27 December 2012

pluperfect

[ploo-pur-fikt]

adjective

1. Grammar .
a. perfect with respect to a point of reference in past time, as had done in He had done it when I came.
b. designating a tense or other verb formation or construction with such meaning, as Latin portāveram ‘I had carried’.
2. more than perfect: ‘He spoke the language with pluperfect precision‘.

noun, Grammar .
3. a. the pluperfect tense, or other verb formation or construction with such meaning.
b. a form in the pluperfect.

Today’s aphorism

‘all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

– from Sergei Bondarchuk’s Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s book ‘War and Peace’, in which the narrator declares ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’, although since the original is in Russian various translations to English are possible. The quote has also incorrectly been attributed to Edmund Burke (as noted on Wikiquote)

On this day

27 December 1822 – birth of Louis Pasteur, French bacteriologist, one of the founders of microbiology. Invented the process for preventing milk and wine from causing sickness, known as pasteurisation. (Not entirely fool-proof, as over-imbibing wine still seems to cause sickness in some). Died 28 September 1895.

27 December 1979 – Soviet Union overthrows the Afghan government, replacing President Hufizullah Amin with Babrak Karmal.

27 December 2007 – Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Prime Minister, is assassinated by a suicide bomber immediately after shots were fired at her. Bhutto was the first female head of an Islamic nation. The bombing killed 24 other people.