1 August 2014

doover / doovie

[doo-ver] [doo-vee]

noun Australian Slang.

– thingumbob; thingumajig. A word used when the proper word doesn’t come to mind.

– horses doovers – Australian slang for hors d’Oeuvres

Origin:
1940–45; probably to be identified with doofer, doofah in same sense, perhaps representing do for, as in that will do for now

Anagram

overdo

Today’s aphorism

To do no evil is good, to intend none better.

– Claudius

On this day

1 August – the official birthday for all thoroughbred horses in the Southern Hemisphere .(see 1 January for Northern Hemisphere).

1 August 10BC – birthday of Claudius, Roman Emperor.

1 August 1774 – Joseph Priestly discovers oxygen. Controversially, Carl Willhelm Scheele claims to have discovered oxygen in 1773, but did not publish his findings until 1777, well after Priestly published his own in 1775. Scheele claimed Priestly was an oxygen thief. Other claimants to the discovery of oxygen include Michal Sędziwój (in the 16th century) and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier who was working concurrently with Priestly and Scheele.

1 August 1794 – Whiskey Rebellion, which was a protest against a tax imposed by George Washington on the production of whiskey by grain growers.

1 August 1799 – France becomes the first country to introduce the metric system.

1 August 1834 – slavery officially abolished throughout the British Empire.

1 August 1882 – death of Henry Kendall, Australian poet. Born 18 April 1839.

1 August 1936 – Adolph Hitler opens the XI Olympiad in Berlin, Germany.

1 August 2012 – death of Gore Vidal, American author, playwright, essayist and political activist.