December 3, 2008

caitiff \KAY-tif\, noun, adjective:

1. cowardly and mean
2. a mean, cowardly person

c.1300, from Old North French caitive "captive, miserable," from Latin captivum; originally the word meant a "captive, prisoner"

econnoisseur

• One who insists on the highest quality at the lowest price.

Being an econnoisseur I bought the ten dollar chilean wine instead of the fifty dollar french.

Trivia

Which three American authors were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice?

• Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike. Tarkington won in 1919 for The Magnificent Ambersons and in 1922 for Alice Adams; Faulkner, in 1955 for A Fable and in 1963 for The Reivers; and Updike, in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich and in 1991 for Rabbit at Rest.

Today's selected anniversaries:

• 1854: At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade)
• 1904: The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, USA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalia_(moon))
• 1967: Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard)
• 1984: Bhopal gas disaster: The accidental release of methyl isocyanate over Bhopal, India resulted in at least 20,000 total deaths and affected over 120,000 others in one of the world's worst industrial disasters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster)
• 1999: NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander)

Birthdays

• Gilbert Stuart painter (1755)
• Ellen Swallow Richards chemist and educator (1842)
• Anna Freud psychoanalyst (1895)
• Jean-Luc Godard film director (1930)
• Ozzy Osbourne rock musician (1948)
• Julianne Moore actress (1960)
• Daryl Hannah actress (1960)
• Katarina Witt skater (1965)
• Brendan Fraser actor (1968)