12 November 2016

pétanque

[pey-tahngk; French pe-tahnk]

noun

1. a form of lawn bowling originating in France, usually played on rough ground using steel balls.

Also called boule.

Origin of pétanque

French Provençal Latin
1950-1955; < French < Provençal pé foot (< Latin ped-, stem of pēs) + tanco post, stake (derivative of tancar to close, bar < Vulgar Latin *stanticāre; see stanch1); so called because the feet are to be planted firmly on the ground, as if staked, when the ball is released

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Anagram

Queen Pat

Today’s quote

I don’t really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I’d like to come back as my daughter’s dog.

– Leonard Cohen

On this day

12 November 1927 – Josef Stalin takes full control of the Soviet Union after Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party a few weeks earlier.

12 November 1944 – sinking of the German battleship, Tirpitz. The Allies had tried for two years to sink the ship. Finally, 32 British Lancaster bombers attack and sink the ship.

12 November 1990 – Swiss computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, publishes a formal proposal for hyper-text transfer, this followed his proposal for Information Management, published in March 1989. On 25 December 1990, he makes the world’s first successful communication between a hyper-text transfer protocol (HTTP) client and a server; and the world wide web is born. He is director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which oversees the ongoing development of the world-wide web.