeste Aida” translates to “Heavenly Aida”, and is an aria from the Verdi opera ‘Aida’.
RA_
RAE. Charlotte Rae is an American actress, best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called ‘Edna’s Edibles’.
LS_
LSD. “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” is a novel by Tom Wolfe, first published in 1968. It tells the story of a group of guys driving across the country in a brightly painted school bus, gaining all kinds of insights with the “benefit” of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Apparently there is a movie adaptation of the novel in the works. Trippy, man …
N_A
NRA. The National Recovery Administration was one of the first agencies set up under President Roosevelt’s New Deal program. On the one hand the NRA help set minimum wages and maximum working hours for workers in industry, and on the other hand it helped set minimum prices for goods produced by companies. The NRA was very popular with the public, and businesses that didn’t opt to participate in the program found themselves boycotted. The NRA didn’t survive for long though, as after two years of operation it was deemed to be unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court and so it ceased operations in 1935.
_LE
ALE. The verb “mug” means to make an exaggerated facial expression. The term comes from mugs used to drink beer (called Toby mugs) that are the made in the shape of heads with grotesque expressions.
L_E
LEE. Robert E. Lee is renowned as a southern officer in the Civil War. Lee was a somewhat reluctant participant in the war in that he opposed the secession of his home state of Virginia from the Union. At the beginning of the war, President Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the whole Union Army but he declined, choosing instead to stay loyal to his home state. During the Civil War, Lee’s men referred to him affectionately as ‘Marse Robert’, with ‘marse’ being slang for ‘master’.
_SP
ESP. Extrasensory perception (ESP)
LE_
LEE. The Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville was fought in April/May 1863. The combatants were the Union Army of the Potomac led by Major General Joseph Hooker and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee. Although Lee’s forces were half the size of Hooker’s, the Confederates emerged victorious. One notable outcome of the engagement was the death of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson, a victim of friendly fire.
_SLO
OSLO. Oslo is an ancient city, founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV and renamed Christiana. In 1877 there was an official change of the name’s spelling to “Kristiana”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have recently gone full circle as the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, is now called Christiana again.
AB_
ABE. The four presidents whose faces are carved in the granite face of Mount Rushmore are (from left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Each of the presidents is about 60 feet in height, although this might have been larger. The initial intent was the presidents be depicted from head down to their waists, but the project lost funding.
O_LO
OSLO. Oslo, the capital of Norway, is an ancient city that was founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV and renamed to Christiana. In 1877 there was an official change of the spelling of the city’s name to “Kristiana”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have almost gone full circle and now the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, has apparently been renamed to Christiana.
_AE
RAE. John Rae was a Scottish explorer, who took on the task of searching for the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. The Franklin Expedition was itself searching for the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. John Rae stirred up much controversy back in England when he reported evidence of cannibalism among the ill-fated Franklin explorers.
EL_
ELS. Ernie Els is a South African golfer. He’s a big guy, but has an easy, fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. Els has a child who suffers from autism, and has been very effective raising money for charities that focus on the condition.
R_O
RIO. Even though the 2016 Olympic Games is a ‘summer’ competition, it will be held in Rio de Janeiro in the winter. As Rio is in the southern hemisphere, the planned date of the opening of 5th August 2016 falls in the local season of winter. The 2016 games will also be first to be held in South America, and the first to be hosted by a Portuguese-speaking country.
SN_
SNL. NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. In those days, “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday episodes off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to pull together a variety show to fill the vacant slot … “Saturday Night Live”.
_SP
ESP. Especially (esp.)
O_O
ONO. Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Her father moved around the world for work, so she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, before moving on to New York, Hanoi, and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war, the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father returned, life started to return to normal, and Yoko was able to attend university, and was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.
ET_
ETE. The Republic of Côte d’Ivoire is located in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. The country is often, mistakenly, referred to as the Ivory coast, the direct translation from the French. The official language of the country is French, as for many years it was a French colony.
_DE
ODE. John Keats wrote a whole series of odes in 1819, including the very famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Ode to a Nightingale”. The first in this series of poems was “Ode to Psyche”, with Psyche being the mortal girl who was loved by Cupid.
_IO
RIO. The Museu do Índio (Portuguese for ‘the Museum of the Indian’) is located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum focuses on collecting and displaying artifacts from the indigenous cultures of the country.
EL_
ELS. Elevated railroad (El)
EL_
ELI. Eli Wallach appeared consistently and made great performances on the big and small screens since the 1950s. Wallach’s most famous role was probably as ‘the Ugly’ in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. More recently he gave a very strong performance in 2006’s ‘The Holiday’. Sadly, Wallach passed away in june 2014, at the age of 98.
_RI
ARI. Aristotle Onassis was born to a successful Greek shipping entrepreneur in Smyrna in modern-day Turkey. However, his family lost its fortune during WWI and so Aristotle worked with his father to build up a new business empire centered on the importation of tobacco. In 1957, Aristotle founded the Greek national airline, what is today called Olympic Air, and he also got into the business of shipping oil around the world. He married Athina Livanos in 1946, the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate. They had two children, including the famous Christina Onassis. Livanos divorced Onassis on discovering him in bed with the opera singer Maria Callas. Onassis ended his affair with Callas in order to marry Jackie Kennedy in 1968.
_NT
TNT. 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.
E_P
ESP. Extrasensory perception (ESP)
_RA
IRA. Individual Retirement Account (IRA)
A_IA
ARIA. Un bel di’ is the most famous aria from Puccini’s opera ‘Madama Butterfly’. It is also one of the most beautiful arias in the whole soprano repertoire. ‘Un bel di’ translates as ‘One beautiful day’.
_LI
ALI. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is the widower of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. He is supposed to be one of the richest men in the country, with a net worth of over a billion dollars. Maybe that is partly explained by his time as Minister for Investment in his wife’s cabinet. During that time he was given the nickname “Mr 10%”, reflecting charges of corruption.
ON_
ONO. The Dakota is an apartment building in New York City that overlooks Central Park. Built in the 1880s, the prestigious property is perhaps most famous as the home of former Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota in 1980 by Mark David Chapman. The impressive list of former residents includes Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland, Rudolf Nureyev and Boris Karloff.
E_IE
ERIE. Buffalo is the second most-populous city in the state of New York. The city takes its name from Buffalo Creek that runs though the metropolis (although it is called Buffalo River within the city). The source of the name Buffalo for the creek is the subject of much speculation, but one thing is clear, there were never any bison in the area.
_PA
EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency was set up during the Nixon administration, and began operation at the end of 1970.
