Today in History (March 15th):
44 B.C.: Julius Caesar was assassinated by Brutus and other Roman nobles in Rome.
1493: Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.
1767: Birthdays: Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States.
1820: As part of the Missouri Compromise between the North and the South, Maine was admitted into the Union as the 23rd state. It had been administered as a province of Massachusetts since 1647.
1854: Birthdays: German immunologist Emil von Behring.
1913: Birthdays: Actor Macdonald Carey.
1915: Birthdays: Actor Joe E. Ross.
1916: U.S. Army General John Black Jack Pershing marched into Mexico to capture revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, who had staged several cross-border raids. The two-year expedition was unsuccessful. Birthdays: Trumpet virtuoso and bandleader Harry James.
1926: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame member Norm Van Brocklin.
1932: Birthdays: Astronaut Alan Bean.
1933: Birthdays: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
1935: Birthdays: Actor Judd Hirsch; Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
1940: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member Grateful Dead musician Phil Lesh.
1941: Birthdays: Singer Mike Love of the Beach Boys.
1944: Birthdays: Singer Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone.
1947: Birthdays: Musician Ry Cooder.
1955: Birthdays: Musician Dee Snider.
1957: Birthdays: Actor Park Overall.
1959: Birthdays: Model Fabio Lanzoni.
1962: Birthdays: Singer Terence Trent D’Arby.
1963: Birthdays: Singer Bret Michaels.
1975: Birthdays: Actor Eva Longoria; Singer wil.i.am.
1984: The acquittal of a Miami police officer on charges of negligently killing a youth sparked a rampage by angry African-Americans in Miami. Some 550 people were arrested.
1985: Two decades of military rule in Brazil ended with the installation of a civilian government.
1990: The Israeli Knesset brought down Yitzhak Shamir’s government on a no-confidence motion after the Likud Party leader refused to accept a U.S. peace proposal.
1991: Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic declared Serbia’s secession from the Yugoslav federation.
1993: The New York Post filed for bankruptcy protection hours after the newspaper’s new owner fired 72 employees, throwing the future of the 192-year-old tabloid into doubt.
2003: A strange new illness with pneumonia-like symptoms called severe acute respiratory syndrome — SARS — spread from Asia to Europe to North America.
2004: Astronomers reported finding an object with a diameter of 800 to 1,100 miles circling the sun far beyond the orbit of any known planet. It was dubbed a planetoid.
2006: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein testified for the first time in his massacre trial, calling the judicial proceedings a comedy and urging his fellow Iraqis to stop fighting each other and focus on the United States. The United Nations approved a new human rights council aimed at banning countries that abuse human rights from membership.
2007: Palestinian leaders of Hamas and Fatah agreed to a coalition government but their platform didn’t recognize Israel or renounce violence.
2008: A 19-story industrial crane collapsed on the East Side of New York’s Manhattan, demolishing an apartment building and other structures. Four construction workers were killed and 13 others injured.
2009: Venezuelan voters abolished presidential term limits, which had restricted a president to two six-year terms. The new constitutional provision permitted Hugo Chavez to seek re-election in 2012.
2011: The U.S. Federal Reserve said the U.S. economic recovery had gained strength and showed labor market improvements as the fed planned a $600 billion securities purchasing program while keeping its lending rate at zero to 0.25 percent to stay the course. Israeli navy commandos seized a freighter carrying tons of weapons reportedly slated for Palestinian forces in Gaza. The Jerusalem Post said the weapons were from Iran.
2012: The Taliban in Afghanistan suspended preliminary peace negotiations with the United States blaming unwanted U.S. efforts to include Afghan leaders in the talks. Meanwhile, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai urged NATO troops be limited to major bases by 2013 after the killing of 16 civilians allegedly by a U.S. soldier.
Quotes
“The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“There is nothing like desire for preventing the things one says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in one’s mind.” – Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)
“It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.” – Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)
“How anyone can profess to find animal life interesting and yet take delight in reducing the wonder of any animal to a bloody mass of fur or feathers?” – Joseph Wood Krutch, writer and naturalist (1893-1970)
“Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.” – Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) U.S. President:
“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”
“As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.”
“Elevate those guns a little lower.”
“Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.”
“Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.”
“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.”
“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.”
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“It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States”
“Never take counsel of your fears.”
“No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.”
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
“Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.”
“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”
contradistinguish
PRONUNCIATION: (kon-truh-di-STING-gwish)
http://wordsmith.org/words/contradistinguish.mp3
MEANING: (verb tr.), To distinguish (one thing from another) by contrasting qualities.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin contra- (against) + distinguish, from Middle/Old French distinguer, from Latin distinguere (to pick or separate). Ultimately from the Indo-European root steig- (to stick; pointed), which is also the source of ticket, etiquette, instinct, stigma, thistle, tiger, and steak. Earliest documented use: 1622.
USAGE: “Avni successfully contradistinguished the character of Menachem from the other men in uniform he has played.” – Dan Williams; Aki Avni’s Stellar Sincerity; The Jerusalem Post (Israel); Nov 29, 2000.
Explore “contradistinguish” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=contradistinguish
princesse lointaine
PRONUNCIATION: (PRIN-ses/sis LWAN*-tayn) *this syllable is nasal
http://wordsmith.org/words/princesse_lointaine.mp3
MEANING: noun: An ideal but unattainable woman.
ETYMOLOGY: From French princesse lointaine (distant princess). It was the title of the 1895 play La Princesse Lointaine by Edmond Rostand, the man who also wrote Cyrano de Bergerac. The play is based on the story of the troubadour Jaufré Rudel who falls in love with the Countess of Tripoli without even having seen her. Earliest documented use: 1921.
USAGE:
“The form Umberto Eco tests most severely here is the Romance, with a princesse lointaine whom Roberto loves and can never attain.” – Marina Warner; Inside the Big Mind; Los Angeles Times; Dec 17, 1995.
“Jude Law is a man pursuing a dream of love, using the ideal of a Princesse Lointaine captured on a tintype portrait to sustain him on his journey.” – Philippa Hawker; Cold Mountain; The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Jan 1, 2004.
edacious
PRONUNCIATION: (i-DAY-shuhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/edacious.mp3
MEANING: (adjective), Devouring; voracious.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin edere (to eat). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ed- (to eat, to bite) that has given other words such as edible, comestible, obese, etch, fret, and postprandial.
USAGE: “For too many years my edacious reading habits had been leading me into one unappealing corner after another, dank cul-de-sacs littered with tear-stained diaries, empty pill bottles, bulging briefcases, broken vows, humdrum phrases, sociological swab samples, and the (lovely?) bones of dismembered children.” – Tom Robbins; In Defiance of Gravity; Harper’s (New York); Sep 2004.
Explore “edacious” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=edacious
quodlibet
PRONUNCIATION: (KWOD-li-bet)
http://wordsmith.org/words/quodlibet.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. A subtle argument, especially on a theological or philosophical issue.
2. A musical medley: a whimsical combination of popular tunes.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin quodlibetum, from Latin quod (what) + libet (it pleases), meaning “whatever pleases”. Earlier the term referred to a mock exercise in discussion. Sense 2 arose from its use in German to refer to a gallimaufry of light-hearted musical compositions.
USAGE:
“Someone was sending me a signal. If words are unimportant, punctuation is something even more lowly. Why worry about such quodlibets? When was the last time anyone even noticed?” – Charles R. Larson; Its Academic, Or Is It?; Newsweek (New York); Nov 6, 1995.
“The swirling mist of sound [pianist Joanna MacGregor] made of the end of the penultimate quodlibet was almost shocking.” – Rian Evans; Joanna MacGregor: St George’s, Bristol; The Guardian (London, UK); Feb 5, 2005.
‘G’ Words Gaffes Run the Gamut
What is it about “g” words? Many words beginning with “g” are often confused with one another. “Gambit” or “gamut”? “Gaff” or “gaffe”? “Grizzly” or “grisly” or even “gristly”? It’s almost too much to bear!
Speaking of which, “grizzly” derives from the Germanic root “grisel,” meaning “gray”; think of the Teutonic folktale about the elderly siblings Hansel and Grisel.
So the English adjective “grizzled” means “sprinkled or streaked with gray,” as in “grizzled veterans,” and the noun “grizzly” refers to the large North American bear with gray streaks in its coat.
(Interestingly, the verb “grizzle” means “to grumble,” implying that elderly people tend to gripe. This blatant ageism really annoys me, and, by the way, why do they make food packages so hard to open these days?)
By contrast, “grisly” means “inspiring disgust or fear,” as in “grisly crime scene.” It derives from the Old High German “grisenlih” (terrible). “Grisly” is the adjective form of “gristle,” which means “tough, fibrous matter found in meats.”
“Gambit,” derived from the Italian “gambetto” (the act of tripping someone), has a narrow technical meaning in chess: the sacrifice of a piece to gain a strategic advantage. Linguistic purists want to perform a “gambetto” on everyone who uses “gambit” to mean any tactic or ploy, as in, “The lawyers tried several gambits during the course of the trial.” But this general meaning is now both widespread and acceptable.
(By the way, what does it say about human beings that we have a word for the act of tripping someone? “Gambetto” joins “nugie” and “wedgie” in the rogues’ gallery of terms for puerile personal assaults.)
“Gamut,” derived from “gamma,” the third letter of the Greek alphabet,” means “the entire range or series.” People sometimes misuse “gambit” for “gamut,” as in, “His misdeeds run the gambit from wedgies to nugies.”
Using “gambit” for “gamut” is a “gaffe” — a blatant error. By contrast, a “gaff” can be several things: a large iron hook used for fishing; a metal spur; a trick or swindle; harsh treatment; an ordeal; or a cheap theater. The verb “gaff” can mean “to hook” or “to swindle.”
Interestingly, both “gaffe” and the “gaff” that means “hook” ultimately derive from the same Old French word — “gaff,” meaning “a hook.” If you’ve ever been on the hook for committing a gaffe (in a language column, for instance), you’ve probably felt the connection.
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.