Word of the Day for Saturday, March 8, 2008

kismet \KIZ-met; -mit\, noun:

• Destiny; fate.

Urban Word of the Day: collateral misinformation

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=collateral+misinformation&defid=2903349

• When someone alters a [Wikipedia] article to win a specific argument, anyone who reads the false article before the "error" is corrected suffers from collateral misinformation.

I changed the scientific classification of red foxes last night in order to win an argument with Judy. I hope some stupid High School student didn't suffer from collateral misinformation.

Trivia

The government of which African country postponed an election in 2002, claiming termites had eaten the voter registration records?

• Nigeria.

Today's Holiday

• International Women's Day

Today in History

• Gnadenhutten massacre: nearly 100 Native Americans were murdered by militiamen during the American Revolution (1782)
• FBI: 9 men from the US Secret Service were moved to the Justice Department, forming the Bureau of Investigation — later to become the FBI (1909)
• The Nelson Pillar: Dublin's granite column topped with a statue of British hero Lord Nelson was destroyed by an IRA bomb (1966)

Today's Birthdays

• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935): Supreme Court justice known as "the Great Dissenter"
• Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932): author of The Wind in the Willows
• Otto Hahn (1879-1968): Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist
• Jim Bouton (69): baseball player who wrote Ball Four
• Lynn Redgrave (65): actor, Shine, The Jane Austen Book Club; other actors born on this date include Alan Hale, Jr. (1918-1990), Aidan Quinn (49), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (32) and James Van Der Beek (31)