Today’s WOTD – 10 November 2012

nerd   

[nurd]

noun (Slang)

1. a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person.
2. an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd.

Example Sentences
It doesn’t even have anything to do with whether you’re a bookworm or a nerd or a geek.
They are the refuge and the delight of every geek, nerd, lab and library rat.

Origin:

The word was first used by Dr Seuss in his 1950 book ‘If I Ran the Zoo’.

Today’s aphorism

Sheldon Cooper: 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the 12th, and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying – hang on to your hats – seven and three. Heh? Heh? Did I lie?

Leonard Hofstadter: We get it. 73 is the Chuck Norris of numbers.

Sheldon Cooper: Chuck Norris wishes. In binary, 73 is a palindrome: 1001001, which backwards is 1001001. Exactly the same. All Chuck Norris backwards gets you is “sirron kcuhc.”

On this day

10 November 1969 – Sesame Street debuts on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), featuring muppets by Jim Henson. It is one of the longest running tv shows in history and has been highly successful at increasing the literacy and numeracy skills of children.

10 November 1982 – Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet President, dies in office from a heart attack.

Today’s WOTD – 9 November 2012

adhibit

[ad-hib-it]

verb (used with object)
1. to take or let in; admit.
2. to use or apply.
3. to attach.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin adhibere (to bring to), from ad- (to) + habere (to have, hold). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghabh- (to give or to receive), which is also the source of give, gift, able, habit, prohibit, due, duty, and habile. Earliest documented use: 1528.

USAGE:
‘Morgiana asked the druggist for more medicine and essences such as are adhibited to the sick when at death’s door.’
Translator: Richard Burton; Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves.

Today’s aphorism

‘It’s like deja vu, all over again’.

– Yogi Berra

On this day

9 November 1967 – First edition of Rolling Stone magazine is published, and features John Lennon.

9 November 1989 – fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today’s WOTD – 8 November 2012

Mitty

(MIT-ee)

noun:

1. a fictional character given to grand and elaborate fantasies; daydreamer
2. ( as modifier ): a Walter Mitty character ; a Mitty act

[from a short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1939), by James Thurber ]

ETYMOLOGY:
After the title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a short story (1939) by James Thurber, later made into a movie (1947) of the same name.

NOTES:
James Thurber’s story appeared in the March 18, 1939 issue of the New Yorker. In the story, Walter Mitty is a meek husband, rather uxorious, who fantasizes of great exploits to escape the humdrum of daily life. One minute he is dreaming of being a heroic pilot (“Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500!”), next minute he becomes a daring naval commander. In his next thought he transforms into a master surgeon, and even a cool killer.

USAGE:
“It was not a Mitty dream. It was no fantasy at all.”
Richard Bach; A Gift of Wings; Dell; 1974.

Today’s aphorism

‘Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential’.

– Barack Obama

On this day

8 November 1960 – 43 year old, John F. Kennedy wins the presidential election and becomes the youngest President of the United States of America.

8 November 1973 – In Brisbane, Australia, a home-made bomb is placed on a teacher’s desk. It detonates, killing one student, injuring 8 others, while the teacher loses both hands.

Today’s WOTD – 7 November 2012

recusant

[rek-yuh-zuhnt, ri-kyoo-zuhnt]

adjective

1. refusing to submit, comply, etc.
2. obstinate in refusal.
3. English History . refusing to attend services of the Church of England.

For example:

‘Following the death of his father, Guy Fawkes’s mother married a recusant Catholic’.

noun
4. a person who is recusant.
5. English History . a person, especially a Roman Catholic, who refused to attend the services of the Church of England.

For example:

‘Following the proclamation of the Recusancy Act by Queen Elizabeth I, recusants could be fined or imprisoned and their property confiscated’.

Origin:
1545–55; < Latin recūsant- (stem of recūsāns ), present participle of recusāre to demur, object, equivalent to re- re- + -cūsāre, verbal derivative of causa cause; see -ant

Related forms
unrecusant, adjective

Today’s aphorism

‘Nobody goes there any more. It’s too crowded’.

– Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi’ Berra

On this day

7 – 8 November 1917 – October Revolution. Part of the Russian Revolution which commenced with the February Revolution (8-12 March 1917) and which overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and replaced it with the Soviet government. (This date is from the New Style Gregorian calendar and corresponds with 25 October 1917 under the Old Style Julian calendar).

7 November 1956 – Suez Canal Crisis. Egyptian President Nasser announces that he will nationalise the Suez Canal Company and in the interim, freezes their assets. In response, France, Britain and Israel attack Egypt, including the bombing Cairo. They had attacked in order to gain control of the Suez Canal and to remove Nasser from power. The United Nations issued a resolution requiring France, Britain and Israel to withdraw. The United States and the Soviet Union backed the U.N. resolution and the three antagonists were forced to withdraw.

7 November 2000 – George W. Bush wins the most controversial U.S. presidential election in history. Because of the closeness of the election results in Florida, a number of actions were taken in the U.S. Supreme Court. Before recounting could close, the Supreme Court declared George W. Bush the victor, with a majority of between 500 and 2,000 votes, even though it was revealed that George W. Bush’s brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush removed 58,000 names from the electoral role (based on ethnicity and who were likely to vote Democrat).

Today’s WOTD – 5 November 2012

bunbury

(BUN-buh-ree)

noun

– An imaginary person whose name is used as an excuse to some purpose, especially to visit a place.
– verb intr.: To use the name of a fictitious person as an excuse.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, where the character Algernon invents an imaginary person named Bunbury as an alibi to escape from relatives. He explains to his friend, ‘I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night.’ Earliest documented use: 1899.

USAGE:

‘There are birds who bunbury. One of them is the blackbird.’

– Jesko Partecke; The Birds Who Bunbury; Deutsche Welle (Germany); May 22, 2007.

Today’s aphorism

‘Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.’

– Oscar Wilde

On this day

5 November 1605 – Guy Fawkes Day. Celebrates King James I survived an attempt on his life when Guy Fawkes and others from the Gunpowder Plot placed gunpowder around the House of Lords in a failed attempt to blow up parliament.

5 November 1996 – Bill Clinton secures a second term as U.S. President, with a land-slide victory. Clinton is the first Democrat in 50 years to win consecutive terms of government.

Today’s WOTD – 4 November 2012

Pollyanna

(pol-ee-AN-uh)

noun

– A naively cheerful and optimistic person.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Pollyanna Whittier, heroine of novels by Eleanor Porter (1868-1920). Pollyanna is an indefatigable optimist and teaches everyone to play the “glad game”: find something to be glad about, no matter what tragedy befalls. Earliest documented use: 1917.

USAGE:
“So the doctrine of positive thinking does not require you to close your eyes and ears to the world. It does not require you to become a Pollyanna, calling everything wonderful, no matter how horrid it is.”
A Thought About Negative Thinking; Deccan Chronicle (India); Sep 16, 2012.

Today’s aphorism

‘The best place to find a helping hand, is at the end of your own arm’.

– Swedish proverb

On this day

4 November 1926 – British archeologist, Howard Carter, discovers steps leading to the tomb of the Pharoah Tutankhamen.

4 November 1979 – Students loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini over-run the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 Americans hostage in protest against the former Shah of Iran being allowed into the U.S. for medical treatment. The hostages were held for 14 months and released after the U.S. government promised $5 billion in foreign aid and unfroze $3 billion of Iranian funds. During the crisis, President Jimmy Carter attempted an unsuccessful rescue mission by helicopter, which ended in the deaths of 8 U.S. marines.

4 November 1995 – assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The assassin was Yigal Amir, an Israeli right-wing Zionist, who opposed the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in which Rabin had negotiated a peace plan with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Today’s WOTD – 3 November 2012

zeugma

[zoog-muh]

noun, Grammar, Rhetoric

– the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to ‘wage war and peace’ or ‘On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold’.

Today’s aphorism

‘When anger rises, think of the consequences’.

Confucius

On this day

3 November 1957 – Laika becomes the world’s first space-dog when the Soviet Union launches Sputnik II, sending the first ever living animal into space. Laika is the first animal to orbit the earth. She was a stray-dog which was chosen to undergo training with two other dogs, before being selected for the mission. In 2002 it was revealed that she died within hours of take-off from over-heating when one of the motors failed to separate from the payload.

Today’s WOTD – 2 November 2012

Brobdingnagian

[brob-ding-nag-ee-uhn]

adjective
1. of huge size; gigantic; tremendous. For example: ‘He governed a brobdingnagian territory’.

noun
2. an inhabitant of Brobdingnag.

3. a being of tremendous size; giant.

Today’s aphorism

‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.’

– Mark Twain

On this day

2 November 1917 – British Foreign Secretary, James Balfour, presents a declaration of intent to establish a national homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. It became known as the ‘Balfour Declaration’.

2 November 1936 – launch of the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC-TV). World’s first regular television service. Initially broadcasting with a radius of 25 miles. It was taken off-air from 1939 – 1946 because of World War II. Now known as BBC One.