14 March 2013

pena ajena

from Mexican Spanish

[PAY-nah ah-HAY-na]

– the embarrassment felt watching someone else’s humiliation.

Example:

I squirmed with pena ajena watching him crash and burn on TV.

Today’s aphorism

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

– Stephen Hawking.

On this day

14 March 1939 – the independent republic of Czechoslovakia is dissolved, enabling occupation by Nazi forces following the 1938 Munich Act. Czechoslovakia had been created in 1918.