4 January 2015

acme

[ak-mee]

noun
1. the highest point; summit; peak:
The empire was at the acme of its power.

Origin
Greek
1610-1620; < Greek akmḗ point, highest point, extremity

Related forms
acmic [ak-mik], acmatic [ak-mat-ik] (Show IPA), adjective

Can be confused
acme, acne.

Dictionary.com

Anagram

mace
came

Today’s aphorism

The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?

– Bob Marley

On this day

4 January 1903 – Thomas Edison electrocutes an elephant to prove the dangers of ‘alternating current’ electricity. He had previously electrocuted stray cats and dogs and even horses and cows. He snidely referred to it as ‘getting Westinghoused’. Topsy, the elephant, had squashed 4 trainers at the Luna Park Zoo on Coney Island, so the zoo had decided to hang her, before someone suggested she ‘ride the lightning’. More on this at http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104

4 January 1965 – death of Thomas Stearns Eliot (T.S. Eliot), poet, playwright, publisher, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, described as ‘arguably the most important English language poet of the 20th century’. Wrote ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock‘, ‘The Waste Land‘, ‘Ash Wednesday‘, ‘The Hollow Men‘. Born 26 September 1888.