22 August 2014

nary

[nair-ee]

adjective, Older Use.

1. not any; no; never a:
nary a sound.

Origin
1740-1750
variant of ne’er a never a

Examples for nary

– Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.
– He was then perfunctory-marched through two days of interviews by depressed handlers, with nary a call later.
– They said nary a word and the service was uninterrupted.

Anagram

yarn

Today’s aphorism

Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don’t do that.

– Ray Bradbury

On this day

22 August 565 – St Columba claims to see a monster in Loch Ness.

22 August 1770 – Captain James Cook sets foot on the east cost of Australia.

22 August 1864 – signing of the First Geneva Convention (for ‘Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field’)

22 August 1917 – birth of John Lee Hooker, American blues guitarist.

22 August 1920 – birth of Ray Bradbury, American fantasy, science-fiction, horror and mystery fiction writer. Author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustratred Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes. The movie Butterfly Effect uses a similar theory to that described in Bradbury’s short-story A Sound of Thunder. In one scene, a Sound of Thunder pennant is hanging on the dormitory door of the main character, Evan. Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was named after Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury was not happy with this and pressured Moore to change the title, which Moore refused to do. Died 5 June 2012.

22 August 1952 – birth of Joe Strummer, British rock singer with ‘The Clash’.

22 August 1963 – birth of Tori Amos, American pianist/singer.