Today in History (June 6th):
1599: Birthdays: Spanish painter Diego Velazquez.
1684: The Ashmoleon Museum opened as the first university museum.
1755: Birthdays: American patriot Nathan Hale.
1756: Birthdays: Painter John Trumbull.
1799: Birthdays: Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin.
1844: The Young Men’s Christian Association — YMCA — was founded in London.
1867: Birthdays: Clothier David T. Abercrombie.
1868: Birthdays: British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott.
1872: Feminist Susan B. Anthony was fined for voting in an election in Rochester, N.Y. She refused to pay the fine and a judge allowed her to go free.
1875: Birthdays: German novelist Thomas Mann.
1892: Birthdays: Bandleader Ted Lewis.
1901: Birthdays: Indonesian dictator Achmed Sukarno.
1902: Birthdays: Bandleader Jimmie Lunceford.
1933: The first drive-in movie theater opened in Camden, N.J.
1936: Birthdays: Singer Levi Stubbs.
1939: Birthdays: Singer Gary U.S. Bonds.
1944: Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops began crossing the English Channel in the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. It was the largest invasion in history. Birthdays: Olympic gold medal sprinter and protester Tommie Smith.
1945: Birthdays: Actor David Dukes.
1947: Birthdays: Actor Robert Englund.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Harvey Fierstein.
1955: Birthdays: Comedian Sandra Bernhard.
1956: Birthdays: Tennis player Bjorn Borg.
1959: Birthdays: Actor Amanda Pays.
1966: James Meredith, who in 1962 became the first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi, was wounded by a sniper during a civil rights march through the South.
1967: Birthdays: Actor Paul Giamatti.
1972: A coal mine explosion in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, trapped 464 miners underground. More than 425 people died.
1982: Israeli forces invaded Lebanon.
2002: U.S. President George W. Bush proposed creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Its main responsibility would be prevention of terrorist attacks.
2003: U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft defended the Justice Department’s detention of 762 illegal immigrants after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and urged Congress to give authorities even broader power to pursue suspected terrorists.
2007: The remains of thousands of Jews killed by Nazis during World War II were unearthed from a mass grave found by workers digging pipelines in Ukraine.
2009: A fire that inspectors said began in a tire store next door destroyed a child-care center in Hermosillo, Mexico, killing 35 children ages 1-5 and injuring about 100 others.
2012: A U.N. report said if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources are not reversed the world will face unprecedented levels of damage and degradation.
Quotes
“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)
“The only certainty is that nothing is certain,” – Pliny the Elder
“There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment – and nothing more corrupting.” – A.J.P. Taylor, historian (1906-1990)
“Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) U.S. anthropologist:
“I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.”
“No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.”
“Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.”
“The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.”
“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”
“We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.”
quiddity
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PRONUNCIATION: (KWI-deh-ti)
MEANING: (noun)
1. The essential nature of a thing, its character;
2. a trivial issue, a quibble.
ETYMOLOGY: Today’s word comes from Medieval Latin “quidditas” based on quid “what,” as in quid pro quo “something for something” and a recent word in our series, “quidnunc.” We have mentioned before that the interrogative pronouns of all Indo-European languages come from the same root, *kwo-, which loses its [k] sound in some languages and its [w] sound in others. The sound [k] became [h] in English, so “what,” “where,” and “who” all come from this source is Russian chto “what,” kto “who,” and kuda “where to.” Latin maintained both initial sounds, spelling them [qu]: qui [kwi] “who, what.” The dative-ablative plural of this pronoun is quibus “to/from what,” which we find in “quibble.”
USAGE: “Can we get past the quiddities and down to the quiddities of the issue?”
jargoon
PRONUNCIATION: (jahr-GOON)
http://wordsmith.org/words/jargoon.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A colorless, pale yellow, or smoky variety of zircon.
ETYMOLOGY: From French jargon, from Italian giargone, from Persian zargun (golden). Earliest documented use: 1769.
USAGE: “The genial jeweler then suggested white jargoon.” – P.G. Wodehouse; The Intrusion of Jimmy; W.J. Watt and Co.; 1910.
Explore “jargoon” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=jargoon
ululate
PRONUNCIATION: (UHL-uh-layt, YOOL-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/ululate.mp3
MEANING: (verb intr.), To howl or wail.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin ululare (to howl or shriek), of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1623.
NOTES: Ululation with a distinctive trilling sound is performed in many cultures in celebration and in mourning.
USAGE: “Bells rang and the peasantry ululated their pleasure beneath battleship grey skies. Past imperious London buildings, the state coach clattered, followed by the Household Cavalry pompously bobbing. Kate practised waving, the one-word job description of monarchy.” – Robert McNeil; Rousing Stuff; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Apr 30, 2011.
Explore “ululate” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=ululate
prodigious
PRONUNCIATION: (pruh-DIJ-uhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/prodigious.mp3
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Remarkable in size, quantity, strength, etc.
2. Marvelous.
3. Abnormal; monstrous.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin prodigiosus (marvelous, portentous), from prodigium (portent). Earliest documented use: around 1487.
USAGE:
“Kurtley Beale just cannot wait to display his prodigious talents at his first World Cup.” – Beale Anxious to Parade Prodigious Talents in First; The Star (Malaysia); Sep 3, 2011.
“The rodents have prodigious appetites and ability to multiply.” – Deerslayers; Houston Chronicle (Texas); Feb 4, 2010.
Explore “prodigious” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=prodigious
taxis
PRONUNCIATION: (TAK-sis) plural taxes (TAK-seez)
http://wordsmith.org/words/taxis.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. Movement of an organism towards or away from a stimulus.
2. Order, arrangement, or classification.
3. The manual repositioning of a displaced body part to its normal position, in a case of hernia, for example.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek taxis (arrangement, order), from tassein (to arrange).
NOTES:
1. The word tropism is usually applied to plants.
2. The word for a public vehicle, taxi, is unrelated. A taxi is one which taxes, etymologically speaking. It’s short for taximeter, the name of the device that calculates the fare.
3. Also see parataxis.
USAGE:
“I believe every action an insect makes is due to a reflex, a taxis or a tropism.” – Poppy Adams; The Sister; Anchor; 2009.
“Dionysius wanted to see the entire cosmos as a taxis, in the sense of a hierarchy.” – James H. Charlesworth; Jesus and Archaeology; Wm. B. Eerdmans; 2006.
Explore “taxis” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=taxis