Thursday, March 5, 2009

parry \PAR-ee\, verb, noun:

1. to ward off; turn aside (as a thrust or weapon)
2. the act of warding off

by 1639, from French parez (which commonly would have been heard in fencing lessons), from parer "ward off," from Italian parare "to ward or defend a blow," from Latin parare "make ready, prepare." Non-fencing use is from 1717.

I-Peeper

• eye-peeper(noun); a person, usually in the workplace, who looks at someone's IPOD screen to see what it is they are listening to and then comments on it, or uses that information later for some other purpose.

"Joe I-peeped me yesterday when I was listening to Black Sabbath, and then during lunch, joked to my boss that I listen to 'the devil's music'".

"Hey, I don't mean to be an I-Peeper but I see we have a mutual Clay Aiken thing going on."

Trivia

Who are the only two baseball players to hit major league home runs both as teenagers and after they turned 40?

• Ty Cobb, as a Detroit Tiger; and Rusty Staub, as a teen with the Houston Astros and as a 40-pluser with the New York Mets.

Today in History:

• Boston Massacre: five colonists were killed when British troops fired into a rowdy crowd (1770)
• Stars and Bars: first of several Confederate flags was adopted (1861)
• Iron Curtain: phrase was coined by Winston Churchill in a speech in Missouri (1946)
• North Korea: held peace talks with South Korea for the first time in 25 years; the representatives met in New York (1997)
• Martha Stewart: businesswoman was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the investigation of ImClone insider trading (2004)

Today's Birthdays:

• Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712): painter of cityscapes, inventor of the firehose; other artists born on this date are Giovanni Tiepolo (1696-1770) and Howard Pyle (1853-1911)
• Antoine Cadillac (1658-1730): founder of Detroit
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959): musician and composer who founded the Brazilian Academy of Music
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1897-2003): wife of Chiang Kai-shek and advocate for his government
• James B. Sikking (75): actor, Hill St. Blues; also, actors Rex Harrison (1908-1990), James Noble (87), Dean Stockwell (73), Michael Warren (63), Marsha Warfield (55), Penn Jillette (54), Adriana Barraza (53) and Eva Mendes and Kevin Connolly (both 35)