30 April 2014

artifice

[ahr-tuh-fis]

noun

1. a clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile. The Trojan Horse was an artifice the Greeks used to get inside the city of Troy.
2. trickery; guile; craftiness.
3. cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness: a drawing-room comedy crafted with artifice and elegance.
4. a skillful or artful contrivance or expedient.

Origin:
1525–35; < Anglo-French < Latin artificium craftsmanship, art, craftiness, equivalent to arti-, combining form of ars art1 + -fic-, combining form of facere to do1 , make + -ium + -ium

Synonyms
1. subterfuge. See trick. 2. deception, deceit, art, duplicity. See cunning.

Anagram

fat icier
if it care
if I react

Today’s aphorism

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

– Frank Zappa

On this day

30 April – International Jazz Day.

30 April 1945 – German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, commit suicide in a bunker in Germany. Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany since 2 August 1934. He was born in Austria on 20 April 1889.

29 April 2014

retinue

[ret-n-oo, -yoo]

noun

– a body of retainers in attendance upon an important personage; suite. ‘The Foreign Minister travelled to Asia with a retinue of eager business executives in tow’.

Origin:
1325–75; Middle English retinue < Middle French, noun use of feminine past participle of retenir to retain

Related forms
ret·i·nued, adjective
un·ret·i·nued, adjective

Anagram

reunite

Today’s aphorism

Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

– Captain James Cook

On this day

29 April 711 – Islamic conquest of Hispania as Moorish forces led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land on Gibraltar in preparation for the invasion of Spain.

29 April 1770 – Captain James Cook names Botany Bay after landing there on this day.

29 April 1910 – British Parliament passes ‘The People’s Budget’, the first budget in British history that is aimed at redistributing wealth to all.

29 April 1945 – the Dacchau concentration camp near Munich is liberated by US forces.

29 April 1967 – Muhammad Ali stripped of his boxing title after refusing, on religious grounds, being drafted into the Army.

29 April 1980 – death of Alfred Hitchcock, English movie producer and director.

Panda’s Word of the Day has been nominated in the Best Australian Blogs 2014 competition. It would be greatly appreciated if you would vote for it in The People’s Choice awards. To do so, click on the following link and scroll through until you find ‘Panda’s Word of the Day’, select it, scroll to the end and complete the details. Thank you 🙂

http://www.writerscentre.com.au/community/best-australian-blogs-comp/peoples-choice/

27 April 2014

disdain

[dis-deyn, dih-steyn]

verb (used with object)

1. to look upon or treat with contempt; despise; scorn. ‘She expressed disdain at the adulation the industry gives to beauty over talent’.
2. to think unworthy of notice, response, etc.; consider beneath oneself: to disdain replying to an insult.
noun
3. a feeling of contempt for anything regarded as unworthy; haughty contempt; scorn.

Origin:
1300–50; (v.) Middle English disdainen < Anglo-French de ( s ) deigner (see dis-1 , deign); (noun) Middle English disdeyn < Anglo-French desdai ( g ) n, derivative of the verb

Related forms
self-dis·dain, noun
un·dis·dain·ing, adjective

Synonyms
1. contemn, spurn. 3. haughtiness, arrogance. See contempt.

Antonyms
1. accept. 3. admiration.

Anagram

dad I sin
said din

Today’s aphorism

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.

– William James

On this day

27 April 1904 – The Australian Labor Party wins the federal election, making Chris Watson Australia’s third prime minister. The ALP was the first such labour party in the world to win a national election.

27 April 1950 – apartheid formally commences in South Africa with the implementation of the Group Areas Act that segrated races.

27 April 1951 – birth of Paul Daniel ‘Ace’ Frehley, former lead guitarist with Kiss. Frehley’s character with the band was the ‘Spaceman’. He has since launched a solo career and formed a band called Frehley’s Comet.

27 April 1953 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450 ‘Hiring and Firing Rules for Government Employment’. The order declared homosexuality, communism and moral perversion to be national security threats and grounds for sacking a government employee or not hiring an applicant.

27 April 1994 – South Africa’s first democratic election in which citizens of all races could vote. The interim constitution is enacted. The African National Congress won the election with 62% of the vote, bringing Nelson Mandela to power. 27 April is celebrated as Freedom Day in South Africa.

26 April 2014

placid

[plas-id]

adjective

– pleasantly calm or peaceful; unruffled; tranquil; serenely quiet or undisturbed: placid waters.

Origin:
1620–30; < Latin placidus calm, quiet, akin to placēre to please (orig., to calm); see -id

Related forms
pla·cid·i·ty [pluh-sid-i-tee], plac·id·ness, noun
plac·id·ly, adverb
un·plac·id, adjective
un·plac·id·ly, adverb
un·plac·id·ness, noun

Synonyms
See peaceful.

Anagram

clad pi
cad lip

Today’s aphorism

I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

― Bill Gates (attributed to Gates, although there is some dispute over its origin)

On this day

26 April 121AD – death of Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor.

26 April 1865 – Union troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, the man who fired the fatal bullet on 14 April 1865 that assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

26 April 1945 – birth of Dick Johnson, Australian racing car legend. Five-time Australian Touring Car Champion, three-time winner of the Bathurst 1000, inducted into the V8 Supercar Hall of Fame in 2001.

26 April 1986 – the Chernobyl nuclear disaster when an explosion and fire at the No 4 reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Ukraine, releases radioactive gas across Northern Europe. It is estimated to have killed up to 1 million people from radioactive related cancers.

26 April 1989 – the deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing more than 1300, injuring 12,000 and leaving up to 80,000 homeless.

25 April 2014

catafalque

[kat-uh-fawk, -fawlk, -falk]

noun

1. a raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies or is carried in state.
2. a hearse.

Catafalque parties, usually of four members of an armed guard, are mounted around coffins or memorials as a sign of respect, such as during Anzac Day commemorations.

Origin:
1635–45; < French < Italian catafalco < Late Latin *catafalicum scaffold, equivalent to cata- cata- + fal ( a ) wooden siege tower + -icum, neuter of -icus -ic

Anagram

A aqua cleft

Today’s aphorism

Lest we forget.

On this day

25 April – Anzac Day. National day of remembrance for Australia and New Zealand to commemorate ANZACs who fought at Gallipoli during World War I, honouring all service-men and women who served their country.

25 April – World Penguin Day.

25 April 1915 – World War I: the battle of Gallipoli begins, when Australian, New Zealand, British and French forces invade Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula, landing at Cape Helles, and what is now called Anzac Cove.

25 April 1983 – American schoolgirl, Samantha Smith, is invited to the Soviet Union after its leader, Yuri Andropov, reads her letter expressing her fears of nuclear war.

23 April 2014

Memento mori

Latin

– translates as: ‘remember that you will die’.

A memento mori is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. It may include skull and skeleton imagery in art. Centuries ago, many homes would have a skull on display as a memento mori. In the Victorian era, it was common to display photos of dead loved ones. Modern tattoos often picture skulls or other death imagery which may, depending on the wearers beliefs, signify mortality.

One well known memento mori was the skull of the ill-fated Yorick, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Yorick, a court-jester known to Hamlet, had died. Hamlet comes upon Yorick’s skull in the graveyard. Hamlet, pondering death, holds up Yorick’s skull and forlornly declares, ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy … ‘.

Anagram

mime omen rot
me moron item
memo nor time
I more moment

Today’s aphorism

‘To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole? … No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!‘

Hamlet cynically lamenting the circle of life.

– William Shakespeare, Hamlet

On this day

23 April 1564 – birth of William Shakespeare, the Bard. English poet and playwright.

23 April 1616 – death of William Shakespeare, the Bard. English poet and playwright. Shakespeare invented more than 1700 words which are now in common use. He changed nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives and joining words that normally wouldn’t be joined.

23 April 1928 – birth of Shirley Temple, American actress, singer, dancer and former U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. Died 10 February 2014.

22 April 2014

gudgeon

[guhj-uhn]

noun

1. a small, European, freshwater fish, Gobio gobio, of the minnow family, having a threadlike barbel at each corner of the mouth, used as bait.
2. any of certain related fishes.
3. a person who is easily duped or cheated.
4. a bait or allurement.
verb (used with object)
5. to dupe or cheat.

Anagram

ego dung
undo egg

Today’s aphorism

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

– Thomas Aquinas

On this day

22 April – Earth Day. The United Nations created International Mother Earth Day by resolution A/RES/63/278 to be celebrated on 22 April each year. It recognises that ‘the Earth and its ecosystems are our home‘ and that ‘it is necessary to promote harmony with nature and Earth‘.

22 April 1889 – at high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the ‘Land Run of 1889′ resulting in the creation of Oklahoma City and Guthrie with populations greater than 10,000 within a few hours.

22 April 1979 – birth of Daniel Johns, Australian musician, singer-songwriter. Played in Silverchair and The Dissociatives.

22 April 1995 – death of Maggie Kuhn, activist and founder of the Gray Panthers, who campaigned for nursing home reform and opposed ageism. She also fought for human rights, social and economic justice, global peace, integration, and mental health issues.

Panda’s Word of the Day has been nominated in the Best Australian Blogs 2014 competition. It would be greatly appreciated if you would vote for it in The People’s Choice awards. To do so, click on the following link and scroll through until you find ‘Panda’s Word of the Day’, select it, scroll to the end and complete the details. Thank you 🙂

http://www.writerscentre.com.au/community/best-australian-blogs-comp/peoples-choice/

21 April 2014

epitome

[ih-pit-uh-mee]

noun

1. a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class: He is the epitome of goodness.
2. a condensed account, especially of a literary work; abstract.

Origin:
1520–30; < Latin epitomē abridgment < Greek epitomḗ abridgment, surface incision. See epi-, -tome

Related forms
ep·i·tom·i·cal [ep-i-tom-i-kuhl] Show IPA , ep·i·tom·ic, adjective

Synonyms
1. embodiment, exemplification, model, typification, quintessence.

Anagram

pie tome

Today’s aphorism

A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and mus t protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.

– Niccolò Machiavelli

On this day

21 April 753BC – Romulus founds Rome.

21 April 1782 – the city of Rattanaskosin is founded by King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke. The city is now known as Bangkok.

21 April 1910 – death of Mark Twain, U.S. novellist, author of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. Born 30 November 1835.

21 April 1947 – birth of Iggy Pop, punk, garage & glam rocker, actor.

21 April 1970 – Prince Leonard (born Leonard Casley), self-appointed sovereign secedes the Hutt River Province from Australia. Now known as the Principality of Hutt River, it is located 517km north of Perth, Western Australia and is the oldest micronation in Australia. Its sovereignty is not recognised by Australia or other nations. On 2 December 1977, Prince Leonard declared war on Australia after the Australian Tax Office pursued him for non-payment of taxes. Hostilities were ceased a few days later and Prince Leonard wrote to the Governor-General declaring his sovereignty based on the Province being undefeated in war. In 2012, the ATO again unsuccessfully attempted to recover claimed taxes. Hutt River has its own stamps and currency.

21 April 1972 – The Province of Hutt River attains legal status when Australia fails to challenge its sovereignty within two years of its formation, as required by Australian law.