20 June 2015

lygophilia

Noun

The love of darkness.

Origin
From Ancient Greek λύγη (lugē, “twilight”) and φιλέω (phileō, “I love”).

Anagram

oily hag lip
hi yoga pill

Today’s quote

Refugees driven from country to country represent the vanguard of their peoples.

– Hannah Arendt 1943

On this day

20 June – World Refugee Day – to raise awareness of the plight of refugees across the globe. Refugee Week is held Sunday to Saturday of the week that includes 20 June.

20 June 1864 – birth of Worm Pander, sculptor. Died 6 September 1919 … … no relation to this site’s Panda Man …

20 June 1909 birth of Errol Flynn, Australian-born American actor. Died 14 October 1959.

20 June 1966 – The Beatles release their ‘Yesterday and Today’ album with the controversial ‘butcher cover’. The Beatles appeared on the cover wearing white smocks and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of meat. Some people took offense to this and the cover was withdrawn and replaced with something a little more savoury.

20 June 2001 – General Pervez Musharraf establishes himself as both President and Chief Executive of Pakistan. He had come to power as Chief Executive following a coup d’état in 1999.

19 June 2015

epigram

[ep-i-gram]

noun
1. any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed.
2. epigrammatic expression:
Oscar Wilde had a genius for epigram.
3. a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.

Origin of epigram
late Middle English Latin Greek
1400-1450; late Middle English < Latin epigramma < Greek epígramma inscription, epigram. See epi-, -gram1

Can be confused
epigram, epigraph, epitaph, epithet.

Synonyms
1. witticism, quip, bon mot.

Dictionary.com

Anagram

rip game

Today’s quote

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

– Charles Darwin

On this day

19 June 1623 – birth of Blaise Pascal, controversial French mathematician, physicist, inventor and writer. Formulated ‘Pascal’s Triangle’, a tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, challenged Aristotle’s followers who claimed that ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. The computer programming language, ‘Pascal’, is named in his honour.

19 June 1945 – birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese politician, activist and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient.

19 June 1978 – The original Grumpy Cat, Garfield, first appears in newspaper comic strips in the USA.

18 June 2015

lath

[lath, lahth]

noun, plural laths [lath z, laths, lahth z, lahths]
1. a thin, narrow strip of wood, used with other strips to form latticework, a backing for plaster or stucco, a support for slates and other roofing materials, etc.
2. a group or quantity of such strips.
3. work consisting of such strips.
4. wire mesh or the like used in place of wooden laths as a backing for plasterwork.
5. a thin, narrow, flat piece of wood used for any purpose.
verb (used with object)
6. to cover or line with laths.

Origin of lath
Middle English, Old English
1000, before 1000; Middle English la (th) the; replacing Middle English latt, Old English lætt; cognate with German Latte, Dutch lat

Related forms
lathlike, adjective

Can be confused
lath, lathe.

Dictionary.com

Anagram

halt

Today’s quote

We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and banks destroy the economy.

– Chris Hedges

On this day

18 June 1942 – birth of Paul McCartney, member of The Beatles and his writing partnership with John Lennon made them one of the world’s most successful song-writing duos. After the break-up of the Beatles, McCartney went on to have a successful solo career. He was knighted in 1997.

17 June 2015

impudence

[im-pyuh-duh ns]

noun
1. the quality or state of being impudent; effrontery; insolence.
2. impudent conduct or language.
3. Obsolete. lack of modesty; shamelessness.

Origin of impudence
Middle English, Latin
1350-1400; Middle English < Latin impudentia shamelessness. See impudent, -ence

Synonyms
1. impertinence, rudeness; brass, brazenness, face, lip, boldness, presumption, sauce, pertness; nerve, gall.

Antonyms
1. courtesy.

Dictionary.com

Anagram

niece dump
pumice den
men iced up

Today’s quote

For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.

– Jello Biafra

On this day

17 June 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies in childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I undertakes to build a mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, in her honour. He takes 17 years to do it.

17 June 1958 – birth of Jello Biafra (born Eric Reed Boucher), American musician and spoken word artist, was lead singer of the San Francisco punk rock band, Dead Kennedys.

17 June 1971 – US President Richard Nixon declares a War on Drugs.

16 June 2015

scabrous

[skab-ruh s]

adjective
1. having a rough surface because of minute points or projections.
2. indecent or scandalous; risqué; obscene:
scabrous books.
3. full of difficulties.

Origin of scabrous
Latin
1575-1585; < Latin scab (e) r rough + -ous

Related forms
scabrously, adverb
scabrousness, noun
unscabrous, adjective
unscabrously, adverb
unscabrousness, noun

Synonyms
2. lewd, wanton, improper.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the web for scabrous
– From Romantic squish to scabrous satirist to rebel wrangler to, finally, Ambassador of Goodwill.
(Poet and Rake, Lord Byron Was Also an Interventionist With Brains and Savvy Michael Weiss February 15, 2014)

Anagram

Sour cabs
cobras us
bus orcas

Today’s quote

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

– Lord Byron

On this day

16 June – International Day of the African Child, which remembers those who participated in the Soweto protests in 1976, as well as raises awareness of the need for improved education provided to African children.

16 June 1816 – Lord Byron reads his poem Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clermont and John Polidori, challenging them to write a ghost story. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Polidori wrote the short story, The Vampyre, which in turn influenced numerous vampire stories, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Byron himself went on to write the poem, Darkness.

16 June 1951 – birth of Roberto Duran, Panamanian boxer nicknamed ‘Manos de Piedra’ (Hands of Stone). He held world titles at four different levels; lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight. He was the second boxer to fight over five decades. He retired from professional boxing in 2002 at the age of 50. He is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time.

16 June 1961 – Soviet ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev defects to the West. Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev allegedly issued an order for Nureyev to be killed, which did not eventuate.

16 June 1967 – The Monterey Pop Festival is held over three days at Monterey, California. Over 200,000 people attended to experience performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, The Byrds, The Animals and The Grateful Dead.

16 June 1976 – Soweto Uprising in South Africa, when up to 20,000 students marched in a non-violent protest against poor quality education and demanding to be taught in their own language after Afrikaans was introduced as the medium of instruction. The protest turned violent when police opened fire on the crowd, killing 23 people. Violence continued for two weeks, with 176 people being killed. The day is now a public holiday in South Africa and commemorated as Youth Day. Internationally it is recognised as Day of the African Child.

15 June 2015

bilious

[bil-yuh s]

adjective
1. Physiology, Pathology. pertaining to bile or to an excess secretion of bile.
2. Pathology. suffering from, caused by, or attended by trouble with the bile or liver.
3. peevish; irritable; cranky.
4. extremely unpleasant or distasteful:
a long scarf of bright, bilious green.

Origin of bilious

Latin

1535-1545; < Latin bīliōsus. See bile, -ous

Related forms
biliously, adverb
biliousness, noun
nonbilious, adjective
nonbiliously, adverb
nonbiliousness, noun

Synonyms
3. grumpy, crabby, cross, grouchy, dyspeptic.

Dictionary.com

I boil us

Today’s quote

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

– Gilbert K. Chesterton

On this day

15 June 1215 – King John of England seals the Magna Carta (Latin for ‘Great Charter’) which established the ‘rule of law’ that was to become fundamental to the modern legal system. It ensured that no man, no monarch, was above the law. Monarchs could no longer arbitrarily deal with or dispossess their subjects. It didn’t mean equality or liberty for all, however, as it applied only to ‘all the free men’, and not all men were free in 13th century England.

15 June 1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity by launching a kite during a storm. The kite was tied to a key and a Leyden Jar, which was used to store electrical charge. The negative ions in the thunder storm charged the kite, flowing down the wet silk string and into the jar. Franklin was holding the silk at the time and was unaffected, however when he moved his hand near the key he received an electric shock, proving that lightning was static electricity. (Traditional date, the exact date is unknown).

15 June 1920 – a 5000-strong mob in Minnesota lynches three African-American who were convicted of the rape of a 17 year old white woman.

15 June 1946 – birth of Noddy Holder, British musician and singer. Holder was the lead singer with 1970’s glam rock band, Slade, which was famous for songs such as ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’, ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’, ‘Gudbuy T’ Jane’, and ‘Skweeze Me Pleeze Me’. Their second studio album, ‘Slayed’, spent 34 weeks at Number 1 in the UK. Slade had 17 consecutive Top 20 hits, six of which reached number one. In 2000 Holder was awarded an MBE for his services to spelling.

13 June 2015

insuperable

[in-soo-per-uh-buh l]

adjective
1. incapable of being passed over, overcome, or surmounted:
an insuperable barrier.

Origin of insuperable
Middle English,Latin
1300-1350; Middle English < Latin insuperābilis. See in-3, superable

Related forms
insuperability, insuperableness, noun
insuperably, adverb

Dictionary.com

Examples from the web for insuperable

Second, they broke down the wall between teen music and adult music, a wall that had been insuperable until then.
– (A Revolution, With Guitars: How The Beatles Changed Everything Michael Tomasky January 27, 2014)

Not necessarily an insuperable or lethal problem, but a problem that must be overcome—and certainly not a plus.
– (Comrade Ryan’s Plan Has 110% Approval! David Frum August 15, 2012)

But he prefers women – and most certainly does not love the baron, for the insuperable reason that he loves nobody except himself.
– (David’s Bookclub: Sodom and Gomorrah David Frum September 28, 2012)

Anagram

beanie slurp

Today’s aphorism

For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.

– Martin Luther

On this day

13 June 1381 – The Peasants Revolt (a brief rebellion against poll tax), led by Wat Tyler, culminates in the burning down of the Savoy Palace in London.

13 June 1525 – Martin Luther, a German monk and Catholic priest, marries a nun, Katharina von Bora, which violated the rule of celibacy decreed by the Roman Catholic church for priests and nuns. The couple went on to have six children together.

13 June 1865 – birth of William Butler Yeats (W.B. Yeats), Irish poet, Nobel Prize laureate. One of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. He served as an Irish senator for two terms. He led the Irish Literary Revival. In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for ‘inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation‘. Died 28 January 1939.

13 June 1927 – birth of Slim Dusty AO, MBE, Australian country music singer, song-writer and producer. He was born as David Gordon Kirkpatrick and adopted the name of Slim Dusty at 11 years of age. He released his first record when he was 18. In 1957, he released ‘The Pub With No Beer‘, which became the biggest selling Australian song to that time, and the first Australian single to go gold. He won 36 Golden Guitar Awards at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. In 2000, he recorded his 100th album, ‘Looking Forward, Looking Back‘. He is the only artist in the world to have recorded 100 albums with the same record label (EMI). Died 19 September 2003.

13 June 1944 – Germany launches 10 of its new rockets, known as the V1 (also called a doodlebug or buzz bomb). The V1s were pilot-less, pulse-jet-propelled rockets with a one ton payload with a 500km range. The Germans rained V1s over London. The V1 was an early version of the Cruise Missile.

12 June 2015

demonym

[dem-uh-nim]

noun
1. the name used for the people who live in a particular country, state, or other locality:
Two demonyms for the residents of Townsville are Townsvillian and Townsvillite.

Origin of demonym
1995-2000; dem(o)- + -onym

Dictionary.com

Anagram

my demon
deny mom

Today’s quote

No one has ever become poor by giving.

– Anne Frank

On this day

12 June – Russia Day, held every year in Russia since 1992 to celebrate the establishment of the Russian Federation, when the First Congress of the People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on 12 June 1990.

12 June 1929 – birth of Anne Frank, author of the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’. On her 13th birthday (1942) she was given a diary which she kept while the family was in hiding from the German Army. The family hid for two years in a secret annex behind her father’s office. In 1944, the family was discovered and sent to concentration camps. She died on 12 March 1945 in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The diary was published in 1947.

12 June 1967 – the US Supreme Court declares that inter-racial marriages are Constitutional and cannot be banned by the states.

12 June 1991 – Boris Yeltsin becomes Russia’s first democratically elected President following the end of the Soviet Union.

11 June 2015

scree

[skree]

noun
1. a steep mass of detritus on the side of a mountain.
2. an accumulation of weathered rock fragments at the foot of a cliff or hillside, often forming a sloping heap Also called talus (Collins English Dictionary)

Origin of scree
Old Norse

1775-1785; < Old Norse skritha landslide

n. “pile of debris at the base of a cliff,” 1781, back-formation from screes (plural) “pebbles, small stones,” from Old Norse skriða “landslide,” from skriða “to creep, crawl;” of a ship, “to sail, glide,” also “to slide” (on snow-shoes), from Proto-Germanic *skrithanan (cf. Old English scriþan “to go, glide,” Old Saxon skridan, Dutch schrijden, Old High German scritan, German schreiten “to stride”).

Dictionary.com

Today’s quote

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

– Mark Twain

On this day

11 June 1955 – during the 24 hour Le Mans race, a Mercedes 300 crashes at high speed. Debris, including the engine block, axles and bonnet, slams through the crowd killing 83 spectators. The bonnet decapitated a number of spectators who had been tightly packed into the stand. The driver was also killed.

11 June 1962 – Three prisoners escape from the federal prison on Alcatraz Island. The three men, Frank Morris, and brothers, Clarence and John Anglin were never found. Authorities believe it is most likely that the three men did not survive the swim across San Francisco Bay, although their bodies were never recovered.

11 June 2001 – Timothy McVeigh executed for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, which killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children or babies.