Today in History (May 29th):
1453: Constantinople (now Istanbul), capital of the Byzantine Empire, was captured by the Turks.
1630: Birthdays: King Charles II of England.
1660: Charles II was restored to the English throne.
1736: Birthdays: Patriot Patrick Henry.
1790: Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 states to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1826: Birthdays: Ebenezer Butterick, inventor of the tissue paper dress pattern.
1848: Following approval by the territory’s citizens, Wisconsin entered the Union as the 30th state.
1865: U.S. President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation giving a general amnesty to all who took part in the rebellion against the United States.
1874: Birthdays: English novelist G.K. Chesterton.
1897: Birthdays: Movie composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
1903: Birthdays: Entertainer Bob Hope.
1906: Birthdays: Writer T.H. White.
1917: Birthdays: John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States.
1947: Birthdays: Actor Anthony Geary (General Hospital).
1953: Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest. Birthdays: Musician Danny Elfman.
1956: Birthdays: Singer LaToya Jackson.
1958: Birthdays: Actor Annette Bening.
1959: Birthdays: Actor Rupert Everett; Actor Adrian Paul.
1961: Birthdays: Singer Melissa Etheridge.
1963: Birthdays: Actor Lisa Whelchel.
1975: Birthdays: Singer Melanie Brown of the Spice Girls.
1977: A flash fire swept through a nightclub in Southgate, Ky., killing 162 people and injuring 30.
1985: British soccer fans attacked Italian fans preceding the European Cup final in Brussels. The resulting stadium stampede killed 38 people and injured 400.
1989: Chinese students in Tiananmen Square erected a 33-foot statue similar to the Statue of Liberty.
1990: Renegade communist Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia.
1996: In Israel’s first selection of a prime minister by direct vote, Binyamin Netanyahu defeated Shimon. The margin of victory was less than 1 percent.
1997: Zaire rebel leader Laurent Kabila was sworn in as president of what was again being called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2003: Comedian Bob Hope was honored by the White House on his 100th birthday with establishment of the Bob Hope Patriotism Award for those showing extraordinary love of country and devotion to the personnel of the U.S. armed forces.
2004: The World War II memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington. About 70,000 veterans of that war were on hand.
2006: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe won a second term by a sizable margin.
2007: Two car bombings within an hour killed 38 people and injured at least 100 others in Baghdad.
2008: Wildfires that had killed at least 53 people, with 28 missing, in Canada’s central province of Manitoba forced at least 1,000 others to be evacuated from four northern communities.
2009: U.S. music producer Phil Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life in prison for the 2003 slaying of actress Lana Carlson.
2010: Two mosques of a religious minority in Pakistan were attacked by intruders firing weapons and throwing grenades. Officials put the death toll at 98.
2012: Texas primary election results gave Mitt Romney enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.
Quotes
“Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change.” – Harriet Lerner, psychologist (b. 1944)
“I have hardly anything in common with myself.” – Franz Kafka wrote this in his diary
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” – Robert Frost
“People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you’ll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.” – Erma Bombeck
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) U.S. patriot:
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”
“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?”
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.”
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.”
“I know of know way of judging the future but by the past.”
“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
“Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.”
“I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor.”
“The great object is that every man be armed.”
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“We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power.. the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”
inhere
PRONUNCIATION: (in-HIR)
MEANING: (intransitive verb), To be inherent; to belong, as attributes or qualities.
ETYMOLOGY: Inhere is from Latin inhaerere, from in-, “in” + haerere, “to stick, to hang.”
USAGE: “The foundations of the palace, like those of the prison, inhere in the fine quality of the stone, in marble stairways, in real gold, in carvings, the rarest in the realm, the absolute power of their hosts.” — Jean Genet, ‘The Thief’s Journal’
hyperbolic
PRONUNCIATION: (hy-puhr-BOL-ik)
http://wordsmith.org/words/hyperbolic.mp3
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Of or pertaining to hyperbole.
2. Of or pertaining to hyperbola.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek hyperbole (excess), from hyperballein (to exceed), from hyper- + ballein (to throw). Earliest documented use: 1646, 1676
NOTES: When you employ hyperbole in your discourse, you are doing what a devil does (to throw), etymologically speaking. The word devil ultimately comes from Greek diaballein (to throw across, slander). Some other words that share the same root are ballistic, emblem, embolism, metabolism, parable, problem, parabola, and symbol.
USAGE:
“‘My objective is to build something sustainable that lasts 100 years,’ says Mr Kotak, who is upbeat without being hyperbolic.” – Kotak Moment; The Economist (London, UK); May 26, 2012.
“She’s made a skirt to wear to conferences
with a crocheted hyperbolic hem.
Each of its ruffles ruffles.”
– Susan Blackwell Ramsey; A Mind Like This; University of Nebraska Press; 2012.
Explore “hyperbolic” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=hyperbolic
logorrhea
PRONUNCIATION: (log-uh-REE-uh)
http://wordsmith.org/words/logorrhea.mp3
MEANING: noun: Excessive flow of words, especially when incoherent.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek logo- (word) + -rrhea (flow), from rhoia (flow). Also see rhinorrhea. Earliest documented use: 1902.
USAGE: “Dumas suffers from logorrhea, induced by the simple formula that the more he wrote, the more money he made.” – Erik Spanberg; The Count of Monte Cristo; The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts); Feb 6, 2011.
Explore “logorrhea” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=logorrhea
flaneur
PRONUNCIATION: (flah-NUHR)
MEANING: (noun), An idler or loafer; a man about town.
ETYMOLOGY: From French flâneur (stroller, idler), from flâner (to stroll). Earliest documented use: 1854.
USAGE:
“In Dessaix’s delightful contribution to the genre, he turns himself into a modern-day literary flaneur — that is, one with a round-the-world air ticket.” – A Magnificent Buffoon; Financial Times (London, UK); Jan 28, 2005.
“The dandy, on the other hand, is a flâneur, a jaded, narcissistic observer well-suited to the 7280 cell phone, whose screen becomes a mirror when not in use.” – Ed Tenner; Digital Dandies; Technology Review (Cambridge, Massachusetts); Jan 2005.
It’s a Matter of ‘Comma’ Sense
Q. In a series of nouns, e.g., ” … grounds, buildings, vehicles, and bus shelters,” I was taught to put a comma after all of them except the last in the series; in this case, that would include a comma after the next-to-last item, “vehicles.” But I’ve been noticing that some people omit the comma after the next-to-last item in the series. Am I right or wrong or neither? –Curt Guenther, Memphis
A: I’ve heard that, in NFL locker rooms, the defensive players’ area is always a mess, with equipment, shoes and tape lying all over the place. But the offensive players’ section is organized and neat, with cleats lined up in front of lockers, and helmets, pads and jerseys hung with care.
Folks like you, who love to tuck in that comma before “and” in a series of items, are like those offensive players — orderly, methodical and organized.
Those who don’t use commas before “and” are more like defensive players — a little reckless, cavalier and casual.
But, while the latter approach may be appropriate for defensive football players — their job, after all, is to mess up the well-planned plays of the offensive neatniks — such recklessness can cause trouble for writers.
First, some background … Grammarians refer to the comma before “and” in a series of items as the “serial comma,” “Oxford comma” or “Harvard comma.”
Perhaps because of these snooty academic names, some people associate the use of this comma with priggish fussiness.
After all, in most lists of items, such as the “helmets, pads and jerseys” mentioned above, the absence of a serial comma causes no confusion. In fact, most newspapers and magazines omit that little devil just to save ink and space.
But what happens when one of the items in the series is a pair of items thought of as one unit?
If your waiter, for instance, wrote down your order as “salad, macaroni and cheese and coffee,” you might receive a plate of macaroni and a slice of cheese. Writing “salad, macaroni and cheese, and coffee” makes it clear you want the dish called “macaroni and cheese.”
And then consider this sentence: “Items seized by the police included stolen art, food for the hostages and exotic fish.” A comma after “hostages” would make it clear that the food was for the hostages, not the fish.
So here’s some “fin-fare” for the comma man: Feel free to skip the serial comma — unless it’s needed for clarity.
Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Copyright 2013 Creators Syndicate Inc.