letter_trainer_1_1 Flashcards
OB_
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
NE_
NED. American composer Ned Rorem is famous for his musical compositions, but also for his “Paris Diary of Ned Rorem” which was published in 1966. He talks openly about his sexuality in the book, but also about the sexuality of others including Noel Coward, Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber.
AST_
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. It is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
A_A
ADA. The reference here is to the 1969 novel by Vladimir Nabokov called “Ada”. The story takes place in the 1800s on Antiterra, an Earth-like planet that has a history similar to ours but with interesting differences. For example, there is a United States, but the country covers all of North and South America. What we call eastern Canada is a French-speaking province called “Canady”, and western Canada is a Russian-speaking province “Estody”. The plot-line is about a man called Van Veen who, when 14 years old, meets for the first time his cousin, 11-year-old Ada. The two cousins eventually have an affair, only to discover later that they are in fact brother and sister.
ATAR_
ATARI. Centipede is an arcade game from Atari (it was my favorite!). The game was designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, with Bailey being one of the few female game designers back then (it was released in 1980). Perhaps due to her influence, Centipede was the first arcade game to garner a significant female following.
ETO_
ETON. The world-famous Eton College sits on the River Thames and is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
_IA
CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during WWII. The CIA was chartered by the National Security Act of 1947.
_RR
ORR. The bomber pilot in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” is called Orr, and he has no other name, just “Orr”.
ET_A
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-guage railway, and two ski resorts.
OT_S
OTIS. Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.
ORC_
ORCA. The killer whale, or ‘orca’, features in several movies, perhaps most notably ‘Free Willy’.
_LA
A LA. A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
_OTA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
I_S
IRS. The IRS came into being during the Civil War, to raise money to pay for war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, taxation was limited to levies on trade and property.
O_I
OBI. An obi is a sash worn in some forms of dress in Japan both by men and women, although the styles for women tend to be more ornate.
INC_
INCA. The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. The Incas developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Tupac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.
EL_
ELO. The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is a symphonic rock group from the north of England. The band’s manager was Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy).
RE_E
RENE. The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, ‘Cogito ergo sum’. This translates into French as ‘Je pense, donc je suis’ and into English as ‘I think, therefore I am’.
EE_
EEL. Unadon is the Japanese word for “eel bowl”. Unadon is actually a contraction of “unagi no kabayaki” (grilled eel) and “donburi” (rice bowl dish).
E_K
ELK. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868 and is a social club that has about a million members today. The Elks started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome.
RH_
RHO. Euripides was a great playwright of Ancient Greece, renowned for his tragedies.
OB_
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
I_CA
INCA. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu originates about 50 miles from Cuzco on the Urubamba River in Peru. It can take travelers about 5 days to trek the full length of the trail, passing through many Incan ruins before reaching the Sun Gate on Machu Picchu mountain. The trail was becoming greatly overused, forcing the Peruvian government to limit the number of people on the trail each day to 500. Book early …
I_S
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came into being during the Civil War, to raise money to pay for war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, taxation was limited to levies on trade and property.
ER_C
ERIC. Can you believe that the great Eric Clapton only had one chart-topper in the US? In 1974, Clapton released a cover version of the Bob Marley classic “I Shot the Sheriff” and ended up selling more copies of that song than Bob Marley did himself.
A_L
AOL. Moviefone is a movie listing service, available by telephone in many parts of the country.
E_ON
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is indeed just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for generating many British leaders, including David Cameron who took power very recently. The list of Old Etonians includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell and Soviet spy, Guy Burgess.
OD_
ODE. A ‘panegyric’ was originally a formal speech made in public, the intent of which was to praise some person of some entity. Later, the term came to mean a laudatory verse, such as an ode. ‘Panegyris’ is the Greek for ‘speech fit for a general assembly’.
O_E
ONE. As we all recall from school (!), for an angle in a right-angled triangle, the sine is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse (the longest side). The cosine is the length of the adjacent side divided by the length of the hypotenuse.
_MA
UMA. Fall Out Boy is a rock band from Chicago that formed in 2001. And then, I lost interest …
I_N
IAN. English actor Sir Ian Holm is very respected on the stage in the UK, but is better known for his film roles here in the US. Holm played the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in two of the “Lord of the Rings” movies, and he also played the character who turns out be an android in the film “Alien”.
_LK
ELK. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome.
U_A
UMA. Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit ‘Pulp Fiction’. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’.
T_D
TED. ‘Ted’ is a movie that is about to be released that was written, directed, produced and stars Seth MacFarlane. In the story, MacFarlane voices a teddy bear who is the best friend of a character played by Mark Wahlberg.
CS_
CSI. The TV show “CSI” gets a lot of criticism from law enforcement agencies for its unrealistic portrayal of the procedures and science of criminal investigation. I don’t care though, as I just think it’s fun television. The original “CSI” set in Las Vegas seems to have “gone off the boil”, but the addition of Sela Ward to the cast of “CSI: NY” has really, really raised the level of the sister show set in New York City.
_RIC
ERIC. ‘The Little Mermaid’ is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess called Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric.
_HO
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
O_CA
ORCA. The orca who starred in the 1993 movie “Free Willy” was actually called Keiko, with Willy being his “stage name”. Keiko had a sad life. He was captured near Iceland in 1979, and sold to a local aquarium, and then onto Marineland in Ontario, and Six Flags Mexico in 1985. After starring in the movie, his fans raised money with the intent of returning Keiko to the wild. Keiko had become very ill, partly from being confined in a small tank in Mexico, so a lot of money had to be spend restoring him to health. He was purchased by the Oregon Coast Aquarium who undertook the task of treating him and preparing him for the wild. You might recall the dramatic journey he took from Mexico to Oregon in US Air Force transport plane in 1996. Having regained his health, he was flown to Iceland and there gradually reintroduced into the wild. Sadly, Keiko did not fare too well back in the ocean. He was never adopted by a pod, so lived a solitary life. He lost weight, would sometimes follow fishing boats and play with any humans who would give him attentions. In 2003 he beached himself in Taken Bay in Norway, where he died.
OM_N
OMAN. Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The capital city of Muscat has a strategic location on the Gulf of Oman and has a history of invasion and unrest. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody attack. The Portuguese held Muscat for much of the next one hundred years until finally being ousted by local Omani forces in 1648. A Yemeni tribe invaded the area in 1741 and set up a monarchy that has been in place in Oman ever since.
_ES
LES. In French the word for “the” is la (feminine, singular) or le (masculine, singular) or les (masculine and feminine, plural).
_SN
SSN. Generally speaking, I think it’s a good idea to shred documents that show a social security number (SSN), rather than just toss them in the garbage.
LE_
LEO. Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.
TE_
TED. US Senator Ted Cruz served as Solicitor General for the state of Texas before heading to Washington. Cruz was appointed Solicitor General in 2003 at the age of 32, making him the youngest Solicitor General in the country. Famously, Cruz is an opponent of the Affordable Care Act and made a speech in 2013 in the US Senate on the subject that lasted for 21 hours and 19 minutes. It was the fourth longest speech in the history of the Senate.
OT_S
OTIS. Johnny Otis was the stage name of Ioannis Veliotes, a musician from Vallejo, California. Otis is sometimes referred to as the ‘Godfather of Rhythm and Blues’.
_EL
EEL. Sushi is a Japanese dish that has as its primary ingredient cooked, vinegared rice. The rice is usually topped with something, most often fish, and can be served in seaweed rolls. If you want raw fish by itself, then you have to order “sashimi”.
UM_
UMA. Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”.
OR_O
OREO. The Oreo was the biggest selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been produced since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added to give a different taste.
A_TI
ASTI. The Palazzo Alfieri is an ancient palace in the Italian city of Asti.
S_N
SSN. Phishing is the name given to the online practice of stealing usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a site that deceptively looks reliable and trustworthy. Phishers often send out safe-looking emails or instant messages that direct someone to an equally safe-looking website where the person might inadvertently enter sensitive information. ‘Phishing’ is a variant of the word “fishing’, as in ‘fishing for passwords, PIN numbers etc.”
_LK
ELK. The Rocky Mountain Elk population has been facing a serious threat since 2010, a disorder called Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). CWD is similar to BSE (so called ‘mad-cow disease’) and affects the brain tissue of the infected elk.
SS_
SSR. The former Soviet Union was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar. The new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent geographically to the old Russian Empire, and was made up of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics.
E_AU
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).
IK_
IKE. President Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas and given the name David Dwight Eisenhower, but by the time he made it to the White House he was going by the name Dwight D. Eisenhower. Growing up, his family called him Dwight, and when “Ike” enrolled in West Point he himself reversed the order of his given names.
_TON
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders, including David Cameron who took power in the recent UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.
E_AU
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother, Rebekah, gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”.
T_D
TED. Ted Kennedy was the youngest boy in the family that included his older brothers: Joseph Jr. (killed in action in WWII), John (assassinated) and Robert (assassinated). Ted went into the US Senate in 1962 in a special election held after his brother became US President. He remained in the Senate until he passed away in 2009, making Ted Kennedy the fourth-longest-serving Senator in history.
AB_
ABA. The American Bar Association (ABA) was founded back in 1878 and is a voluntary association for lawyers and law students. The ABA focuses on setting academic standards for law schools and setting ethical codes for the profession.
LE_
LEO. Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 13 to August 23 are Leos.
I_TA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use it to portray something very small, as it is the smallest letter in the alphabet.
E_A
EVA. Little Eva is a character in the novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. Eva’s full name is Evangeline St. Clare.
REN_
RENE. At the end of WWI, of all the allied nations, Rene Fonck was the top flying ace. He was credited with 75 victories.
_EL
EEL. In J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ universe, The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was founded by the four most brilliant witches and wizards of their time: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. Each of the founders lent their name to a House in the school, i.e. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.
LE_
LES. Issy-les-Moulineaux is a suburb of Paris lying on the banks of the Seine. Issy’s economy was based on manufacturing, but now it is known as a nexus for the French telecommunications and media industries.
L_S
LES. ‘Die’ is the German for ‘the’ in the plural, and ‘les’ is French.
_SI
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. ‘CSI: Miami’ (the ‘worst’ of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. ‘CSI: NY’ (the ‘best’ of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong and has been doing so since 2000.
INC_
INCA. Manco Capac was the head of the Incan Kingdom of Cusco. He introduced what we might call some sensible laws, including abolishing human sacrifice, and outlawing marriage to one’s sister. However, through a loophole in the law, I guess, he managed to marry his own sister and had a son who became his successor.
EL_
ELK. Exactly when the Hartford Stag (or Elk, or Hart) logo first appeared isn’t precisely known. The oldest extant representation of the Hartford Stag is found on a policy that the company issued to Abraham Lincoln in 1861.
_SP
ASP. The venomous snake called an asp was a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt.
IA_
IAN. Ian Somerhalder had his big break as an actor in the TV drama “Lost”, and now has a part in TV’s “The Vampire Diaries”.
_RCA
ORCA. “Blackfish” is a 2013 documentary film that examines the dangers of keeping orca in captivity.’Star’ of the movie is a killer whale (orca) named Tilikum who was responsible in whole or in part for the deaths of three people. Tilikum was captured in 1983 and has been a ‘guest’ of SeaWorld since 1992. Most recently, Tilikum killed a 40-year old trainer named Dawn Brancheau in 2010.
A_A
ABA. The American Bar Association (ABA) was founded back in 1878 and is a voluntary association for lawyers and law students. The ABA focuses on setting academic standards for law schools and setting ethical codes for the profession.
AD_
ADA. “Ada” is a 1969 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The story takes place in the 1800s on Antiterra, an Earth-like planet that has a history similar to ours but with interesting differences. For example, there is a United States, but the country covers all of North and South America. What we call eastern Canada is a French-speaking province called “Canady”, and western Canada is a Russian-speaking province called “Estody”. The storyline is about a man called Van Veen who, when 14 years old, meets for the first time his cousin, 11-year-old Ada. The two cousins eventually have an affair, only to discover later that they are in fact brother and sister.
IR_
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.
_NE
ONE. (5 x 3) - (7 x 2) = 15 - 14 = 1
AST_
ASTI. Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy, and is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a ‘poor man’s champagne’. The ‘Spumante’ was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.
AL_
A LA. In French “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America it has come to describe a way of serving pie, usually with ice cream or, as I recall from my days living in Upstate New York, with cheese.
O_AN
OMAN. The national flag of Oman is made up of three stripes (white, red and green) alongside a red bar which bears the national emblem of the country (a dagger and two swords).
ET_A
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-guage railway, and two ski resorts.
_OTA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
_AU
EAU. ‘Eau’ is the French word for ‘water’.
_VA
EVA. Despite the English sounding name, Eva Green is a French actress. She played Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie “Casino Royale”, opposite Daniel Craig.
I_N
IAN. Ian McShane is an English actor, famous in his homeland (and to PBS viewers in the US) for playing the title role in “Lovejoy”. In this country he is perhaps better known for playing the conniving saloon owner on the HBO western drama “Deadwood”.
L_O
LEO. Babies born from July 23 to August 22 each year fall under the star sign of Leo.
_RIC
ERIC. Eric Holder is the Attorney General of the United States, and is the first African American to hold the position. Holder was close to President Obama during the presidential campaign. He was the campaign’s legal advisor, and was also one of the three members on the Obama vice-presidential selection committee, which of course opted for Vice-President Joe Biden.
_SN
SSN. A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot, as since 2011 SSN’s are assigned randomly.
E_U
EAU. ‘Eau’ is the French word for ‘water’. ‘Mer’ is the French word for ‘sea’.
EM_
EMO. Emo Philips is a stand-up comedian from Chicago. He’s had a long and successful career, and listed on his resume is a small acting part in the 1992 hit movie “Meet the Parents” starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. Philips was also the executive producer for that very same film, so, I’d say he made a few pennies …
O_E
ODE. ‘Plutonian Ode’ is a 1978 poem by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The work is a protest against the arms race between the superpowers. Philip Glass wrote his 2002 ‘Symphony No. 6’ using the poem as inspiration, and indeed including parts of the poem to be sung by a soprano soloist. As such, the piece is often referred to as the ‘Plutonian Ode Symphony’.
EM_
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. ‘Emo’ is also the name given to the associated subculture. Not my cup of tea …
ON_
ONE. In motor racing, the designation “formula” is a set of rules that all participants and cars must abide by. The definition of “Formula One” was agreed back in 1946, with the “one” designating that it is the most advanced of the “formulae”, and the most competitive.
UM_
UMA. Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”.
R_O
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
AB_
ABA. The Italian poet Dante invented the terza rima rhyming scheme. It has a chain rhyming pattern and so has the format ABA, BCB, CDC etc. Dante introduced terza rima in his epic poem called “Divine Comedy”.
E_O
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
OT_S
OTIS. Otis Day & the Knights were a fictional band created for the 1978 movie “Animal House”. In the movie, they perform fabulous versions of “Shout” and “Shama Lama Ding Dong”. The band’s performance was so well received that they transitioned from the world of make believe to reality, and they are still performing today, over 30 years later.
I_TA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
AD_
ADA. The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists and now has more than 152,000 members.
_OL
AOL. ‘The Huffington Post’ (aka ‘HuffPo’) is a news website founded in 2005 by Arianna Huffington. It is a very active site, with 3,000 people contributing blog posts (including many celebrities and politicians), and readers leaving over one million comments every month. ‘The Huffington Post’ was sold to AOL in 2011 for $315 million, with Arianna Huffington staying on as editor-in-chief.
AN_E
ANNE. Anne Rice is an American author of erotic and Gothic novels. She was born Howard Allen O’Brien (no wonder she changed her name!). Her famous series of novels “The Vampire Chronicles” centers on her character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman who was turned into a vampire in the 18th century. One of the stories, “Interview with the Vampire”, was adapted for the big screen in 1994 and features Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and others in a star-studded cast. Not my kind of movie though, as I don’t do vampires …
_SI
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. ‘CSI: Miami’ (the ‘worst’ of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. ‘CSI: NY’ (the ‘best’ of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong, and has been doing so since 2000.
EV_
EVA. Eva Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón who was in office from 1946 to 1955. The Argentine First Lady was known affectionately by the people as ‘Evita’, the Spanish language diminutive of ‘Eva’. “Evita” was also the follow-up musical to “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and was based on the life of Eva Perón.
_LA
A LA. In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has also come to describe a way of serving pie, usually with ice cream, or as I recall from when I lived in Upstate New York, with cheese.
OMA_
OMAN. Oman is lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The city of Muscat, with its strategic location, has a history of invasion and occupation. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody invasion. The Portuguese held the city for much of the next century until finally ousted by local Omani forces in 1648.
_AU
EAU. “Glace”, the French word for “ice-cream” (and “ice”).
_EO
LEO. Despite rumors to the contrary, I am pretty sure that Barack Hussein Obama II was indeed born in Hawaii. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961 (he’s a Leo!) at Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the first president to have been born outside of the continental US.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
E_U
EAU. In French, water (eau) is a clear liquid (liquide clair).
_LA
A LA. A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
AST_
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. It is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
A_A
ADA. Ada Leverson was a British writer, a great friend of Oscar Wilde. Leverson was played by actress Zoë Wanamaker in the 1997 film ‘Wilde’ starring Stephen Fry in the title role.
ETO_
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
SS_
SSR. The Republic of Kazakhstan in Central Asia is the world’s largest landlocked country. Kazakhstan was also the last of the former Soviet Republics (SSRs) to declare itself independent from Russia.
UM_
UMA. “Prime” is a romantic comedy from 2005. It has an interesting storyline. 37-year-old divorcee (Uma Thurman) falls for 23-year-old man (Bryan Greenberg) and shares her thought about the affair with her therapist (Meryl Streep). The therapist turns out to be the 23-year-old man’s mother. Hilarity ensues, I am sure (I have yet to see this one …).
_RIC
ERIC. Eric Carle’s most famous title is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.
SO_
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are simply mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
U_A
UMA. Uma Thurman’s father, Robert Thurman, was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and gave his daughter Uma her name as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name, Dbuma.
_SR
SSR. The former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia is now an independent country. Supposedly, the Georgian people were given their name because they especially revered St. George. The flag of Georgia does indeed feature five St. George’s crosses.
O_E
ONE. Marine One is the call sign used by a Marine Corps helicopter when it is carrying the US president. In fact, the call sign can be used by any Marine Corps aircraft carrying the president, but usually refers either a Sea King or White Hawk helicopter that is used routinely in transportation to and from the White House.
ETN_
ETNA. Typhon was known as the ‘father of all monsters’ in Greek mythology, and he was married to the ‘mother of all monster’, Echidna. Typhon had a huge human torso with a hundred dragon heads. His lower body was made up of gigantic viper coils. Although all the gods feared Typhon, Zeus finally defeated him and trapped him underneath Mount Etna.
_SR
SSR. The former Soviet Union (USSR) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and comprised fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).
AB_
ABA. The American Basketball Association (ABA) merged with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1976.
_SN
SSN. A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot, as since 2011 SSN’s are assigned randomly. However, some random numbers have been excluded from use, i.e. Area Numbers 000, 666 (!) and 900-999.
_RR
ORR. Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …
ES_U
ESAU. Esau, was the grandson of Abraham and the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When Esau was born to Isaac and Rebekah, the event was described, ‘Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment’. Esau is portrayed later in life as being very different from his brother, as a hunter and someone who loves the outdoor life.
_RCA
ORCA. The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.
_NE
ONE. Snake eyes is the slang term for a roll of two dice in which one pip turns up on each die.
A_L
AOL. The Huffington Post’ is a news website founded in 2005 by Arianna Huffington. It’s a very active site, with 3,000 people contributing blog posts (including many celebrities and politicians), and readers leaving over one million comments every month. ‘The Huffington Post’ was sold to AOL in 2011 for $315 million, with Arianna Huffington staying on as editor-in-chief.
EL_
ELO. ELO of course stands for the Electric Light Orchestra, a symphonic rock group from the north of England. ELO’s manager was Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy).
LE_
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.
_NNE
ANNE. Anne was the youngest of the three sisters in the literary Brontë family. Her older sisters wrote novels that are more recognized, but Anne’s two novels do have a following. “Agnes Grey” is based on her own experiences working as a governess. Her other novel, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is written as a long letter from a young man describing the events leading up to his first meeting with his wife-to-be. Anne Brontë’s writing career was cut short in 1849, when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, at only 29 years of age.
CS_
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. ‘CSI: Miami’ (the ‘worst’ of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. ‘CSI: NY’ (the ‘best’ of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong and has been doing so since 2000.
L_I
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.
ORE_
OREO. The Oreo was the best-selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been sold since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added in the overseas version to give a different taste.
R_O
RHO. Chi Rho is an ancient religious symbol in the Christian tradition. ‘Chi’ and ‘rho’ are the first two letters in the Greek word for ‘Christ’.
EE_
EEL. The Sargasso Sea, an area within the Atlantic Ocean, is famous for being home to many species of Sargassum, the algae floating on the surface that gives the area its name. The Sargasso Sea is also where both the European and American ells lay their eggs and hatch their young. The young eels then head east or west, depending on the species.
EV_
EVA. Eva Mendes played the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, opposite Will Smith.
R_O
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”. Rho is the symbol used for density, i.e. mass/volume.
_NE
ONE. 24. See 23-Across : ACT
_STI
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. It is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
_SA
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.
I_E
IKE. President Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas and given the name David Dwight Eisenhower, but by the time he made it to the White House he was going by the name Dwight D. Eisenhower. Growing up, his family called him Dwight, and when “Ike” enrolled in West Point he himself reversed the order of his given names.
_ES
LES. Leslie Moonves had many senior positions in the television industry, especially with CBS and Viacom. Early in his career he was an actor and played tough guy roles on “Cannon” and “The Six Million Dollar Man”. Moonves is the great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, and he is married to TV news personality Julie Chen.
_HO
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter ‘p’.
_AU
EAU. In France, one fights fire (feu) with water (eau).
_MO
EMO. Dashboard Confessional is an emo band from Boca Raton, Florida.
AN_
ANN. Heart is a rock band from Seattle, Washington, founded in the seventies and still going strong. The band has had a changing lineup, except for sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson.
OMA_
OMAN. Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Oman is a Sultanate, headed by a hereditary sultan. The current head of state is Qaboos bin Said Al Said. He rules with the help of an elected advisory council (instituted in the early nineties), but there are no legal political parties.
R_NE
RENE. The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito, ergo sum” … “I think, therefore I am”.
CI_
CIA. Kryptos’ is a fascinating sculpture that sits on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The work contains four encrypted messages that were created by the sculptor Jim Sanborn and Ed Scheidt, then Chairman of the CIA Cryptographic Center. What’s interesting is that only three of the messages has been decoded to date.
A_P
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
A_NE
ANNE. Anne Bradstreet was a poetess who was the wife of Simon Bradstreet, a governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne was the first poet in the British North American colonies to have her works published.
LE_
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together to be worn.
_SAU
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother, Rebekah, gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).
A_N
ANN. Ann Patchett is an author who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Patchett’s most famous work is probably her novel ‘Bel Canto’, published in 2001. In 2012, ‘Time’ included her in the magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world.
L_O
LEO. In ‘The West Wing’, Leo McGarry was played very ably by John Spencer. If you haven’t seen them, the early seasons of “The West Wing” are just fabulous. I think I learned so much about the workings of the American government through this TV show.
OR_A
ORCA. The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.
_REO
OREO. The Oreo cookie was introduced in 1912. The Oreo was intended to be a competitor to the very similar Hydrox cookie which had debuted four years earlier. The Oreo won the resulting battle on the grocery store shelves …
_EO
LEO. The company that made Fender electric guitars was founded in Fullerton, California in 1946 by Leo Fender.
_EI
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.
SO_
SOS. S.O.S is a brand name of scouring pads made from steel wool impregnated with soap. The product was invented as a giveaway by an aluminum pot salesman in San Francisco called Ed Cox. His wife gave it the name “S.O.S” as an acronym for “Save Our Saucepans”. Note the punctuation! There is no period after the last S, and that is deliberate. When Cox went to register the trademark, he found that S.O.S. could not be a trademark because it was used as an international distress signal. So, he dropped the period, and I hope made a lot of money for himself and his wife.
ES_U
ESAU. Esau, was the grandson of Abraham and the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When Esau was born, the event was described, ‘Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment’. Esau is portrayed later in life as being very different from his brother, as a hunter and someone who loves the outdoor life.
NE_O
NERO. The Great Fire of Rome raged for five and a half days in 64 AD. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, three were completely destroyed and seven more suffered serious damage. The emperor at the time was Nero, although reports that he fiddled, played his lyre or sang while the city burned; those accounts are probably not true. In fact, Nero was staying outside of Rome when the fire started and rushed home on hearing the news. He organized a massive relief effort, throwing open his own home to give shelter to many of the citizens who were left living on the street.
I_E
IKE. When the future president was growing up, the Eisenhower family used the nickname ‘Ike’ for all seven boys in the family, as ‘Ike’ was seen as an abbreviation for the family name. ‘Big Ike’ was Edgar, the second oldest boy. ‘Little/Young Ike’ was Dwight, who was the third son born. Dwight had no sisters.
_VA
EVA. Despite the English sounding name, Eva Green is a French actress. Green played Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie “Casino Royale”, opposite Daniel Craig.
_LA
A LA. A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
O_EO
OREO. Apparently Oreo Ice Cream flavors were introduced relatively recently, in 2010.
N_D
NED. Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.
ET_N
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
AN_E
ANNE. Anne was the youngest of the three sisters in the literary Brontë family. Her older sisters wrote novels that are more recognized, but Anne’s two novels do have a following. “Agnes Grey” is based on her own experiences working as a governess. Her other novel, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is written as a long letter from a young man describing the events leading up to his first meeting with his wife-to-be. Anne Brontë’s writing career was cut short in 1849, when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, at only 29 years of age.
IA_
IAN. ‘Chariots of Fire’ is British film released in 1981. The movie is based on the true story of two athletes training for and participating in the shorter running events in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
_NE
ONE. 50 divided by 50 is 1.
SS_
SSR. Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)
O_IS
OTIS. The Temptations used to be known as the Elgins, and were formed in 1960 in Detroit. The group is still performing although only the second tenor, Otis Williams, was part of the original quintet. The Temptations were very much associated with their ‘sister group’, the Supremes.
_AO
TAO. The Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Tao signifies the true nature of the world.
ETN_
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. The third of Italy’s famous volcanoes is Stromboli.
A_NE
ANNE. Anne Meara has been married to fellow comedic actor Jerry Stiller since 1954. Anne and Jerry are the parents of actors Ben and Amy Stiller. Meara co-starred with Carroll O’Connor and Martin Balsam in the eighties sitcom “Archie Bunker’s Place”, a spinoff from “All in the Family”.
ETN_
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt Vesuvius.
I_CA
INCA. The Inca Empire was known as the Tawantinsuyu, which translates as ‘land of the four quarters’. The Inca Empire was a federal organization having a central government that sat above four ‘suyu’ or ‘quarters’, four administrative regions.
ES_U
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).
E_U
EAU. ‘Eau’ is the French word for ‘water’; ‘Mer’ is the French word for ‘sea’.
_DA
ADA. The reference here is to the 1969 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, “Ada”. The story takes place in the 1800s on Antiterra, an Earth-like planet that has a history similar to ours but with interesting differences. For example, there is a United States, but the country covers all of North and South America. What we call eastern Canada is a French-speaking province called “Canady”, and western Canada is a Russian-speaking province “Estody”. The plot-line is about a man called Van Veen who, when 14 years old, meets for the first time his cousin, 11-year-old Ada. The two cousins eventually have an affair, only to discover later that they are in fact brother and sister.
NER_
NERO. The Great Fire of Rome raged for five and a half days in 64 AD. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, three were completely destroyed and seven more suffered serious damage. The emperor at the time was of course Nero, although reports that he fiddled, played his lyre or sang while the city burned; those accounts are probably not true. In fact, Nero was staying outside of Rome when the fire started, and rushed home on hearing the news. He organized a massive relief effort, throwing open his own home to give shelter to many of the citizens who were left living on the street.
AN_E
ANNE. Anne was the youngest of the three sisters in the literary Bronte family. Her older sisters wrote novels that are more recognized, but Anne’s two novels do have a following. “Agnes Grey” is based on her own experiences working as a governess. Her other novel, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is written as a long letter written by a young man describing the events leading to his meeting his wife. Anne Bronte’s writing career was cut short in 1849, when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, at only 29 years of age.
NE_
NED. Ned Beatty is probably best remembered for the rather disturbing “squeal like a pig” scene in the movie “Deliverance”. Beatty also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1976 movie ‘Network’.
AN_E
ANNE. Anne, Princess Royal was born in 1950, the only daughter of British Queen Elizabeth II. Princess Anne has been in the public spotlight for many things, including here success as an Equestrian. Princess Anne is the only member of the British Royal Family to have competed in the Olympic Games.
_STI
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
IO_A
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use it to portray something very small, as it is the smallest letter in the alphabet.
E_IC
ERIC. Eric Idle was one of the founding members of the Monty Python team. Idle was very much the musician of the bunch, and is an accomplished guitarist. If you’ve seen the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian”, you might remember the closing number, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. It was sung by Idle, and was indeed written by him. The song made it to number 3 in the UK charts in 1991.
_IA
CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during WWII. The CIA was chartered by the National Security Act of 1947.
ET_A
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts.
E_IC
ERIC. Eric Cartman is a character on the animated television series “South Park”, a show that I have never watched …
AT_RI
ATARI. The kids today probably don’t realize that we had a video game console back in the seventies, but it wasn’t a Nintendo nor a PlayStation. The Atari 2600 game system introduced the idea of separating out computing hardware (the console) from the game code (a cartridge). The same concept persists to this day, although cartridges have been displaced by discs.
_BI
OBI. Sir Alec Guinness has played many great roles over a long a distinguished career, but nowadays is best known for playing the original Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”. The Force is a metaphysical power much cited in all of the “Star Wars” movies, and still today we may hear someone in real life say “May the Force be with you”.
EE_
EEL. Even though Italian-style pizza is readily available in Japan, I think the reference here might be to the dish called ‘okonomiyaki’, often referred to in English as ‘Japanese pizza’. I’ve been lucky enough to eat okonomiyaki quite a few times on business trips to Japan. My favorite way to eat Japanese pizza is in a grill-it-yourself restaurant, where you prepare the dish at a grill in the center of your own table.
_SP
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It was so venomous that it was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without and painful spasms. When opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
OTI_
OTIS. Elevators (simple hoists) have been around for a long time. What Elisha Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”, a design that he showcased at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. At the Fair, Otis would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this demonstration, the orders came rolling in.
OD_
ODE. Here’s the first verse of Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Ode on the Spring’.
A_A
ADA. American Dental Association (ADA)
_TIS
OTIS. Otis is a manufacturer of elevators, escalators and moving walkways. By some accounts, Otis is the world’s most popular transportation company, with the equivalent of the whole world’s population travelling on Otis devices every few days.
AS_I
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
_TIS
OTIS. Elevators (simple hoists) had been around for a long time. What Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”, a design that he showcased at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. He would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this display at the fair, the orders came rolling in.
E_U
EAU. ‘Eau’ is the French word for ‘water’.
_BI
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
C_A
CIA. Stansfield Turner is a retired Admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence. Under Turner’s leadership, the CIA greatly changed its emphasis from Human intelligence (HUMINT) and leaned more towards Technical intelligence (TECHINT) and Signal intelligence (SIGINT), a move that Turner himself came to regret in later years. Over 800 intelligence operator positions were eliminated in 1979, a cull that is known in the service as the Halloween Massacre.
_RS
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service does lots of audits, everyone’s nightmare!. The IRS came into being during the Civil War, to raise money to pay for war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, taxation was limited to levies on trade and property.
ORE_
OREO. How the Oreo cookie came to get its name seems to have been lost in the mists of time. One theory is that it comes from the French ‘or’ meaning ‘gold’, a reference to the gold color of the original packing. Another suggestion is that the name is the Greek word ‘oreo’ meaning ‘beautiful, nice, well-done’.
O_IS
OTIS. Elevators (simple hoists) had been around for a long time. What Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”. He showcased his design at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. He would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this display at the fair, the orders came rolling in.
E_K
ELK. The Michigan state flag features the state’s coat-of-arms on a blue background. The coat-of-arms comprises a shield supported by an elk on one side and a moose on the other.
AB_
ABA. American Bar Association (ABA)
_IA
CIA.
AST_
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
IA_
IAN. The name ‘John’ translates into Scottish as ‘Ian’, into Russian as ‘Ivan’, into Italian as ‘Giovanni’, and into Irish as ‘Seán’.
L_I
LEI. Don Ho had a pretty liberal arrangement with his wife, apparently. When he was touring, with his two backing singers Pattie Swallie and Elizabeth Gevara, all three of them shared a room together. He had two children with each of the backing singers, giving a total of ten kids including the six he had with his wife. The arrangement was quite open, it seems, with all ten kids visiting each other regularly. To each his own …
ER_C
ERIC. (2. See 59-Across : BANA)
_LA
A LA. The phrase ‘in the style of’ can be translated in ‘alla’ in Italian and ‘à la’ in French.
N_D
NED. Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned is voiced by the actor Harry Shearer, and has been around since the very first episode, aired on Fox in 1989.
_IA
CIA. The CIA headquarters is located in Langley, Virginia in a complex called the George Bush Center for Intelligence, named for former Director of the CIA and US President George H. W. Bush.
EM_
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_DE
ODE. The poet John Keats is famous for writing a whole series of beautiful odes. The most renowned 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’.
I_S
IRS. American author David Foster Wallace’s most famous work was his 1996 novel “Infinite Jest”. Wallace’s books are known for extensive use of explanatory footnotes and endnotes, which can take up as many pages as the novel’s text. Wallace struggled with depression for about twenty years. Sadly, he ended up committing suicide in 2008 by hanging himself, when he was only 46 years old. Wallace left an unfinished novel called ‘The Pale King’ that, even though published unfinished, became a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
A_A
A LA. A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
_MO
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
IA_
IAN. Ian Fleming is most famous of course for writing the “James Bond” series of spy novels. You might also know that he wrote the children’s story “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, which was made into a cute movie released in 1968 and even a stage musical that opened in 2002.
TA_
TAO. The Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Tao signifies the true nature of the world.
_ED
NED. Ned Beatty is probably best remembered for the rather disturbing “squeal like a pig” scene in the movie “Deliverance”. Beatty also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1976 movie ‘Network’.
SS_
SSN. A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot, as since 2011 SSN’s are assigned randomly.
_EO
LEO. Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 13 to August 23 are Leos.
_RS
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.
U_A
UMA. Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit ‘Pulp Fiction’. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’.
_LK
ELK. The elk (also known as the wapiti) is the one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were familiar with the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and incorrectly gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct name for the beast is “wapiti”, which means “white rump” in Shawnee. It’s all very confusing …
ET_A
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt Vesuvius.
IK_
IKE. ‘I Like Ike’ was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.
I_E
IKE. ‘Alibi Ike” is a short story by Ring Lardner that was made into a romantic comedy film in 1935 starring Joe E. Brown and Olivia de Havilland. Brown plays the title character, a baseball player who is always making excuses, hence his nickname. ‘Alibi Ike” was actually the first film to be released featuring Olivia de Havilland.
_RR
ORR. Bobby Orr is a former hockey player from Ontario who played most of his professional career with the Boston Bruins. Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. A bronze statue of Orr was erected outside Boston’s TD Garden in 2010. By the time he retired in 1978, Orr had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …
IA_
IAN. Ian Baker-Finch is a professional golfer from Queensland, Australia. Baker-Finch is best known for winning the British Open in 1991.
AO_
AOL. Founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1983, America Online changed its name in 1989. As the company went international, the acronym AOL was used in order to shake off the “America-centric” sound to the name. During the heady days of AOL’s success, the company could not keep up with the growing number of subscribers, so people trying to connect often encountered busy signals. That’s when users called AOL “Always Off-Line”.
E_AU
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).
_ED
NED. The Leftorium is a store in ‘The Simpsons’. It’s located in the Springfield Mall and is owned by Ned Flanders. It specializes in products made for left-handed people.
S_N
SSN. A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot, as since 2011 SSN’s are assigned randomly.
I_TA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
AS_
ASP. Guido Reni was Italian painter, from Bologna. His work “Cleopatra with the Asp” is owned by the British Royal Family.
N_D
NED. Ned Beatty is probably best remembered for the rather disturbing “squeal like a pig” scene in the movie “Deliverance”. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1976 movie ‘Network’.
OMA_
OMAN. Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Oman is the largest sultanate in the world.
_DE
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.
EM_
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_EO
LEO. There has been a lion in the logo of the MGM studio since 1924. The original was an Irishman (!), a lion name Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However it wasn’t until Jackie took over from Slats in 1928 that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo and he has been around since 1957.
ATA_I
ATARI. Missile Command’ is a fun arcade game that was introduced by Atari in 1980. Playing the game involves protecting six cities that are being attacked by ballistic missiles. The original game’s design featured six cities in California: Eureka, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego.
_MO
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
AN_E
ANNE. Helen Keller became a noted author despite been deaf and blind, largely through the work of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Keller was left deaf and blind after an illness (possible meningitis or scarlet fever). when she was about 18 months old. She was to become the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The relationship between Sullivan and Keller is immortalized in the play and film called ‘The Miracle Worker’.
_SR
SSR. Ukraine is a large country in Eastern Europe, a Soviet Republic before the dissolution of the USSR. In English we often call the country ‘the” Ukraine, but I am told that we should just say “Ukraine”.
E_U
EAU. Back in 1709, an Italian perfume-maker moved to Cologne in Germany. There he invented a new fragrance that he named Eau de Cologne after his newly adopted town. The fragrance is still produced in Cologne, using a secret formulation. However, the terms “Eau de Cologne” and “cologne”, are now used generically.
OD_
ODE. The poet John Keats is famous for writing a whole series of beautiful odes. The most renowned 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’, as well as ‘To Autumn’.
REN_
RENE. The lovely and very talented actress Rene Russo is a native of Burbank, California. Russo went to highschool (with actor/director Ron Howard), but dropped out in tenth grade. At seventeen, she was given the opportunity to train as a model and within a very short time appeared on the cover of ‘Vogue’. As her modelling jobs slowed down in her early thirties, Russo made a career change and studied theater and acting. I am so glad she did, as Rene Russo is one of my favorite actresses …
O_EO
OREO. The Oreo was the best-selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been sold since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added in the overseas version to give a different taste.
REN_
RENE. The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum”, which translates into English as “I think, therefore I am”.
SS_
SSR. Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)
_RS
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.
E_A
EVA. Eva Herzigova is a model and actress from the Czech Republic.
E_A
EVA. Carole King and her longtime partner Gerry Goffin have been writing hit songs since the early sixties. Carole and Gerry had a babysitter, one Eva Narcissus Boyd, who was always bopping around the house in an unusual dance style. They wrote a song about her dance and they called it “The Loco-Motion”. Then they gave it to the babysitter to record. Ms. Boyd chose as a stage name a character in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” called Little Eva …
C_A
CIA. Argo’ is a 2012 movie that is based on the true story of the rescue of six diplomats hiding out during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The film was directed by and stars Ben Affleck and is produced by Grant Heslov and George Clooney, the same pair who produced the excellent ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’. I saw ‘Argo’ recently and recommend it highly, although I found the scenes of religious fervor pretty frightening …
_SN
SSN. The main purpose of a Social Security Number (SSN) is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although given its ubiquitous use, it is looking more and more like an “identity number” to me. The social security number system was introduced in 1936. Prior to 1986, an SSN was required only for persons with substantial income so many children under 14 had no number assigned. For some years the IRS had a concern that a lot of people were claiming children on their tax returns who did not actually exist. So, from 1986 onward, it is a requirement to get an SSN for any dependents over the age of 5. Sure enough, in 1987 seven million dependents “disappeared”.
_LK
ELK. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome.
ON_
ONE. George Washington didn’t appear on the first one-dollar bill. Instead, the bills printed from 1862 to 1869 featured Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury who served under Abraham Lincoln.
AO_
AOL. Moviefone is a movie listing service, available by telephone in many parts of the country.
ORE_
OREO. If you look at the design on the faces of an Oreo cookie, it looks like something out of “The DaVinci Code”. Ah, now there’s an idea for a storyline for Dan Brown!
ER_C
ERIC. Eric Cantor is a US Representative from Virginia, and has been the House Majority Leader since 2011.
E_O
EMO. Weezer is an alternative rock band formed in LA in 1992. Apparently their music might be described as “emo”.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
OT_S
OTIS. The 1960s duo Otis & Carla was made up of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. The duo’s most celebrated album is 1967’s ‘King & Queen’.
IO_A
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use it to portray something very small, as it is the smallest letter in the alphabet.
OR_O
OREO. The Oreo was the biggest selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been produced since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days, the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America though, you might notice it has a different taste than the homegrown cookie as coconut oil is added for flavor.
ON_
ONE. We usually use the term ‘Air Force One’ for the purpose-built military aircraft that transports the president, although any plane can use the call sign, provided the president is aboard. There was an incident in 1953 which a flight carrying President Eisenhower (flight no. Air Force 8610) flew close to commercial airliner (flight no. Eastern 8610). In order to avoid confusion of flight numbers in the future, the special call sign ‘Air Force One’ was created.
TE_
TED. Ted Stevens was a US Senator from Alaska. He first became a senator on Christmas Eve in 1968, and served continuously in that office until he was killed in a plane crash in 2009. Stevens was the longest-serving Republican US Senator in history.
AD_
ADA. Ada Lovelace’s real name was Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. Lovelace was fascinated by mathematics and wrote about the work done by Charles Babbage in building his groundbreaking mechanical computer. In some of her notes, she proposed an algorithm for Babbage’s machine to compute Bernoulli numbers. This algorithm is recognized by many as the world’s first computer program and so Lovelace is sometimes called the first ‘computer programmer’. There is a computer language called ‘Ada’ that was named in her honor. The Ada language was developed from 1977 to 1983 for the US Department of Defense.
AS_
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. Therefore, when the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was her chosen method.
IOT_
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
ETN_
ETNA. There are five distinct craters at the summit of Mount Etna:
O_EO
OREO. Oreo Cakesters are a soft version of the cookie, introduced by Nabisco in 2007.
EL_
ELK. Male elk are called ‘bulls’ and female elk are called ‘cows’.
_EO
LEO. Leo G. Carroll was an English actor who appeared in many Alfred Hitchcock movies, including ‘Rebecca’, ‘Suspicion’ and ‘North by Northwest’. I’ll always associate Carroll with the role of Alexander Waverly, the boss man in the television show ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’
_STI
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. It is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
O_IS
OTIS. Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.
E_L
EEL. Unagi is the Japanese word for freshwater eel.
AL_
A LA. ‘Carte’ is a word sometimes used in French for a menu. Menu items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately, as opposed to “table d’hôte” which is a fixed price menu with limited choice.
R_NE
RENE. Belgian artist René Magritte was a surrealist. His most recognized work maybe is “The Son of Man”, a painting he created as a self-portrait. It is the work that shows a man in a bowler hat with his face covered by an apple. The image features prominently in the great movie, the 1999 remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair”.
O_E
ONE. The Pledge of Allegiance of the US was composed by Francis Bellamy in 1892 and was adopted by Congress in 1942. The actual words used in the pledge have changed over time. Here is the original 1892 version shown in comparison to the current version that was adopted in 1954:
I_TA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
AS_
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. The asp is so venomous that it was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When she opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
ETN_
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius.
_IA
CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during WWII. The CIA was chartered by the National Security Act of 1947.
AB_
ABA. You might recognize the chorus of the 1914 song called ‘Aba Daba Honeymoon’. It goes:
_STI
ASTI. Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy, and is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a ‘poor man’s champagne’. The ‘Spumante’ was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.
O_EO
OREO. The Oreo was the best-selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been sold since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added in the overseas version to give a different taste.
OR_
ORR. Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …
_EL
EEL. Unagi is the Japanese word for freshwater eel, and unadon is the Japanese word for “eel bowl”. Unadon is actually a contraction of “unagi no kabayaki” (grilled eel) and “donburi” (rice bowl dish).
A_L
AOL. A keyword is a reference point for finding other words, especially in using search engines like Google or AOL Search. In August of 2006 an AOL researcher published a text file online containing words that over 650,000 users had searched for, listed by users who were only identified by an anonymous user number. The degree of anonymity was insufficient though, as some users could be identified by the terms in their search histories. “The New York Times” tracked down several users just from the information in the released file, one of whom even gave permission for the paper to publish her name. One user in particular (#927) was singled out as a very”scary” person based on his or her search history, spawning a play called “User 927”.
E_O
ELO. Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
O_E
ODE. The poet John Keats is famous for writing a whole series of beautiful odes. The most renowned 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’, as well as ‘To Autumn’.
AL_
A LA. The French for ‘spit-roasted, on a skewer’ is ‘à la broche’.
A_A
ABA. The American Bar Association was founded back in 1878. It is a voluntary association for lawyers and law students. The main focus of the ABA is setting academic settings for law schools, and setting ethical codes for the profession.
ETO_
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
R_NE
RENE. René Cassin drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after WWII that was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. This work led to Cassin being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968.
_EL
EEL. Unagi is the Japanese word for freshwater eel, and unadon is the Japanese word for “eel bowl”. Unadon is actually a contraction of “unagi no kabayaki” (grilled eel) and “donburi” (rice bowl dish).
_RIC
ERIC. Eric Hoffer was a philosopher from the Bronx in New York, and the author of the much respected 1951 book ‘The True Believer’. The book examines the rise of totalitarian governments, such as those of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in Russia, and discusses how such regimes may have arisen and prospered in societies.
A_A
A LA. The phrase ‘in the style of’ can be translated in ‘alla’ in Italian and ‘à la’ in French.
_NN
ANN. The Beach Boys 1965 hit “Barbara Ann” was actually a cover version of a song first recorded by the Regents in 1961 (with a different spelling: Barbara ‘Anne”).
AD_
ADA. Back in 1889, Jeff Reed was hired to carry the mail between the two communities of Stonewall and Center in what was then called the Indian Territory. Reed had moved to the area from Texas and he bought some land in between the two limits of his mail route and built himself a log cabin. Pretty soon other settlers built homes nearby and in 1891 the settlement got its own post office. As postman, Reed got to name the new post office and he called it Ada, after his oldest daughter. Ada is now a county seat and has over 17,000 residents. One of the sons of the city of Ada was the televangelist Oral Roberts.
OB_
OBI. An obi is a sash worn in some forma of dress in Japan, both by men and women, although the styles for women tend to be more ornate.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the symbol used for density, i.e. mass/volume.
LE_
LES. Victor Hugo’s famous 1862 novel “Les Misérables”, has been translated into English several times. However, the title is usually left in the original French as a successful translation of ‘les misérables” seems to be elusive. Some suggestions for an English title are ‘The Wretched’, ‘The Victims’ and ‘The Dispossessed’.
AN_E
ANNE. Anne McCaffrey is an American science-fiction author, famous for her “Dragonriders of Pern” series of novels. McCaffrey emigrated to Ireland in 1970, and lives in a house of her own design in County Wicklow. She calls her home “Dragonhold-Underhill”.
IR_
IRS. April 15th wasn’t always Tax Day in the US. The deadline for returns was March 1st from 1913-18, when it was moved to March 15th. Tax Day has been April 15th since 1955.
AD_
ADA. The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists, and it now has more than 152,000 members.
EL_
ELO. ELO of course stands for the Electric Light Orchestra, a symphonic rock group from the north of England. Their manager was Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy).
IK_
IKE. Mike and Ike is a brandname of fruit-flavored candy made by Just Born starting in 1940. Just Born launched quite a clever marketing campaign in 2012 asserting that Mike and Ike had ‘split up due to creative differences’. The campaign involved production of two different boxes for the candy showing one or the other name scratched out. Clever …
A_A
ADA. American Dental Association (ADA)
ORE_
OREO. The Oreo cookie was the biggest seller in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been produced since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America though, you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added to give a different taste.
_MO
EMO. Emo originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_SA
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.
O_IS
OTIS. Elevators (simple hoists) had been around for a long time. What Elisha Otis did was come up with the “safety elevator”, a design that he showcased at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. At the Fair he would stand on an elevated platform in front of onlookers and order his assistant to cut the single rope holding up the platform. His safety system kicked in when the platform had only fallen a few inches, amazing the crowd. After this demonstration, the orders came rolling in.
_OTA
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
NS_
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) seal was introduced in 1965 and features an eagle perched upon a key. The eagle represents the agency’s national mission, and the key represents security.
ET_A
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister on the Italian mainland, Mt Vesuvius.
A_L
AOL. Founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1983, the company changed its name in 1989 to America Online. As America Online went international, the acronym AOL was used in order to shake off the “America-centric” sound to the name. During the heady days of AOL’s success the company could not keep up with the growing number of subscribers, so people trying to connect often encountered busy signals. That’s when users referred to AOL as “Always Off-Line”.
R_NE
RENE. The lovely and very talented actress Rene Russo is a native of Burbank, California. Russo went to highschool (with actor/director Ron Howard), but dropped out in tenth grade. At seventeen, she was given the opportunity to train as a model and within a very short time appeared on the cover of ‘Vogue’. As her modelling jobs slowed down in her early thirties, Russo made a career change and studied theater and acting. I am so glad she did, as Rene Russo is one of my favorite actresses …
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
SO_
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
A_A
A LA. A dish prepared ‘a la king’ (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
LE_
LEO. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy is best known for his novels ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina’. He also wrote the celebrated novellas ‘Hadji Murad’ and ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’.
CS_
CSI. I”m not a big fan of director Quentin Tarantino. His movies are too violent for me, and the size of his ego just turns me right off. Having said that, I think “Pulp Fiction” is a remarkable film. If you can look past the violence it’s really well written. And what a legacy it has. John Travolta’s career was on the rocks and he did the film for practically no money, and it turned out be a re-launch for him. Uma Thurman became a top celebrity overnight from her role. Even Bruce Willis got some good out of it, putting an end to a string of poorly received performances.
U_A
UMA. Uma Thurman’s father, Robert Thurman, was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and called his daughter Uma as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name, Dbuma.
IOT_
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use it to portray something very small, as it is the smallest letter in the alphabet.
OM_N
OMAN. Oman is lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The city of Muscat, with its strategic location, has a history of invasion and occupation. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody invasion. The Portuguese held the city for much of the next century until finally ousted by local Omani forces in 1648.
E_A
EVA. Eva Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón who was in office from 1946 to 1955. The Argentine First Lady was known affectionately by the people as ‘Evita’, the Spanish language diminutive of ‘Eva’. “Evita” was also the follow-up musical to “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and was based on the life of Eva Perón.
EE_
EEL. Jellied eels are a traditional British dish associated with the working class East End of London. Historically, the eels used were caught in the River Thames. The dish is prepared by boiling up eels that have been chopped into rounds in a seasoned stock and then allowing it to set. The eel contains a lot of gelatinous protein so the stock forms a jelly as it cools.
ATAR_
ATARI. Breakout is an arcade game developed by Atari and released in 1976. It is like a souped up version of the original video game, ‘Pong’.
_KE
IKE. Mamie Eisenhower has to have been one of the most charming of all the First Ladies of the United States. Ms. Eisenhower suffered from an inner ear complaint called Ménière’s disease which caused her to lose her balance quite often. Because she was unsteady on her feet there were unfounded rumors floating around Washington that Ms. Eisenhower had a drinking problem. People can be very unkind …
OR_O
OREO. The Oreo was the biggest selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been produced since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added to give a different taste.
_HO
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
OR_
ORR. Catch-22’ is a novel by Joseph Heller set during WWII. The title refers to absurd bureaucratic constraints that soldiers had to suffer. Heller’s ‘Catch 22’ was invoked by an army psychiatrist to explain that any pilot requesting to be evaluated for insanity, to avoid flying dangerous missions, had to be sane as only a sane man would try to get out of such missions. The term ‘catch-22 has entered the language and describes a paradoxical situation from which one can’t escape due to contradictory rules; one loses, no matter what choice one makes.
_SA
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.
_MAN
OMAN. Oman’s only public university is called Sultan Qaboos University.
_SP
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It was so venomous that it was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When she opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
_LK
ELK. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome.
AST_
ASTI. Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy, and is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a ‘poor man’s champagne’. The ‘Spumante’ was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.
ETO_
ETON. An Eton jacket is usually black, cut square at the hips and has wide lapels. It is named for the design of jacket that is worn by the younger students at Eton College just outside London.
INC_
INCA. Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro discovered the Incas in 1526, marking the beginning of the end for an ancient civilization that was to be ravaged by brutal Spanish colonists and by imported smallpox. The last leader of the Inca was Atahualpa. Pizarro staged a mock trial and then condemned Atahualpa to execution by burning. A Spanish friar intervened on behalf of the condemned man, as Atahualpa believed that if he was burned his soul would not move on to the afterlife. Pizarro, was kind enough to have Atahualpa garroted instead.
N_D
NED. South Park’ is an adult-oriented cartoon series on Comedy Central. I don’t do ‘South Park’ …
LE_
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment intended to be worn.
_VA
EVA. Eva Gabor was the youngest of the Gabor sisters, all three of whom were celebrated Hollywood actresses and socialites (her siblings were Zsa-Zsa and Magda). The Gabor sisters were born in Budapest and immigrated to the United States separately, with Eva being the first to arrive. Eva broke into movies, but her most famous role was on the TV sitcom “Green Acres” in which she played the lovely character Lisa Douglas opposite Eddie Albert. One of Eva’s claims to fame is the unwitting promotion of the game called “Twister”, the sales of which were languishing in 1996. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” she got on all fours and played the game with Johnny Carson. Sales took off immediately, and Twister became a huge hit.
SO_
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
EA_
EAU. Back in 1709, an Italian perfume-maker moved to Cologne in Germany. There he invented a new fragrance that he named Eau de Cologne after his newly adopted town. The fragrance is still produced in Cologne, using a secret formulation. However, the terms “Eau de Cologne” and “cologne”, are now used generically.
_MAN
OMAN. The town of Bahla in Oman is famous for it’s old fort, pottery and a surrounding oasis.
R_NE
RENE. Belgian artist René Magritte was a surrealist. His most recognized work maybe is ‘The Son of Man’, a painting he created as a self-portrait. It is the work that shows a man in a bowler hat with his face covered by an apple. The image features prominently in the great movie, the 1999 remake of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’.
_BA
ABA. The American Basketball Association (ABA) was absorbed into the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1976.
AS_I
ASTI. Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy, and is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a ‘poor man’s champagne’. The ‘Spumante’ was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.
_NE
ONE. The game of Scrabble has been around since 1938, the invention of an architect named Alfred Mosher Butts. Butts determined how many tiles of each letter, and the point value of each tile, by analyzing letter distributions in publication like ‘The New York Times’.
A_TI
ASTI. Barbera d’Asti is a red wine from Italy. Barbera d’Asti is produced not only in the famed Asti wine region of northern Italy, but also in neighboring Alexandria.
ANN_
ANNE. The actress Anne Hathaway is a favorite of mine, I must say. She starred in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ in 2006 and in 2007’s ‘Becoming Jane’, a film I particularly enjoyed.
_RIC
ERIC. Eric Trump is the second son of Donald Trump and his first wife Ivana Zelníčková. Eric works for his father, and in particular manages the Trump golf courses around the world and the Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia. Eric also appears in the boardroom alongside his Dad on the reality show ‘The Apprentice’.
A_A
A LA. A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
_ERO
NERO. Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective and the hero of many stories published by author Rex Stout. There are 33 Nero Wolfe novels for us to read, and 39 short stories. There are also movie adaptations of two of the novels: “Meet Nero Wolfe” (1936) which features a young Rita Hayworth, and “The League of Frightened Men” (1937). One of Wolfe’s endearing traits is his love of good food and beer, so he is a pretty rotund character.
A_A
ADA. The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists and now has more than 152,000 members.
S_R
SSR. The former Soviet Union was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution that overthrew the Tsar in 1917. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and was made up of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics.
SO_
SOS. I’ll send an SOS to the world’ is a lyric from the Police song, ‘Message in a Bottle’.
IR_
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came into being during the Civil War, to raise money to pay for war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, taxation was limited to levies on trade and property.
_LK
ELK. The elk (also known as the wapiti) is the one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were used to seeing the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct term then is “wapiti”, the Shawnee name for the animal, which means “white rump”. It’s all very confusing …
E_U
EAU. In French, Swiss (Suisse) banks might hold back water (eau).
IN_A
INCA. Viracocha was an important deity in the Inca civilization, the creator of all things.
_AN
IAN. Evan is a Scottish form of the name John.
O_I
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
C_I
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. ‘CSI: Miami’ (the ‘worst’ of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. ‘CSI: NY’ (the ‘best’ of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong and has been doing so since 2000.
N_A
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) seal was introduced in 1965 and features an eagle perched upon a key. The eagle represents the agency’s national mission, and the key represents security.
SO_
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are simply mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
AS_
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. Therefore, when the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was her chosen method.
A_L
AOL. AOL’s “first” Initial Public Offering was in 1992. Years later the company was picked up by Time Warner (not a great investment for Time Warner, as it turned out). AOL was spun off as a separate entity again in 2009 and the new company had a “second” IPO that same year.
O_CA
ORCA. The orca that starred in the 1993 movie “Free Willy” was actually called Keiko, with Willy being his “stage name”. Keiko had a sad life. He was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to a local aquarium. Subsequently he was sold on to Marineland in Ontario, and then Six Flags Mexico in 1985. After starring in the movie, his fans raised money with the intent of returning Keiko to the wild. Keiko had become very ill, partly from being confined in a small tank in Mexico, so a lot of money had to be spent returning him to good health. He was purchased by the Oregon Coast Aquarium who undertook the task of treating him and preparing him for the wild. You might recall the dramatic journey he took from Mexico to Oregon in US Air Force transport plane in 1996. Having regained his health, he was flown to Iceland and there was gradually reintroduced into the wild. Sadly, Keiko did not fare too well back in the ocean. He was never adopted by a pod, so lived a solitary life. He lost weight, would sometimes follow fishing boats and play with any humans who would give him attention. In 2003 he beached himself in Taken Bay in Norway, where he died.
L_S
LES. The 1980 musical “Les Misérables” is an adaptation of the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The show opened in London in 1985, and is the longest running musical in the history of London’s West End. My wife and I saw “Les Miz” in the Queen’s Theatre in London quite a few years ago, but were only able to get tickets in the very back row. The old theater’s seating is very steep, so the back row of the balcony is extremely high over the stage. One of the big events in the storyline is the building of a street barricade over which the rebels fight. At the height we were seated we could see the stagehands behind the barricade, sitting drinking Coke, even smoking cigarettes. On cue, the stagehands would get up and catch a dropped rifle, or an actor that had been shot. It was pretty comical. I didn’t really enjoy the show that much, to be honest. Some great songs, but the musical version of the storyline just didn’t seem to hang together for me.
_ENE
RENE. (30D. Wielder of the hammer Mjölnir : THOR)
_EO
LEO. Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 13 to August 23 are Leos.
_EO
LEO. On the sitcom “Seinfeld”, Jerry’s eccentric maternal uncle is Leo, played by actor Len Lesser. Lesser acted in movies and television for many years, alongside some of the greats of stage and screen. He was fond of telling a marvelous story about acting in the 1973 film “Papillon” starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. In his role as a prison guard, Lesser was required to shove McQueen, but McQueen didn’t think that Lesser was pushing him roughly enough. He turned to Lesser and told him “Don’t think of me as a movie star. Think of me as a character in a show”, encouraging him to be more aggressive. When McQueen walked away, Hoffman was left standing there beside Lesser. He paused and quietly said to Lesser, “Think of me as a movie star …”
SS_
SSN. The main purpose of a Social Security Number is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although to me it is looking more and more like an “identity number” these days. The system was introduced in 1936. Before 1986, a SSN was required only for persons with substantial income, so many children under 14 had no number assigned. There was concern that a lot of people were claiming children as dependents on their tax forms who did not exist, so from 1986 onwards it was a requirement to get a SSN for any dependents over the ago of 5. Sure enough, in the following year’s tax returns, seven million dependents “disappeared”.
_SR
SSR. The country that we now know as Belarus was called the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in the days of the Soviet Union.
OR_A
ORCA. The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.
E_O
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_SP
ASP. The venomous snake called an asp was a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt.
_OS
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
ATAR_
ATARI. I remember being really addicted to the Atari video arcade game called ‘Asteroids’ back in the early eighties. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, as ‘Asteroids’ turned out to be Atari’s best selling game of all time.
IK_
IKE. ‘I Like Ike’ was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.
OB_
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
_AN
IAN. English actor Sir Ian Holm is very respected on the stage in the UK, but is better known for his film roles here in the US. Holms played the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in two of the “Lord of the Rings” movies, and he also played the character who turns out be an android in the film “Alien”.
E_O
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_MA
UMA. Kill Bill’ is a 3-part Quentin Tarantino movie (so I haven’t seen it!). ‘Kill Bill’ started off as one film, but as the running time was over four hours, it was split into two ‘volumes’, released several months apart in 2003 and 2004. There has been a lot of talk about making ‘Kill Bill: Volume 3’.
IK_
IKE. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason why President Eisenhower was called “Ike”. It is known however, that it goes back to his childhood, because that’s what his parents called him.
_EI
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for ‘garland, wreath’, although in more general terms a ‘lei’ is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.
ETN_
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-guage railway, and two ski resorts.
NS_
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organizations nickname … “No Such Agency”.
L_S
LES. Les Paul was a guitarist, songwriter and inventor. When he was 33 years old, Paul was involved in a near-fatal car crash that left his right arm and elbow shattered. Surgeons offered him the choice of amputation or a rebuilding of the limb that would leave him unable to bend his elbow. He told them to set his arm at just under 90 degrees so that he could at least hold his guitar and perhaps play it.
_NN
ANN. Heart is a rock band from Seattle, Washington, founded in the seventies and still going strong. The band has had a changing lineup, except for sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson.
_ES
LES. Les Aspin was Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, just for a year. He had a turbulent year in office, and during this time oversaw the introduction of the “don’t’ ask, don’t tell” policy for the military. But it was the loss of US lives in Somalia that brought his year to an end, causing him to resign for personal reasons at the end of 1993.
_ED
TED. Ted Kennedy was the youngest boy in the family that included his older brothers: Joseph Jr. (killed in action in WWII), John (assassinated) and Robert (assassinated). Ted went into the US Senate in 1962 in a special election held after his brother became US President. He remained in the Senate until he passed away in 2009, making Ted Kennedy the fourth-longest-serving Senator in history.
_MO
EMO. The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
_EL
EEL. The species of cusk-eel Abyssobrotula galatheae is deepest-living fish known to man. In 1970, one of these cusk-eels was trawled from the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench at a depth of almost 27,500 feet, setting a record for the deepest fish ever caught.
_SI
CSI. The TV show “CSI” gets a lot of criticism from law enforcement agencies for its unrealistic portrayal of the procedures and science of criminal investigation. I don’t care though, as I just think it’s fun television. The original “CSI” set in Las Vegas seems to have “gone off the boil”, but the addition of Sela Ward to the cast of “CSI: NY” has really, really raised the level of the sister show centered around New York City.
_RS
IRS. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was set up during the Civil War to raise money to cover war expenses. Prior to the introduction of income tax in 1862, the government was funded by levies on trade and property.
O_R
ORR. Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …
_TON
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
_MO
EMO. Emo originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
IOT_
IOTA. Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.
EL_
ELK. The elk (also known as wapiti) is the one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were used to seeing the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct term then is “wapiti”, the Shawnee name for the animal, which means “white rump”. Very confusing …
_ENE
RENE. The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum”. This translates into French as ‘Je pense, donc je suis’ and into English as “I think, therefore I am”.
ETN_
ETNA. Typhon was known as the ‘father of all monsters’ in Greek mythology, and he was married to the ‘mother of all monster’, Echidna. Typhon had a huge human torso with a hundred dragon heads. His lower body was made up of gigantic viper coils. Although all the gods feared Typhon, Zeus finally defeated him and trapped him underneath Mount Etna.
L_O
LEO. Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio is from Los Angeles, California. DiCaprio’s mother was visiting a museum in Italy when she was pregnant and felt the first kick of her unborn child. At the moment of that first kick, Mama DiCaprio was looking at a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and so named her son Leonardo.
_LK
ELK. Male elks are called bulls, and females are known as cows. Bull elks are known for their very loud screaming, which is called bugling. Cow elks are attracted to bulls that bugle more often and most loudly.
IK_
IKE. When the future president was growing up, the Eisenhower family used the nickname ‘Ike’ for all seven boys in the family, as ‘Ike’ was seen as an abbreviation for the family name. ‘Big Ike’ was Edgar, the second oldest boy. ‘Little/Young Ike’ was Dwight, who was the third son born. Dwight had no sisters.
_NE
ONE. One Direction is a boy band that appeared on the British talent show ‘The X Factor’ in 2010. Each of the band’s individual members had auditioned separately for the show and, once eliminated from the competition, got together and qualified for the ‘group’ category of ‘The X Factor’.
ES_U
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother, Rebekah gave birth to the twins, “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”.
C_I
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been remarkably successful. That said, only one of the four ‘CSI’ shows is now in production (‘CSI: Cyber’). The franchise consists of:
I_N
IAN. The word Orwellian has its roots in the name of George Orwell of course. Something can be described as Orwellian if it is contrary to the concept of a free society, and reflects some of the ideas described by Orwell in his novels, particularly “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.
E_AU
ESAU. Esau, was the grandson of Abraham, and the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. He is portrayed as being very different from his brother, a hunter, someone who loves the outdoor life.
TA_
TAO. The Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Tao signifies the true nature of the world.
E_O
ELO. ELO of course stands for the Electric Light Orchestra, a symphonic rock group from the north of England. Their manager was Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy).
_MAN
OMAN. Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Most of central Oman is covered by a gravel desert, with mountains along the north and southeast coasts.
C_A
CIA. The World Factbook’ is a publication produced by the CIA. It is intended primarily for use by government employees but, as it is in the public domain, it is now used by just about anyone. The first edition of ‘Factbook’ came out in 1962 and, as it was classified, it had limited distribution. It was decided to make ‘Factbook’ public in 1975, and it has been freely available on the World Wide Web since 1994.
ET_N
ETON. The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).
OR_A
ORCA. Shamu was the name of the third orca, or killer whale, ever to be featured in a public exhibition. She starred in a popular SeaWorld show in San Diego in the sixties. After she died in 1971 her name lived on, as the name “Shamu” is still used by SeaWorld for its killer whale shows. That original Shamu was retired after she grabbed and refused to let go of the leg of one of her trainers.
_AU
EAU. Back in 1709, an Italian perfume-maker moved to Cologne in Germany. There he invented a new fragrance that he named Eau de Cologne after his newly adopted hometown. The fragrance is still produced in Cologne, using a secret formulation. However, the terms “Eau de Cologne” and “cologne”, are now used generically.
A_N
ANN. The television journalist Ann Curry is perhaps best known for the time she spent as co-host on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. NBC executives asked Curry to resign from the ‘Today’ show because ratings were low. I just read online that Curry was also pushed out because of the way she insisted on dressing and because she refused to dye her gray hair. I hope that isn’t true …
A_A
A LA. In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has come to describe a way of serving pie, usually with ice cream, or as I recall from when I lived in Upstate New York, with cheese.
_ED
NED. Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.
_TNA
ETNA. ETNA/ANTE
E_U
EAU. Évian-les-Bains (or simply Évian) is in the very east of France, on the shores of Lake Geneva directly across the lake from Lausanne, Switzerland. As you might imagine, Évian is the home of Évian mineral water, the most successful business in town. I can’t stand the taste of Évian water …
_NNE
ANNE. “Becoming Jane” is a biographical film that depicts the early life of author Jane Austen. American actress Anne Hathaway played the title role, to mixed reviews. Personally I loved the film, and Hathaway’s performance.
NE_
NED. The Leftorium is a store in ‘The Simpsons’. It’s located in the Springfield Mall and is owned by Ned Flanders. The Leftorium specializes in products made for left-handed people.
_DA
ADA. The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists and it now has more than 152,000 members.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
T_O
TAO. The ‘Tao Te Ching’is a classical Chinese text, fundamental to the philosophy of Taoism.
ES_U
ESAU. Esau, was the grandson of Abraham and the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. Esau is portrayed as being very different from his brother, as a hunter and someone who loves the outdoor life.
ORE_
OREO. Uh-Oh! Oreo is a variant of the Oreo cookie, the reverse of the original in that the outside is made of vanilla wafers, and the filling is chocolate cream. The name was changed to Golden Chocolate Creme Oreo in 2007. I’ve never had one …
A_N
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.
N_A
NSA. Edward Snowden is a former NSA contractor who leaked several top secret NSA documents to the media beginning in June 2013. After disclosing his name as the source of the leaks, Snowden tried to seek asylum in Ecuador. While travelling to Ecuador he had a layover in Moscow. While in Moscow, the US government revoked his passport, which effectively left him stranded in the transit area of Moscow Airport. The Russian government eventually granted him annually-renewable temporary asylum.
ORC_
ORCA. The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.
L_S
LES. The 1980 musical “Les Misérables” is an adaptation of the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The show opened in London in 1985, and is the longest running musical in the history of London’s West End. My wife and I saw “Les Miz” in the Queen’s Theatre in London quite a few years ago, but were only able to get tickets in the very back row. The old theater’s seating is very steep, so the back row of the balcony is extremely high over the stage. One of the big events in the storyline is the building of a street barricade over which the rebels fight. At the height we were seated we could see the stagehands behind the barricade, sitting drinking Coke, even smoking cigarettes. On cue, the stagehands would get up and catch a dropped rifle, or an actor that had been shot. It was pretty comical. I didn’t really enjoy the show that much, to be honest. Some great songs, but the musical version of the storyline just didn’t seem to hang together for me.
OM_N
OMAN. Muscat is the capital of Oman, and lies on the northeast coast of the state on the Gulf of Oman, a branch of the Persian Gulf.
E_U
EAU. ‘Eau de toilette’ (toilet water) is a diluted perfume. A French person when dressing is said to be attending to his or her “toilette”.
LE_
LEI. “Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.
_VA
EVA. Despite the English sounding name, Eva Green is a French actress. Green played Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie “Casino Royale”, opposite Daniel Craig.
_NCA
INCA. A quipu is a device used by the Incas for recording numbers. It is made of colored threads that are knotted, and used the base ten number system. The word “quipu” is sometimes translated as “talking knots”.
E_A
EVA. Eva Braun became Adolf Hitler’s companion when she was 19 years old, and he 42. Braun was working as an assistant and model for Hitler’s personal photographer when she met him. Braun was herself a photographer and many of her photographs and films have survived and give us some insight into Hitler’s personal life. Braun attempted suicide twice early on in the relationship with Hitler. She finally took her own life alongside Hitler just 40 hours after marrying him in the Führerbunker just before Berlin fell to the REd Army towards the end of WWII.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter ‘p’.
A_L
AOL. Founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1983, America Online changed its name in 1989. As the company went international, the acronym AOL was used in order to shake off the “US-centric” sound to “America Online”. During the heady days of AOL’s success, the company could not keep up with the growing number of subscribers, so people trying to connect often encountered busy signals. That’s when users called AOL “Always Off-Line”.
ES_U
ESAU. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother, Rebekah, gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).
_REO
OREO. The Oreo cookie was the biggest seller in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have produced since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days, the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America though, you might notice a difference with the homegrown cookie as coconut oil is added to give a different taste.
AN_E
ANNE. Anne Rice is an American author of erotic and Gothic novels. She was born Howard Allen O’Brien (no wonder she changed her name!). Her famous series of novels “The Vampire Chronicles” centers on her character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman who was turned into a vampire in the 18th century. One of the stories, “Interview with the Vampire”, was adapted for the big screen in 1994 and features Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and others in a star-studded cast. Not my kind of movie though, as I don’t do vampires …
_AN
IAN. Ian Kinsler is a second baseman for the Texas Rangers MLB baseball team.
AS_
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
C_I
CSI. ‘CSI: NY’ is the best of the CSI franchise of television shows, in my humble opinion, since the original ‘CSI’ set in Las Vegas went off the boil a few years ago. Stars of the New York show are Gary Sinise and Sela Ward.
E_L
EEL. Electrophorus electricus is the biological name for the electric eel. Despite its name, the electric “eel” isn’t an eel at all, but rather what is called a knifefish, a fish with an elongated body and related to the catfish. The electric eel has three pairs of organs along its abdomen, each capable of generating an electric discharge. The shock can go as high as 500 volts with 1 ampere of current (that’s 500 watts), and that could perhaps kill a human.
_REO
OREO. The Oreo was the best-selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been sold since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added in the overseas version to give a different taste.
R_NE
RENE. René Cassin drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after WWII that was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. This work led to Cassin being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968.
_RS
IRS. Form 1040 was originally created just for tax returns from 1913, 1914 and 1915, but it just will not go away …
_SI
CSI. I quite enjoy the ‘CSI’ franchise of television shows, except ‘CSI: Miami’. I find the character played by David Caruso to be extremely annoying. Apparently it was cancelled in 2012. No loss …
I_N
IAN. Sir Ian McKellen is a marvelous English actor, someone who is comfortable playing anything from Macbeth on stage to Magneto in an ‘X-Men’ movie. On the big screen, McKellen is very famous for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of Rings”. In the UK Sir Ian is noted for being at the forefront of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, a role he has enthusiastically embraced since the eighties.
REN_
RENE. The lovely and very talented actress Rene Russo is a native of Burbank, California. She went to high school with actor/director Ron Howard, but dropped out in tenth grade. At seventeen she was given the opportunity to train as a model, and within a very short time appeared on the cover of ‘Vogue’. As her modelling jobs slowed down in her early thirties, she made a career change and studied theater and acting. I am so glad she did, as she is one of my favorite actresses …
_SN
SSN. The main purpose of a Social Security Number (SSN) is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although given its ubiquitous use, it is looking more and more like an “identity number” to me. The social security number system was introduced in 1936. Prior to 1986, an SSN was required only for persons with substantial income so many children under 14 had no number assigned. For some years the IRS had a concern that a lot of people were claiming children on their tax returns who did not actually exist. So, from 1986 onward, it is a requirement to get an SSN for any dependents over the age of 5. Sure enough, in 1987 seven million dependents “disappeared”.
NS_
NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.
U_A
UMA. ‘Gattaca’ is a science fiction movie starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman that was released in 1997. Set in the not-too-distant future, the film describes a society in which potential children are preselected so that they inherit the most desirable traits from their parents. The title ‘Gattaca’ is the space agency featured in the storyline. I saw this one relatively recently, and found it very absorbing …
SS_
SSN. The Social Security Number system was introduced by the Social Security Administration in 1936, as part of the New Deal Social Security Program. The number is primarily used to track individuals for taxation purposes. There was a significant change made in 1986 when parents were required to apply for a social security number for their children over the age of 5 years. This change was made as the IRS believed that many parents were claiming deductions for children that did not actually exist, and the hope was that by requiring a SSN for each dependent such fraud could be curtailed. Sure enough, for tax year 1986, 7 million children “disappeared”.
ET_N
ETON. “A Yank at Eton” was released in 1942, and is a sequel to the 1938 comedy “A Yank at Oxford”. The film had some use as “propaganda” as the movie’s message was that “Yanks” and “Limeys” could get along. This was helpful as American forces were pouring into the UK in preparation for the invasion of Europe during WWII.
_SI
CSI. The ‘CSI’ franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. ‘CSI: Miami’ (the ‘worst’ of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. ‘CSI: NY’ (the ‘best’ of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong and has been doing so since 2000.
ETN_
ETNA. Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. One of the more recent eruptions was in 2003-2003, which threw up a huge column of ash.
_ED
TED. The acronym TED stands for Technology Entertainment and Design. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the Sapling Foundation. The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The Sapling Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as ‘TED Talks’.
OB_
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.
ETO_
ETON. Captain Hook is the bad guy in ‘Peter Pan’, the famous play by J. M. Barrie. Hook is Peter Pan’s sworn enemy, as Pan cut off Hook’s hand causing it to be replaced by a ‘hook’. It is implied in the play that Hook attended Eton College, just outside London. Hook’s last words are ‘Floreat Etona’, which is Eton College’s motto.
U_A
UMA. Uma Thurman’s father, Robert Thurman, was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and called his daughter Uma as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name, Dbuma.
_AN
IAN. Ian Rankin is crime writer from Scotland. Rankin’s most famous novels feature his hero ‘Inspector Rebus’ and are set in and around Edinburgh.
S_S
SOS. The combination of three dots, three dashes, three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress signal in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS, although there is no pause between the letters, so this is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also only mnemonics, introduced after the Morse signal was adopted.
A_ARI
ATARI. Do you remember the arcade video game that was like a game of tennis, with paddles moving up and down to hit what looked like a ball, over what looked like a net? Well, that was the game called “Pong”.
_HO
RHO. Plato was a Greek philosopher and mathematician. He was a student of the equally famous and respected Socrates, and Plato in turn was the teacher and mentor of the celebrated Aristotle.
OB_
OBI. (94A. See 97-Across : SASH)
AS_
ASP. The venomous snake called an asp was a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt.
_LA
A LA. A dish prepared ‘a la king’ (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.
AS_
ASP. In Greek mythology, Medusa was one of the monstrous female creatures known as Gorgons. According to one version of the Medusa myth, she was once a beautiful woman. But she incurred the wrath of Athena who turned her lovely hair into serpents and made her face hideously ugly. Anyone who gazed directly at the transformed Medusa would turn into stone. She was eventually killed by the hero Perseus, who beheaded her. He carried Medusa’s head and used its powers as a weapon, before giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. One myth holds that as Perseus was flying over Egypt with Medusa’s severed head, drop of her blood fell to the ground and formed asps.
O_I
OBI. The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot (chocho musubi) or perhaps in a drum knot (taiko musubi).
_OS
SOS. The combination of three dots - three dashes - three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots - pause - three dashes - pause - three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.
_SP
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
AS_
ASP. The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It was so venomous that it was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without and painful spasms. When opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.
_SA
NSA. Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the website that is notorious for publishing information provided by whistleblowers. Assange is currently in England and recently lost an appeal to avoid extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking political asylum in 2012. He was granted that asylum and now lives at the embassy.
EL_
ELO. Out of the Blue’ is a double album released in 1977 by ELO. All the tracks were written by band leader Jeff Lynne in just three weeks in a rented chalet in the Swiss Alps. A creative environment I guess …
C_A
CIA. Operation Cyclone was the codename for the CIA’s program to arm the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Operation Cyclone is at the center of the very entertaining 2007 movie ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’.
_STI
ASTI. Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.
ORE_
OREO. The Oreo was the best-selling cookie in the 20th century, and almost 500 billion of them have been sold since they were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco. In those early days the creme filling was made with pork fat, but today vegetable oils are used instead. If you take a bite out of an Oreo sold outside of America you might notice a difference from the homegrown cookie, as coconut oil is added in the overseas version to give a different taste.
RH_
RHO. Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”.
A_A
ABA. The American Bar Association (ABA) was founded back in 1878 and is a voluntary association for lawyers and law students. The ABA focuses on setting academic standards for law schools and setting ethical codes for the profession.
LE_
LEO. 1A. “Ars gratia artis” studio : MGM
SS_
SSR. The Republic of Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located east of Poland and north of Ukraine. Belarus didn’t exist as an entity until the Russian Revolution when it was created as one of the Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) that made up the USSR. The Republic of Belarus was formed soon after the USSR dissolved in 1990, but unlike many of the former Soviet Republics, Belarus has largely retained the old Soviet policies. Alexander Lukashenko is the country’s president and he believes in state ownership of the economy. Belarus and Russia have formal agreements in place that pledge cooperation.
OD_
ODE. English poet John Milton is best known for his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’. Milton also wrote several sonnets, the most famous of which is probably ‘On His Blindness’. The poet developed glaucoma which rendered him completely blind so he had to dictate a lot of his work, including the whole of ‘Paradise Lost’.
SS_
SSN. A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts i.e AAA-GG-SSSS, Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Since 1973, the Area Number reflects the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN is the Group Number, and the SSSS in the number is the Serial Number. However, this is all moot, as since 2011 SSN’s are assigned randomly.
O_E
ODE. Thomas Gray was an 18th-century poet from England. Gray’s most famous work is his ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, which is the source of many oft-quoted phrases, including:
