Today in History (March 1st):
1565: The city of Rio de Janeiro was established.
1692: The notorious witch hunt, The Salem Witch Trials began in the Salem village of the Massachusetts Bay colony, eventually resulting in the executions of 19 men and women.
1780: Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish slavery.
1781: The American colonies adopted the Articles of Confederation, paving the way for a federal union.
1803: Ohio was admitted to the union as the 17th state.
1810: Birthdays: Polish composer Frederic Chopin.
1837: Birthdays: Author William Dean Howells.
1867: Nebraska was admitted to the union as the 37th state.
1872: Yellowstone National Park was established by an act of Congress. It was the first area in the world to be designated a national park.
1904: Birthdays: Big band leader Glenn Miller.
1910: Birthdays: Actor David Niven.
1914: Birthdays: Writer Ralph Ellison; St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray.
1917: Birthdays: Poet Robert Lowell.
1922: Birthdays: Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Yitzhak Rabin; Mad magazine publisher William Gaines.
1924: Birthdays: Donald Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts.
1926: Birthdays: NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.
1927: Birthdays: Singer Harry Belafonte; Jurist Robert Bork.
1932: Aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son was kidnapped. The boy’s body was found May 12 and Bruno Hauptmann was executed for the crime in 1936.
1954: Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wounding five members of Congress.
1961: U.S. President John Kennedy formed the Peace Corps.
1971: A bomb exploded in a restroom in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol, causing $300,000 damage but no injuries. The Weather Underground, a leftist radical group that opposed the Vietnam War, claimed responsibility.
1991: The United States reopened its embassy in newly liberated Kuwait. After 23 years of insurgency in Colombia, the Popular Liberation Army put down its arms in exchange for two seats in the national assembly.
1992: The collapse of a building housing a cafe in East Jerusalem killed 23 people.
1994: The Muslim-dominated government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bosnia’s Croats agreed to a federation embracing portions of their war-torn country under their control.
1999: Rwandan rebels killed eight tourists, including two Americans, a Ugandan game warden and three rangers in a national forest in Uganda.
2000: In a rare unanimous vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to allow most Social Security recipients to earn as much money as they want without losing any benefits.
2003: Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States was captured in Pakistan.
2004: A new interim government took over in Haiti after a bloody, monthlong insurrection, one day after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into exile.
2005: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that execution of juvenile offenders is unconstitutional.
2006: U.S. President George W. Bush made an unscheduled visit to Afghanistan to discuss security matters.
2007: U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., announced that he would be a candidate for president in 2008. Deaths: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who served as an adviser in the Kennedy administration, died at age 89.
2008: The Dow Jones industrials fell 315.17 points and went into March at 12,266.39 after a fourth consecutive monthly drop. Crude oil prices topped $101 a barrel. Israeli forces carried out attacks in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 45 Palestinians. About 60 others were injured.
2009: longstanding rivalries between civilian and military leaders in the small West African nation of Guinea Bissau led to the assassinations of President Joao Bernardo Vieira and Gen. Batista Tagme Na Waie, the army chief of staff.
2010: After refusing contributions from foreign governments, officials of earthquake-devastated Chile changed course and asked other countries for help. Authorities fought off looters who stole valuable museum artifacts and trashed and burned stores in hard-hit Concepcion.
2011: The U.S. Interior Department approved the first deep-water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico since the BP off-shore explosion and massive oil spill in April 2010.
2012: Maryland became the latest state to legalize same-sex marriage when Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the legislative bill into law, effective January 2013. Syrian government forces seized the opposition stronghold of Homs after a brutal monthlong battle during which some reports put the death toll at 700.
Quotes
“Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.” – William Dean Howells
“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else — we are the busiest people in the world.” – Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
“Power is only important as an instrument for service to the powerless.” – Lech Walesa, human rights activist, Polish president, Nobel laureate (b. 1943)
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) American author:
“America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description.”
“Commercial rock ‘n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression.”
“Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”
“I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.”
“Power doesn’t have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.”
“Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.”
“The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.”
“The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one’s own human failing.”
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
jubilee
There is no shame in being diagnosed with erectile viagra buy on line dysfunction. Many driving courses emphasize on the hazards involved levitra without prescription tonysplate.com in unsafe driving. The sildamax is available in tablets and jelly. cialis for sale As far as levitra 40mg Sildenafil pills are concerned, they are made using the same core ingredient they are named after i.e. PRONUNCIATION: (JOO-bih-lee, -LEE)
http://wordsmith.org/words/jubilee.mp3
MEANING: noun:
1. A special anniversary of an event, especially a 50th anniversary.
2. Rejoicing or celebration.
ETYMOLOGY: Via French, Latin, and Greek from Hebrew yobel (ram, ram’s horn trumpet). Traditionally a jubilee year was announced by blowing a ram’s horn. Earliest documented use: 1382.
USAGE: “Two weeks ago, I visited Benin City at the invitation of my Uncle, Ben, to mark the golden jubilee celebration of his marriage.” – Tonnie Iredia; High Court Judge of The Year; Nigeria Today; Feb 12, 2012.
Explore “jubilee” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=jubilee
lebensraum
PRONUNCIATION: (LAY-behns-roum)
http://wordsmith.org/words/lebensraum.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Space required for living, growth, and development.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Lebensraum (living space), from Leben (life) + Raum (space). Earliest documented use: 1905.
NOTES: The word became well-known after its association with Hitler and his policy of expansion into Eastern Europe. He claimed that additional living space was needed for Germany’s continued existence and economic development.
USAGE: “As for Turkey, after 1974, she created a Lebensraum in the north for the Turkish Cypriots and her settlers.” – Murat Metin Hakki; Property Wars in Cyprus; Cyprus Mail (Nicosia); Mar 7, 2010.
Explore “lebensraum” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=lebensraum
ersatz
PRONUNCIATION: (ER-zahts, er-ZATS)
http://wordsmith.org/words/ersatz.mp3
MEANING:
(adjective), Serving as a substitute, especially of inferior quality; artificial.
(noun), A substitute or imitation.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Ersatz (replacement). Earliest documented use: 1875.
USAGE: “It may be in response to audience demands for such factory-stamped precision tooling that a whole technology of ersatz performance — involving lip-synching, playback, and music videos — developed.” – Jim Quilty; Free Improv; The Daily Star (Beirut, Lebanon); Mar 12, 2010.
Explore “ersatz” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://wordsmith.org/words/ersatz.mp3
cabal
PRONUNCIATION: (kuh-BAL)
http://wordsmith.org/words/cabal.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. A small, secret group of plotters or intriguers.
2. The plots of schemes of such a group.
ETYMOLOGY: Via French and Latin, from Hebrew kabbalah (tradition), literally “something received”.
NOTES: Kabbalah is the ancient Jewish tradition of the mystical interpretation of the Old Testament. During the reign of Charles II of England, it was pointed out that the names of a group of his ministers (Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, and Lord Lauderdale) made the acronym CABAL. Also see, backronym.
USAGE: “The barrage was the latest salvo from a group of small silver and gold investors who claim that a cabal of banks is conspiring to keep precious metals too cheap.” – Gregory Meyer; Silver and Gold Critics Win Hearing; Financial Times (London, UK); Feb 25, 2010.
Explore “cabal” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=cabal
bon ton
PRONUNCIATION: (bon ton)
http://wordsmith.org/words/bon_ton.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. Good form or style.
2. Something regarded as fashionably right.
3. High society.
ETYMOLOGY: From French, literally, good tone.
USAGE:
“It was bon ton to knock Netanyahu and very few top Likudniks resisted the temptation. Netanyahu’s prime-ministerial stint (1996-1999) was doomed.” – Sarah Honig; Jabotinsky Who?; The Jerusalem Post (Israel); Jan 16, 2004.
“Evelyn and I were impostors — not members of the bon ton but a visiting, unembarrassed American couple.” – Roger Angell; La Vie En Rose; The New Yorker; Feb 16, 2004.
Welcome to the Know-Nothing Party!
Some of you may remember comedian Johnny Carson’s trademark response when a guest on “The Tonight Show” told him something surprising: “I did not KNOW that!” That’s how I reacted to the following tidbits of verbal information that came as news to me.
–Full-court Press — I’ve always been fuzzy on the distinction between “repress” and “suppress.” Is the Syrian government, for instance, suppressing a rebellion or repressing it?
Suppressing it. “Repress” means “to keep something under control in order to maintain or regulate order.” “Suppress” denotes a more vigorous curtailment, “to fight actively against an opposing force.” IDNKT!
–Spouting Off — I’ve always assumed that a waterspout was simply a tornado that occurred over the ocean. In fact, as the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style points out, “Most waterspouts arise under weather conditions different from those spawning tornadoes (generally with the formation of a large cumulus cloud over the ocean, rather than from a large thunderstorm.)” IDNKT!
–Affirmative Action — The use of “affirmative” and “negative” arose among military aviators because the one-syllable words “yes” and “no” were sometimes misheard due to radio static. IDNKT!
–Hue Knew? — The correct spelling of the phrase meaning an uproar is “hue and cry,” not “hew and cry.” “Hue,” of course, means “a gradation of color,” but an unrelated and now archaic “hue” meant “outcry.” IDNKT!
–Homin-ization – “Ad hominem,” which means “to the person” in Latin, originally denoted an argument that appealed to the human emotions of the person being addressed; the “hominem” was the person listening to the argument. So a speech designed to elicit human sympathy made an “ad hominem appeal.”
But in recent decades, “ad hominem” has come to denote the criticism of an opponent’s personal character, as in, “He delivered an ad hominem attack on his rival.” Now the “hominem” is the person being criticized, not the person listening. IDNKT!
–Coy Polloi — My mom always referred to the upper crust in my hometown as the “hoi polloi,” so I guess I can be excused for not realizing that “hoi polloi” actually means just the opposite: the masses, the general population. Of course, now that my hometown has been taken over by wealthy people, they’ve become the hoi polloi (general population) after all. So I guess I DID know that!
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.