Today in History (December 14th):
1287: More than 50,000 people died in the flood caused by the collapse of the Zuider Zee dike in the Netherlands.
1503: Birthdays: French astrologer and prophet Nostradamus.
1546: Birthdays: Danish astronomer and mathematician Tycho Brahe.
1799: George Washington, war for independence military leader and first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon home in Virginia.
1819: Alabama became the 22nd member of the United States.
1896: The Glasgow Underground Railway was opened. Birthdays: World War II U.S. air ace Jimmy Doolittle.
1897: Birthdays: Former U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine.
1908: Birthdays: Comedian Morey Amsterdam.
1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole. Birthdays: Comic bandleader Spike Jones.
1915: Birthdays: Actor Dan Dailey.
1916: Birthdays: Horror novelist Shirley Jackson.
1917: Birthdays: Choreographer June Taylor.
1922: Birthdays: TV news producer Don Hewitt.
1932: Birthdays: Country singer Charlie Rich.
1935: Birthdays: Actor Lee Remick.
1939: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame member Ernie Davis.
1946: Birthdays: Actor Patty Duke; Tennis Hall of Fame member Stan Smith.
1947: Birthdays: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
1948: Birthdays: Actor Dee Wallace.
1972: Apollo 17 crew member Eugene Cernan entered the lunar lander, the last man to walk on the moon in the Apollo program.
1986: Nicaragua announced the arrest of American Sam Hall as a spy. Hall, a former Ohio state lawmaker, was freed about seven weeks later.
1988: The United States announced the start of a substantive dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization for the first time.
1989: Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet H-bomb, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner for defending human rights, died at age 68. Opposition candidate Patricio Aylwin easily won Chile’s first democratic presidential election since the 1973 coup that put military leader Augusto Pinochet in power.
1993: Israel and the Vatican agreed to establish full diplomatic relations.
1995: In a ceremony in Paris, the four-year civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina officially came to an end with the signing of a peace treaty.
1997: With an eye to the planned visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II in early 1998, President Fidel Castro announced that Christmas would be an official holiday for the first time since 1968.
2004: Two passenger trains in India’s Punjab district collided at high speed, killing at least 27 people and injuring scores of others.
2005: U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged flawed intelligence led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq but said the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed the Holocaust was a myth and called for Israel to be moved to Europe or North America.
2006: The official British police investigation into the 1997 death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash concluded that it was an accident and no conspiracy or foul play was involved. The New Jersey Legislature approved civil unions for same-sex couples.
2007: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ended six weeks of emergency rule amid widespread political turmoil, restoring the constitution and resigning his dual role as army chief but barred a return of the high court judges he had fired in a dispute over re-election.
2010: With the U.S. economy recovery showing little effect on the nation’s jobless problem, the Federal Reserve said it would seek to stay the course with a $600 billion bond purchasing program and keep its federal funds rate at zero to 0.25 percent. More than two-thirds of Americans said WikiLeaks hurt the public interest by releasing classified diplomatic cables, a Washington Post/ABC News poll indicated. Nearly six in 10 respondents said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should face criminal charges.
2011: China slapped duties on U.S.-made cars, an action that observers believe could imperil billions in sales by Detroit automakers but would leave most of their American sales unaffected. The new duties on sedans and SUVs to Chinese buyers reportedly could raise the cost by between 2 and 21.5 percent. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told American troops in Afghanistan that the decade-long fight against terrorism had reached a turning point but victory must also include Pakistan.
Quotes
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” – William James
“To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.” – Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)
Shirley Jackson (1919-1965) US author:
“Cocoa? Cocoa! Damn miserable puny stuff, fit for kittens and unwashed boys. Did Shakespeare drink cocoa?”
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kosher
PRONUNCIATION: (KO-shuhr)
http://wordsmith.org/words/kosher.mp3
MEANING: adjective:
1. Conforming to the dietary laws of Judaism.
2. Proper; genuine; permissible.
ETYMOLOGY: From Yiddish, from Hebrew kasher (fit, proper). Earliest documented use: 1851.
USAGE:
“Tobias Geffen was an Orthodox rabbi who was pestered with questions from his congregants about whether Coke was kosher.” – Karen Burshtein; Passover Pepsi; Winnipeg Free Press (Canada); Apr 25, 2011.
“It is only when The Guardian determines a story is kosher that the BBCjumps in.” – Stephen Glover; Patten and Cameron May be on Collision Course; The Independent (London, UK); Mar 14, 2011
Explore “kosher” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=kosher
Words Behind Fine Cloths
Amid news reports about conflicts and violence in the Middle East, it’s easy to forget that many places in this region were once associated with a much more peaceful enterprise — the making of fine cloth.
We call a certain type of thin, loosely woven fabric “gauze,” for instance, because it was first produced in Gaza. Early types of gauze were so highly ornamented that they were prohibited for use in monk’s cowls.
“Damask,” a rich, patterned fabric of cotton, linen, silk or wool, is named for the Syrian city of Damascus, where it was first made.
Soft cotton fabrics known as “muslin” are named for the city of Mosul in Iraq. “Muslin” came into English from Arabic, by way of the Italian “mussolina” and the French “mousseline.”
Likewise, the “jean”eology of “denim” reveals that this word is derived from “serge de Nimes,” Nimes being the French city where this fabric was first produced. The coarse, durable material known as “dungaree” was first made in large quantities in Dungri, a suburb of Bombay, while “jeans” derives from Genoa, a city where this cotton fabric was produced and shipped abroad.
Many other types of clothing take their names from places. Can you match the textile with the town?
Textiles:
1. Poplin
2. Calico
3. Worsted
4. Cashmere
5. Jersey
6. Lisle (thread)
7. Tulle
Towns:
A. A town in Norfolk, England
B. A town in south-central France
C. A region of northern India
D. A city in northern France
E. Avignon, France
F. One of the Channel Islands
G. A city in India
Answers:
1. E — Avignon was a Papal town, called “papalina” in Latin, thus fabric produced here was known as “poplin.”
2. G — From Calicut, a city in India
3. A — From Worstead. King Edward III, seeking to upgrade the quality of English woolens, brought Flemish weavers to Worstead during the 1300s.
4. C — From goats in the Kashmir region of India
5. F — Woolen makers on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, fashioned stockings, nightgowns and pants from a fabric that soon became known as “jersey.” During the early 1800s, a new type of shirt made of jersey became fashionable, and the name “jersey” attached itself to this style.
6. D — Lisle, now Lille
7. B — Tullem where this fine, open-meshed fabric was used to make veils and light dresses
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 2012 Creators Syndicate Inc.