Today in History (November 16th):
42 B.C.: Birthdays: Tiberius, emperor of Rome.
1873: Birthdays: Composer W.C. Handy, known as the Father of the Blues.
1889: Birthdays: Broadway director and playwright George S. Kaufman.
1892: The University of Chicago, a founding member of the Big 10 Conference, won its first football game, beating Illinois, 10-4.
1905: Birthdays: Jazz guitarist and bandleader Eddie Condon.
1907: Oklahoma became the 46th state admitted to the union. Birthdays: Actor Burgess Meredith.
1928: Birthdays: Actor Clu Gulager.
1933: The United States established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
1940: Birthdays: Actor Donna McKechnie.
1958: Birthdays: Actor Marg Helgenberger.
1964: Birthdays: Singer Diana Krall.
1967: Birthdays: Actor Lisa Bonet.
1977: Birthdays: Olympic figure skater Oksana Baiul.
1984: The space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth with the first two satellites plucked from space.
1989: Six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter were shot to death at their residence in San Salvador. Three years later, in 1991, U.S. House of Representatives Democrats reported that Salvadoran Defense Minister Gen. Rene Ponce had planned the killings.
1990: The Soviet Union indicated its approval of the use of military force to oust Iraq from Kuwait.
1997: 85 percent of voters in Hungary cast ballots in favor of joining NATO.
2001: A letter containing anthrax was found at the Capitol in Washington, addressed to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. U.S. officials said a bomb had killed Muhammad Atef, one of Osama bin Laden’s closest strategists who was believed to have helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks.
2004: Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped Iraqi CARE director, was believed to have been killed after al-Jazeera television received a video of a woman’s slaying.
2006: Turkey severed military ties with France over a century-old dispute involving the deaths of some 1.2 million Armenians.
2007: The United Nations warned global warming of 1-3 degrees Celsius would lead to a rise in sea levels that would swallow up island nations, decimate one-quarter or more of the world’s species, cause famine in Africa and spark increasingly violent hurricanes.
2008: After nearly a year of negotiations with the United States, the Iraqi Cabinet agreed to withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by Dec. 31, 2011. At least 23 workers were feared dead after a bridge being built collapsed in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said.
2009: An a four-day stop in Beijing, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed such key issues as human rights, climate change, trade, Iran and denuclearization of North Korea.
2010: A U.S. House committee found Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., guilty of 11 counts of ethics violations and recommended the former Ways and Means chairman be censured for misconduct, the stiffest House penalty short of expulsion.
2011: Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach facing 40 counts of sexually abusing young boys, admitted in an interview he had showered with boys and horsed around but maintained there was no sexual abuse. U.S. President Barack Obama repeated his promise for greater American military involvement in the Pacific in a speech to the Australian Parliament, pledging, We are here to stay.
Quotes
“History knows no resting places and no plateaus.” – Henry Kissinger
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.” – Lin Yutang, writer and translator (1895-1976)
Elizabeth Drew (1935- ) US journalist:
“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.”
“The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and ‘mangled mind’ leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.”
They grow to be deceptive and sneaky. order levitra without prescription After the omission of patent from the producing company of tadalafil india cialis and it is now out of the hands of Pfizer and now the day of market launce of levitra all the world came to know the best way to clear the driving test? Turn on your computer, log onto the internet and start your journey to earn your precious drivers license. This takes place because buy vardenafil levitra the workouts in this web page were cautiously designed to perform not only for you but also for her. Many online pharmacies facilitate lucrative offers and other purchase benefits canadian cialis online to their targeted customers. “Travel, instead of broadening the mind, often merely lengthens the conversation.”
“The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion”
“I Like this quote I dislike this quote”Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits”
kine
PRONUNCIATION: (kyn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/kine.mp3
MEANING: noun: A plural of cow.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English kyn, from Old English cyna, a plural of cu (cow). Earliest documented use: 1800.
NOTES: Kine is perhaps the only word in English that has no letters in common with its singular form, cow. Other words that are pluralized using-n marker are children, brethren, and oxen.
USAGE: “Cows stood belly deep in a ranch pond, doing their impersonation of the kine in John Constable’s paintings.” – Verlyn Klinkenborg; Water and Grasses; The New York Times; Jul 5, 2010.
Explore “kine” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=kine
ex gratia
PRONUNCIATION: (eks GRAY-shee-uh)
http://wordsmith.org/words/ex_gratia.mp3
MEANING: adverb, adjective: As a favor or gesture of goodwill, rather than from any legal requirement.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin ex (out of) + gratia (favor, kindness). First recorded use: 1769.
NOTES: When they say they are making a payment ex gratia, it is more often than not, not ex gratia, but because of their culpability.
USAGE:
“Lumka Oliphant said, ‘The payment of Rand 1000 is made ex gratia as Roadlink is indemnified by our terms and conditions.'” – Wendy Knowler; The Missing Link in Passenger Satisfaction; Independent (Johannesburg, South Africa); Jun 9, 2010.
“‘We decided that we will give $20,000 as an ex-gratia payment for the health problems they may have,’ Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said.” – Stalling Agent Orange Suit Costs Ottawa $7.8M; CBC News (Toronto, Canada); Jun 24, 2010.
Explore “ex gratia” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=ex+gratia
Versatile ‘Ped’ Is Afoot in English
Ed Collins of West Newton, Pa. writes to ask how the syllable “ped” can have three very different meanings: “foot” (as in “pedal”), “child” (as in “pediatrician”) and “teacher” (as in “pedagogue”).
Ed, meet “ped,” one of the most versatile syllables in English. “Ped” actually has five distinct meanings, each derived from a different Latin, Greek or Egyptian root.
Like a podiatrist examining a patient’s toes, I’ll take each meaning one at a time. This little piggy went …
The “ped” in “pedal” derives from the Latin word “pes, pedis” (foot). It’s clearly afoot in words, such as “pedestrian,” “pedestal” and “podiatrist,” but also tiptoes into several other foot-related words, including “podium” (a base on which the feet stand), “impeach” (from the Latin “pedica,” meaning “a fetter that ensnares the feet”) and even “pedigree” (because the descending branches of a genealogical chart reminded someone of a crane’s foot, “pi‚ de grue” in French).
“Ped” even pioneered the word “pioneer.” The Late Latin “pedo” meant “one who has broad feet.” So when the French astutely noted that foot soldiers have broad feet — all that marching! — they adopted “pedo” as “peonier,” which later came to mean a person who ventures, often on foot, into a new area.
2. “Pediatrician” and other “ped” words related to children are derived from the Greek word for “boy” (“paido”). This root also gives us “pedogogue” (literally, “a leader of boys” in Greek), but “pedagogue” and its twin, “pedant,” have since come to mean, respectively, “someone who instructs in a dogmatic manner” and “someone who makes a show of learning.”
3. Speaking of making a show of learning, did you know that “pedology” is the study of soil? Neither did I. “Pedology” derives from the Greek “pedon” (earth).
(Call this a “foot”note, but was the Greek “pedon” inspired by “pes, pedis” because soil is underfoot? Alas, such speculation has no sure linguistic footing.)
4. “Pediment,” the triangular gable on classical buildings such as the Parthenon, derives not from Greek or Latin but from the Egyptian word for another triangular structure: “pyramid.”
5. Ever wonder what “pediculosis” means? Believe me, you don’t want to know. I’ll give you a hint: “Pedis” is the Latin word for “louse” so “pediculosis” is an infestation of … It’s enough to make you squeal “wee, wee, wee” all the way home.